Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Battle of Cannae

Episode Date: November 29, 2020

One of the greatest battles in Roman history was one of its greatest losses. It was a defeat that shook the city to its core and could have very well ended the Roman Republic. ...but it didn’t. The reason why it didn’t is a story of determination and the difference between tactics and strategy. Learn more about the Battle of Cannae, one of the greatest battles in ancient history, on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the greatest battles in Roman history was one of its greatest losses. It was a defeat that shook the city to its core and could very well have ended the Roman Republic. But it didn't. The reason why it didn't is the story of determination and the difference between tactics and strategy. Learn more about the Battle of Canney, one of the greatest battles in ancient history on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Fear is the virus is trending on TikTok. Vaccines are poison. Then your yoga teacher says that sex traffic children are being sacrificed by satanic liberals, but it's all okay.

The Great Awakening is coming. What is happening? Every week on Conspiratuality Podcast, we explore the fever dreams that suck friends, family, and wellness gurus down the right-wing cult spiral in a search for salvation. This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream. If you're interested in ancient history, CuriosityStream has shows for you. One of my favorite is the docudrama Destiny of Rome. It's a two-part series that starts with the death of Julius Caesar and ends with the victory of Octavius over Mark Anthony.

The best part of the show is that the actors say all of their lines in Latin. Prices start as low as $2.99 per month or $19.99 per year, one of the cheapest streaming services available online. If you're a curious person, then to start your subscription, visit Everything- Everywhere.com slash CuriosityStream, or click on the link in the show notes. On August 2nd, 216 BC, the Roman Republic faced its greatest test. I covered much of this in my episode on the Fabian strategy, which I'll refer you to now,

but I'll provide a quick summary of what had happened up to this point. Roman Carthage were in the middle of the Second Punic War. Rome had been fighting the Carthaginian general who had marched over from Spain and had been wreaking havoc in Italy for over two years. Hannibal had delivered devastating defeats to the Romans at the battles of Trebia and Lake Trasamine. These were two of the worst defeats which Rome ever suffered, and they tapped one Quintus Fabius Maximus as dictator to lead the fight against Hannibal. However, Fabius knew that Hannibal was one of the greatest generals in history, so he decided not to fight. He kept at arm's length from Hannibal and just harassed him and tried to wait it out.

This did not sit well with the Romans, who demanded a conclusive victory on the battlefield. To that end, after Fabius' term as dictator was over, they elected Lucius Amelius Paulus and Gaius Terturnius. Varo as consuls, and they promised to end the war once and for all by destroying Hannibal. To do this, they were going to amass the largest army which Rome had ever put into the field and crushed the Carthaginians with sheer force. The Roman historian Polybius noted, quote, The Senate determined to bring eight legions into the field, which had never been done at Rome before, each legion consisting of 5,000 men besides allies. Most of their wars are decided by one consul and two legions with their quota of allies, and they rarely employed all four at one time and on one service.

But on this occasion, so great was the alarm and terror of what would happen, that they resolved to not only bring four, but eight legions into the field, unquote. Rome was so intent on destroying Hannibal that they didn't just double the size of their army. They quadrupled it. The way they did this was by recruiting soldiers who would otherwise never have been allowed to serve. They lowered the age of enlistment and recruited slaves and criminals. These were not the best soldiers that Rome could muster. Those had been killed in Tribia and Trasamine.

Hannibal had captured the city of Caney in the spring of 2016 BC, which had a huge store of food, and was also an administrative center for nearby towns. The consuls decided to march out to Canney with their giant army and end Hannibal once and for all. On the way there, they had a skirmish with some of Hannibal's forces, which they easily repelled. This boosted the morale of the Romans who became even more arrogant about their chances of success. In reality, it was a small force that didn't even bother to engage in a full fight. It meant nothing. The way Rome operated is that when a consul was in the field, they had control of the army.

When both consuls were in the field, they would alternate days controlling the army. Of the two consuls which Rome had, Varro was brash and took chances. Paulus was more prudent and cautious. On August 1st, Hannibal had offered combat and assembled his troops in the field. But Paulus was in command that day, and he declined to fight. Hannibal knew who was fighting on which day, and he knew Paulus would decline because the Romans weren't ready. He also knew that that would probably anger Varo and that he'd fight the next day, which is exactly what he wanted. On August 2nd, they took the field again, and this time Vara was in charge of the Roman forces.

On paper, the Romans had a superior force. They easily outnumbered the Carthaginians. Estimates put the number of Romans at 80,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Hannibal had 40,000 infantry and 10,000. thousand cavalry. Moreover, the Romans had superior supply lines as they were fighting on their home soil, and everyone in their legions was from Italy and spoke Latin. The Carthaginian army consisted of soldiers from many different lands who spoke totally different languages. Communications would be a huge problem. But Carthage had one thing that the Romans didn't. They had Hannibal.

