The Ancients - Hannibal vs Rome: The Road to Cannae

Episode Date: July 31, 2022

One of the greatest military commanders in history - it's no wonder Hannibal and Rome so frequently fought.In the second episode of our Hannibal mini-series, Tristan is once again joined by Dr Louis Rawlings from Cardiff University to examine Hannibal's movements and clashes post-Trasimene.Looking at the Roman reaction to their second defeat and what happened next, why are these 10 months so important? With horses bathing in vinegar, famed military strategies, and animals being sacrificed - what happened on the road to Cannae?For more Ancients content, subscribe to our Ancients newsletter here.If you'd like to learn even more, we have hundreds of history documentaries, ad free podcasts and audiobooks at History Hit - subscribe today!

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and in today's podcast, well, we are continuing the story of Hannibal Barker versus Rome with Dr. Louis Rawlings from the University of Cardiff. Last week week we covered

Hannibal's, well, his campaign down to the Battle of Lake Trasimene and his victory against the Romans, this great ambush of Hannibal Barker in mid-217 BC. And today we're going to be covering the aftermath, how the Romans reacted to this second defeat, the employment of the Fabian strategy, and what Hannibal, what he did next too. We're going to be going all the way down to just before Hannibal's next big battle against the Romans at the Battle of Cannae. That is the great climax, the third and final episode with Dr. Louis Rawlings, which will be coming out in another week or so's time. So stay tuned for that one too. But in the meantime, enjoy this second of our three episodes with Louis, all about Hannibal versus Rome. And without further ado, here's Louis. Louis, you're back on the podcast again. We can't get rid of you because obviously this is a big

topic and we needed you on. So it's great to have you back. And it's great to continue talking about this topic because it's absolutely fascinating to me. It's been one of my lifelong passions to understand this campaign. And you're right to point out, just continue talking because we are recording both these podcast episodes. We've just finished recording Trasamine and now we're going on to the big one, Can I? For the ancients, I'm really looking forward to this so louis to kick off this can i episode can you see what i did there i've been a long day can you

tell us what's the situation therefore hannibal he's won the battle of chasmin he's then continues marching east across the apennine mountains what's's the situation now for Hannibal Barker? Hannibal's army is wrung out. It has given its all to destroy a Roman army. It's very difficult killing 15,000 people in a day. It's just physically and psychologically traumatising. But also Hannibal's had a very difficult two years. He's had to cross the Pyrenees, he's had to cross the Alps, he's had a very difficult winter, he's marched through the Apennines in fairly inclement weather, crossed the Pyrenees, he's had to cross the Alps, he's had a very difficult winter, he's marched through the Apennines in fairly inclement weather, crossed the Arno and had about a month of nice weather and then a battle. So his army is not in actually very much of a good state, particularly his cavalry, which is what is really important for Hannibal, to have a tip-top cavalry. All of his

horses are in poor condition, Polybius says a lot of his men have scurvy and he has 20 000 gauls who haven't quite finished with their kind of demands i would suggest now this is something we have to infer from the sources and i'm trying to make sense of why hannibal swerves away from what would seem the natural objective rome and make possible rendezvous with a Carthaginian fleet near Pisa and head to the other coast to the Adriatic coast and what we see next is perhaps gives us a clue Polybius says that as Hannibal advanced through Piscinum through what was old Gallic territory that his army killed any Roman that they found doesn't say Roman soldier just says Roman Roman. And it's possible

therefore that Hannibal is actually killing settlers. Now what he's doing is in fact helping the Gauls kind of in one of their root causes of disaffection with the Romans and annoyance with the Romans, which was that forced settlement that Flaminius had imposed on the Aga Gallicus back in 232 and from 232 onwards and so Hannibal is marching through Piscinum killing any settlers that he can find as a way of exactly Polybius says this is because of his hatred of the Romans but maybe it's more to do with the Gallic hatred of the Romans here that that's going on so Hannibal marches through this area kills many many people it's kind of a it's the kind of the last footnote in flaminius's

life really that it partially undone by this march and he has to gather plunder he's got to pay off his goals to a certain extent he's got to reward his men for all these hard efforts and he's also got to find noise new stores of supplies and also equipment because his equipment appears to be quite worn one of the things we find that is once hann gets to the Adriatic coast he re-equips his army with Roman equipment now I don't think that means that he retrains his army to fight like Roman legions I think it just means weapons and armor and sandals and tunics and shields and helmets and things like that but not necessarily training to use the pilum which is not something that they've ever tried to use you know i think it's about just equipment rather than tactics and training and logistically that make a lot of sense if this is an army that's probably you know

