The Battle of Cannae - Rome's Darkest Day

history.com ^ | 10/2/2016 | Evan Andrews

[LuciusDomitiusAutelian]

Republican Rome was pushed to the brink of collapse on August 2, 216 B.C., when the Carthaginian general Hannibal annihilated at least 50,000 of its legionaries at the Second Punic War’s Battle of Cannae.

[KC Burke]

I’ve enjoyed the three+ audible copies of the Great Courses lectures on the Middle Ages by Phillip Dailaeder. In fact, audible books are really good for relief from too much eye strain.

[LuciusDomitiusAutelian]

Thanks for the recommendation. I have been mulling Audible but they are part of Jeff Bezos’s Amazon platform which deplatformed Parler. I quit doing business with them. I’ll see if I can find them at the library. Thanks so much for the recommendation.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Tennessee Nana.

Carthage had standing armies that were experienced (a good many mercenaries, foreign and otherwise), whereas the Roman forces at that time were raised, trained, and equipped in a hurry, and led by whatever high society joker fancied himself the next war leader.

Despite his advantages, Hannibal couldn't finally defeat the Romans in fourteen years spent in Italy, and Scipio (the future Scipio Africanus) took the fight into Iberia, knocking out the Carthaginian domination in most of it, then carried on into Carthage's home territory.

The political class in Carthage had been glad to see Hannibal leave town, but when the threat was approaching their walls, he was evacuated by sea from Italy and with the remainder of his forces borne back to Africa. Scipio had turned some of Carthage's allies, and was (even according to Hannibal, who had a mighty high opinion of himself by then) just a better field general, with trained and experienced troops. The Carthaginians were defeated, Carthage agreed to terms making future aggressions difficult, and the Carthaginian political factions were "gifted" with Hannibal as their new leader.

He nursed his hatred of Rome, siding and aiding the Seleucid dynasty in the east, but eventually having to flee Carthage and working as a sort of ancient military consultant for various adversaries of Rome. Finally the Roman reach was such -- and patience had run out -- and the old SOB was cornered. He committed suicide instead of being killed by the Romans or taken prisoner.

It may be of interest that while he was in charge in Carthage after the 2nd Punic War, Hannibal introduced an elected version of the supremos of the city (I'm sure the elections were unfair and corrupt of course) along with term limits. However, he's easily the most overrated commander of the ancient world.

[BenLurkin]

Even/Odd Day changes in command. What could go wrong?

[SunkenCiv]

Heh... I recently watched a documentary / crockumentary about the Battle of Agincourt, the French had a similar problem, the grand nobles didn't like taking orders from some commoner runt who had anticipated every move by Henry V and had got the English starving and cornered when the whole ****house when up in flames (in the words of Jim Morrison).

[LuciusDomitiusAutelian]

Nice to meet you SunkenCiv. I have heard great things about you. Please add me to any ping lists you have regarding antiquity. Thanks!

[Bikkuri]

Rome’s darkest day, was when they crucified Jesus.

[LuciusDomitiusAutelian]

lol. Right. But I do like the idea politically, but not militarily. Two executives with one-year term limits. Our Constitution was largely based on the Roman Republic. The Founders were voracious consumers of Livy and Plutarch and Gibbons (who finished his great volumes in 1776) and Cicero and Cato. After the American Revolution, when trying to pick a form of government in that era, they couldn’t use a monarch, they just finished fighting a war against the tyrant King George. They went back and looked at history at what worked, and what didn’t work. But they knew from Rome’s example that it wouldn’t last. Hence The Bill of Rights, in particular the 2nd amendment. Rome managed to keep the Republic viable until Marius (a military genius) but a political traitor to the Republic of Rome. The existing law was severely violated with seven consulships, five of them consecutive. It is easy to see the breakdown of the Late Republic and the parallels with our own Republic. We should learn from history. This led to Sulla, then Julius Caesar, then Caligula onto Nero to the Crisis of the Third Century and the eventual sack and fall of the western Roman Empire. Cicero and Cato should be by required reading by the sixth grade. Meanwhile they are indoctrinating the children with absolute garbage like the 1619 project. And they don’t seem to realize, that most people who are white were at one point slaves themselves to the Romans or other Celtic tribes. The white man’s curse is also his greatest attribute. Fierceness and tenacity. That is why Hadrian built a wall to keep my ancestors at bay, the Caledonians (Scotts) and then built another one not many are familiar with, the Antonine Wall.