The Roman plan of attack was to amass all of their forces in the middle deeper than usual because they had so many, and try to punch through the center of Hannibal's line. Hannibal knew that the Romans would do this because this is what they had the most success with in the past. To counter this, he made his center very thin and his flanks much stronger. The key to Hannibal's strategy was the realization that the total number of men you had on your side didn't matter so much as the number who were on your line. In a giant square of people, those in the middle can't do anything with a sword. only the people on the edge of the square are able to actually fight. Also, Hannibal was leading his forces from the center where he could give commands to everyone.

The two Roman consuls were on horseback and on the flanks with the cavalry. This became really important. The battle began with the cavalry on the Roman right advancing and getting squashed almost immediately by the Carthaginian cavalry. Hannibal's cavalry was superior in both quantity and quality on this day. Of the two consuls, Paulus may have been killed in this initial engagement. As this was happening, the Roman infantry was advancing, and the Carthaginian line was formed in a convex shape, with the center closest to the Romans and the flanks further back. On the other side, the Carthaginian cavalry didn't attack right away.

They waited until the horsemen from their left were finished, and then they wheeled around the rear of the Roman infantry to attack the other Roman cavalry wing in unison. Working together, they crushed the other wing on the Roman cavalry, and the Romans, with Consulvaro, fled the battlefield. While this was happening, that convex line of Carthaginians slowly straightened out and then became concave, with the Romans in the middle of the crescent shape which was now being formed. Hannibal's orders were for the center to keep backing up and keep backing up

until the Romans found themselves between Hannibal's two thick flanks. The cavalry then came up from the rear, and fresh Numidian infantry came out of hiding to complete the encirclement of the Romans. From here on out, it was a bloodbath. The Romans had no organization and no leadership. They were butchered one by one over the course of hours. It was a disaster for the Romans. The largest army which they had ever assembled had been defeated by a smaller force. They weren't just defeated, however. They were devastated. Estimates of the Romans were, estimates of the number of Roman dead vary, but Polybius estimates that 70,000 Romans were killed, and 10,000 captured, with perhaps only 3,000 surviving. In addition, Roman leadership had been gutted. They lost a sitting consul, 29 of the 48 military tribunes, two quaesters, several former consuls,

and 80 senators. As many as 20% of the male population of Rome may have been killed in a single day. More Romans died in canny than were killed in any single day in World War I or the U.S. Civil War, when populations and armies were much larger. As significant as the outcome of this battle was, what came next was probably even more important in the grand sweep of history. The city of Rome basically lost it. Every single person in Rome either had a family member die or knew someone who had died. The remaining consul was discredited by his actions, and they were terrified. Many of the cities in southern Italy switched their allegiance from Rome to Carthage.

There was absolutely nothing stopping Hannibal from marching on Rome and destroying it once and for all. But he didn't. Hannibal's decision, not to march on Rome, is one of the greatest mysteries of the ancient world. His lieutenants urged him to strike while Rome was weak and finished the job. The reason why Hannibal didn't act was probably that he didn't know how weak and disorganized Rome actually was. even though Rome's losses were greater, he still suffered heavy losses, and his forces, which began the day smaller, were now smaller still, even though he was victorious. Rome was still capable of being supplied from the Italian countryside, and could still

raise troops. Laying siege to a heavily defended in a supplied city like Rome would be very different than defeating them in the open field. Hannibal later sent an envoy to the Roman Senate to discuss peace terms. What he offered was quite generous considering the position he was in. The Senate, however, refused. They refused to take back or exchange any prisoners. They put limits on how long Romans could mourn for the dead. They literally outlawed the use of the word peace. The Romans just rebuilt their legions, this time dipping into the landless peasants

and even more slaves to fill their ranks. The Romans simply refused to be beaten. The Romans now also fully embrace the strategy of Fabius, and just set out to harass and disrupt Hannibal without engaging him in open combat. They continued to do this for 14 years, until they could take the fight to Africa itself, which is what caused Hannibal to finally leave Italy. Rome eventually found the hero they needed in Scipio Africanus, who defeated Hannibal at the

Battle of Zama. Hannibal's performance at Caney is considered one of the greatest feats of generalship in history. It has been studied by soldiers for over 2,000 years. In 1990, the strategy General Norman Schwartzcoff used in Operation Desert Storm was based on the Battle of Canny. If you've watched the Game of Thrones, the envelopment of John Snow's forces at the Battle of the Bastards was, in part, a reenactment of the Battle of Canny. The biggest lesson from Canny was the difference between strategy and tactics. As a tactician, no one was better than Hannibal. But his refusal to attack Rome and take advantage of his victory ultimately made the victory meaningless.

He won the battle and lost the war. Hannibal's commander of his Numidian Calvary, Marabal, perhaps summed it up best when he said, quote, Assurably, no man has been blessed with all of God's gifts. You Hannibal know how to gain a victory. You do not know how to use it. Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is James Mackala. The associate producer is Thor Thompson. Remember to leave a five-star review to get your review read on the show.

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