getting supplies is probably more difficult uh like back from carthage or back from spain back from carthaginian territory so it is logistically it's necessary to re-equip your soldiers with Italian equipment or stuff that they've looted or found. Yeah, absolutely. And the other thing that he, before I forget, the other thing that he finds is stores of old wine. In other words, vinegar, sour wine vinegar, which he uses to bathe the coats of his horses because they have what's called hunger mange, which is an equine version of scurvy. because they have what's called hunger mange which is a equine version of scurvy and bathing the horse's coats and this helps restore them and give some of the the vitamins that they need apparently so Hannibal needs to restore his cavalry to tip-top condition and he he does that and you're right that the whole of Hannibal's campaigns that we see in these early stages of the war

are predicated on the fact that he has no stable supply system unlike the romans who when they prepare a campaign they stock up supplies in the territories next to where they're going to launch from we've seen that at placentia in the north in in the trebia campaign in flaminius's and geminius's deployments those towns that they were stationed in were also hubs for supplies to be collected. And the Romans in these early years of the war do this regularly. They create stores of grain and other supplies that Roman armies march to and use up or draw from and so have baggage trains that run. Hannibal can't do that. He's miles away from any kind of base. He's already moved beyond the reach of the of the calic tribes

in the north as well particularly as rumini is still ariminum is still in roman hands and that makes access down the eastern coast much more complicated so he has to march to supplies he has to capture supplies he has to forage i think it's part of his battle plan to do that because one of the things that he enjoys over the Romans is absolute cavalry superiority and if you've got cavalry superiority this means you can reconnoiter territory you can scout out where all the sources of food are but you can also cover the foragers so if your army is dispersed gathering food cutting down crops and stealing fig figs from trees and things like that. You need an overwatch, you need a cavalry force to protect you.

So we will see time and time again during this campaign how that relationship between logistics, the cavalry covering force and the need to forage and the need to move to capture supplies dictates the way that Hannibal works, dictates the tempo of his campaigning and actually enables him to flat foot the Romans quite often in many of these campaigns. He's already done it by swinging past Flaminius and leading him into that trap at Trasimene and he's going to be doing it throughout his whole career actually in Italy. So this is really important. So he heads to the coast, the Adriatic coast, which is relatively unprotprotected there aren't any Roman legions around there are Roman allies but they are not the kind of I wouldn't say they're

the most significant of Rome's allies he spends some time then heading down the coast raiding various territories and gathering supplies and restoring his army and living off the land. In Rome the Romans have to rebuild and so they raise scratch beyond four new legions. They call in some forces from elsewhere and they have a new commander-in-chief Quintus Fabius Maximus Varicosus who will get the additional name Cug Tartor. So that's the delayer so this is the next big figure to enter the war isn't it? Yeah so Fabius Maximus he's been consul twice he's already been dictator once and dictators are officials that are only appointed for six months to deal with either religious or social or military crises. They're very rare in the Roman Republic up until the Punic war and then

we get that sort of flurry of them during this war. Most of them seem to be held by Fabius or his allies. So Fabius Maximus is appointed to be dictator. He's a very experienced man. In his two consulships he's won victories over Ligurians and other troops in Italy and he's the man who is regarded as quite a safe pair of hands. He's going to steady the ship. His strategy is to rebuild Roman forces, give them some of their morale back, and try and get them some experience, but most importantly, avoid military defeat. So his plan is really not to fight Hannibal,

but to delay until the Roman army is ready and strong enough to take him on again. And the modern theories seem to sometimes think that Fabius's strategy of delay starts now and just continues with a minor blip at Cannae all the way to the end of the war this is absolutely not the case we have this period of delay and then after the battle of Cannae there will be another period of delay while Fabius is ascendant but effectively the Romans act quite aggressively towards Hannibal and try to bring him to battle it's their natural instinct all the way through the war in fact so although he gets this this inflated kind of reputation and it's well deserved for this period it doesn't sort of his legacy is more complicated than some people have imagined it to be.