[bankwalker]

Give us Barabbas!

[LuciusDomitiusAutelian]

But the brightest day for our salvation. Just watched an interesting documentary about who really was responsible for the crucifiction of our Lord and Savior. The corrupt leaders of the Temple or Pontius Pilate. It was the corrupt priests of the Temple that approached Pontius Pilate and the arrangement was pretty much self rule as long as they paid their taxes. I have spent a lot of time on Jesus’ statement about “Render under to Caesar what is Caesars”. This was a clear way of saying that you should put no idol before God (like an emperor) without provoking the Romans. Plenty of debate around these words from Jesus but that is my interpretation.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

My guess is that almost any mythology has a core root of some truth in it.

More then people think.

It is fashionable, and has been for some time, to think that our ancestors had nothing better to do then sit down and using a very complicated system of writing and very sub par recording mediums and make up outright lies for the very tiny percentage of people who could read to enjoy.

I tend more to believe that written records are fairly accurate and that oral history is at least as accurate on average as our current documentaries. Some things added, compressed or left out for dramas sake but mostly real.

Not a popular belief at the moment.

[LuciusDomitiusAutelian]

Good point. It is unfortunate that we don’t have written records from the Celts (my ancestors). But the bards did a good job of recording things via the spoken/sung word. And in academia, no one wants to give any credence to this. But everyone thought Troy was mythology until it was finally discovered.

[Bikkuri]

"It was the corrupt priests of the Temple that approached Pontius Pilate"

That is correct (cowards and hypocrites), but they did not commit the act.

[RedStateRocker]

I don’t know about the word “overrated”.

He was better than anyone he faced until Scipio. His legend rests pretty firmly on Cannae and Lake Trasimene, which were both solid and creative. His fatal flaw was not finishing the job right after Cannae. His solid long term strategy didn’t work, that of peeling off the allies who were the actual source of Roman manpower, but it was the only thing that had a chance.

[RedStateRocker]

Or the alternative:

Much of ‘mythology’ has as its purpose not the recording of actual deeds but the inculcation of moral virtues and using image and symbolism to communicate the wisest things that a society had figured out.

We now think of history as facts, dates, information; but the ancients didn’t view it that way; they viewed it as ‘what do we need to teach the next generation to ensure the continuance and growth of our society.

It wouldn’t really matter if the Jews wandered for 18 years or 47 years, what mattered was that in that period of time soft, polytheistic urbanized farmers turned into lean, mean, militarized, monotheistic warriors, for example; that the ones who weren’t up to the task of conquest and firm in their faith never made it out of the desert-

[KC Burke]

I’ll give you one the is a very interesting revisionist view of a historical viewpoint.

G. J. Meyer — The Borgias: The Hidden History

Enjoyed it on its main subject and also its view of the period in Italy in general.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

That is certainly the conventional point of view.

Of course it gets a bit of mud on its face when they find evidence of certain events they wrote off as mythical.

But that is easily solved by sticking Proto- in front of the discovery. That way you don't have to admit your dissertation was a load of rubbish.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks LDA for the kind remarks.

[FLT-bird]

Truly a military masterpiece by Hannibal. One of several examples in which he utterly destroyed a Roman army that on paper was at least as strong or in this case stronger, than his own. He deserves his reputation as one of the foremost military geniuses in history. Without Hannibal, the Carthaginians lose the 2nd Punic War much much faster and without inflicting nearly as much damage on the Romans.

[gleeaikin]

I had often wondered why the Europe of Charlamagne sank so far after his death. Then I read a book on nutrition and history and found an answer. In the hundred years after Charlamagne’s death there were 33 famines in Europe, some lasting 2 and 3 years. The reason given was the Arab/Moorish introduction of the barberry bush which was the alternate host for wheat rust disease in the southern parts, and in the north, the ergot fungus of rye. I plan to check out the volcanic activities during that 100 years to see if there might have been climate effects which enhanced the harm to wheat and rye crops and the severity of their diseases.