Spring to 1 August 216 BC
The road to Cannae
For 216 BC Rome elects the consuls Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus and gives them eight legions with as many allied troops, about 86,000 men. It is the largest army Rome has raised. The consuls command on alternate days.
The plain of the Aufidus below Cannae, engraving after Gustav Adolf Closs, 1885Wikimedia Commons, Gustav Adolf Closs, Public domain (Punti storici d’Italia campo della battaglia di Canne.jpg)
In spring Hannibal leaves his winter quarters at Geronium and takes the Roman supply depot at Cannae in Apulia, placing himself between the Romans and their supplies. The consuls march south after him and find him on the bank of the river Aufidus after two days. They camp about 8 km away, and a skirmish on the approach goes in Varro’s favour.
Paullus camps two thirds of the army on one bank of the river and fortifies a smaller camp on the other bank, about 2 km away. On 1 August Hannibal offers battle and Paullus declines. Numidian cavalry then ride up to the smaller camp and attack the Romans fetching water from the river.
A Roman column set up as a memorial to the battle on the hill of Canne della BattagliaWikimedia Commons, Jörg Schulz, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Monumento Battaglia di Canne.JPG)
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 3.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 22.
- Adrian Goldsworthy, Cannae (2001).
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