So he's combining a rebuilding of the Roman army with a recommendation of scorched earth. So he tells the settlements that are approached by Hannibal to either burn their crops in the field or bring them into the cities. He has to reissue that order. So it sounds like it doesn't actually happen very effectively. But he's asking the cities to make it as hard as possible for hannibal to enjoy his logistical advantage but taking the crops away so he can't get them and to a certain extent that probably has some effect and hannibal does seem at certain times to be constrained by that and and to struggle with supplies so he rejoins the army of

geminus now we left gememinus at Ariminum. Yeah, quick recap. Yeah, he was the commander of the Roman army in the east who was guarding the northeastern approach to Italy on the edge of Cisalpine Gaul. And he had a consular army, but he lost his cavalry, 4,000 cavalry, when he tried to join up with Flaminius and they were taken.

He failed to reach Flaminius in up with flaminius and they were taken he felt and reached flaminius in time and flaminius force was destroyed and so was his cavalry looking for flaminius and so he retreated back so he's got probably around about 20 000 infantry he then joins and some of these guys were probably survivors of trebia as well some of newly raised troop but they're probably they're probably quite a few veterans in that force so it's an invaluable force to join up with compared with the relatively inexperienced force that fabius has had to raise from around rome fabius also has another officer with him his master of horse so a dictator has a subordinate who commands the cavalry in theory and the master

of horse is a guy called mar Manuchius Rufus and we're going to hear quite a lot about Manuchius through this podcast. So Fabius then teams up with Geminus and has Manuchius with him so he has roughly six legions. He then advances on Hannibal and follows Hannibal while not engaging him as Hannibal makes his depredations through the eastern coast of Italy. Hello everyone, James Rogers here, the host of the Warfare podcast by History Hit. I'm a war historian who works with the UN, NATO and governments around the world. Twice a week, every week, we bring you the defining wars of history

and learn about the history of emerging wars. The passengers and crew of 149 were trapped, trapped and delivered into the hands of Saddam Hussein. We hear from the veterans who served. Guards there would grab a machine gun and fire at us as we went over and could see the splinters flying in all directions. Through to world-leading historians providing context to understand current conflicts. Finland obviously couldn't join NATO, which makes the two Finnish leaders' statements about Finland deciding for itself whether it will

join NATO, That makes those statements even more important. Subscribe to Warfare from History Hit on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And join us on the front lines of military history. and roughly sorry roughly how many men is six legions so six legions should be in theory there's about 4,200 legionaries in each legion so we're talking 24,000 25,000 maybe legionaries but then there's usually an equivalent number of allies that are raised and sent to the sort of mustering point as well so we're talking 50,000 men so this is a huge force so this is an army that's the same size as Hannibal's. And I should say, really, that Hannibal's army, it's about 40,000 infantry.

It's about 10,000 cavalry. Of the 40,000 infantry, around about 8,000 are light infantry. So it's about 32,000 line troops, which consist of Iberians and Africans, probably in roughly equal numbers, and then about 16,000 Gauls. So you've probably got about 8,000 to 10,000 of the Iberians and maybe sort of 8,000 of the Africans and then 16,000 Gauls.

The cavalry is divided by ethnicity again as well. So we have around about 4,000 Gallic tribesmen. They are probably nobles, noblemen and their retinues so they're well equipped and high morale and you know these are guys who are basically brought up to fight we have about 4 000 numidian cavalry who are light cavalry they're extremely good at skirmishing but also at reconnoitering raiding and they're doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to scouting and raiding and terrorizing the the local populations of italy which hannibal is actually up for because he wants

to demonstrate something about the romans and that is their inability to protect their allies which we will come on to in a little while and then we have about probably two to three thousand iberian cavalry as well who are really the hardest of the force. They are the veterans. They are the most disciplined and the most effective cavalry that Hannibal has. He's brought them from Spain, and they probably were constituted under his father. So they've been in the field more or less continuously for decades, really. So that's his army.

So Hannibal, therefore, has marched through this area and he's now being dogged by Fabius he tries to lure Fabius into battle on a couple of occasions I won't bore you with the details are lots of lots of small engagements and Fabius refuses and Fabius's army stays at in touch but out of reach as it were so he tends to stay on high ground where Hannibal's cavalry can't operate as well he tends to attack only small raiding parties if he can get away with it but he will not confront Hannibal directly on the field of battle Hannibal apparently realizes he has met his equal in this you know because what Fabius has tried to do is make sure that the Romans stay supplied because they have

lots of other internal lines of supply that they limit hannibal's capacity to supply by being nearby and so he can't disperse his whole army to forage and also by keeping an army in being there's always that threat that they can attack but also the army is getting used to marching around and getting used to cooperating and listening to orders and occasionally being blooded in small combats where they can learn the ropes so some of these troops are quite green some of them are a bit more experienced so little by little maybe their morale is being restored and these small insignificant engagements are actually quite important for both sides because they they enable the romans to kind of gain experience but they also enable enable Hannibal to demonstrate, actually,

that he's superior in this as well. And his forces tend to come out on top in these sorts of things. Because he's got all this cavalry, he can just ride to the rescue of people in trouble, or he can hit small Roman parties if they're isolated. So this goes on for some weeks. Eventually, Hannibal has travelled all the way down the eastern coast to apulia so he's passed through samnium and with another old traditional enemy of the romans but at this time

they're staying quiet because there's a roman army on their doorstep and they don't want to you know annoy it but also maybe they don't think that hannibal's got it in him to to win this war but nevertheless hannibal's tried samnium, at least the Adriatic coast of it, and gets down to northern Apulia, where he gets to Arpi. And then at that point, he doubles back and he swings across the Apennines into Campania. Now, Campania is south of Latium.

It's a rich and fertile district. It's got studded with wealthy cities and beautiful vineyards. It's absolutely gorgeous. Yeah, absolutely fabulous place to spend the summer, I you and this is what hannibal does he goes across the epenines by way of telesia there essentially he's entering northern campania there's a river for turners that runs through campania the romans hold all the bridges on that so he's really got the northern part of campania to play with but this is the aga Falernus the Falernian plain which is well the best Roman wine chain this is the stuff that Ulysses bribes Polyphemus the cyclops with and makes him fall asleep this is what happens Hannibal

descends gathers enormous amounts of booty he terrifies the locals these Numidians riding all over the countryside create panic and pandemonium and terror and this is the the sources really emphasize how much terror the this invasion has on on the local population and weren't expecting it and you know there were refugees flooding into roman towns um the baths of sinuessa uh seem to be flecked with blood as an omen. You know, there's all kinds of things going on. And the Romans are seeing portents all over the place and strange signs. And it's absolute panic. This is all part of something that Polybius recognises is a deliberate strategy by Hannibal.

I want to read you what Polybius says about what Hannibal is doing here. He says, and this is Polybius 392, if you want to look it up, Hannibal turned the plain of Campania into a kind of theatre where they could surprise inhabitants by their unexpected arrival, make a spectacle of cowardice of their enemies and prove that they were the masters

of their open country. So they're trying to goad Fabius Maximus into fighting, because if Hannibal had beat Fabius, that's another Roman army dead, much more likely to be winning the war. So trying to goad Fabius into battle. Don't forget that the Roman army is 50% allies. Fabius is patently not protecting allies all over Italy, you know, through Ariminum, Samnium, Northern Apulia, now Campania he's not doing anything so half his army is likely to be a bit upset about this

also the Romans aren't happy with it either and Manuchius is kicking up a fuss every time they see smoke rising in the distance watching that spectacle that Hannibal is putting on for their delectation as it were he's complaining why aren't we attacking and he's trying to get the officers to say why aren't we engaging this man he's even got his agitators and supporters in Rome trying to get Fabius removed or trying to get some sort of advantage and Fabius is standing firm so this is really interesting so the Roman army seems to be completely emasculated. And if Hannibal wants allies to believe that he can win, this seems to be demonstrating it. However, there is still something important, which is that the Roman army still in being

means that the Romans can still potentially win. And that means the allies are not going to defect, even if they want to, because they fear Roman reprisals. Justly, as we may see in future campaigns, the Romans will punish anybody who steps out of line, and quite severely, potentially, as well. Now, Hannibal's war of manoeuvre only takes him so far in Campania. Like most theatres, the exits are limited and are bottlenecks. So he's coming through one pass. He's constrained from not getting to most of Campania and the easy ways out of Campania because the river is guarded and the bridges he's unable to force. He only really has two or three routes out of Campania and he

decides that Fabius has covered them with his forces. And so Hannibal, after spending some time in Campania, not getting any of the allies to come over to him but nevertheless demonstrating how impotent the Roman army is decides he's going to have to leave winter's coming and he needs to find somewhere where he can set up base for winter and also forage and also be able to maneuver easily at the start of the next campaign and northern part of Campania won't do it for him he'll run out of food here so he has to force one of the passes and he decides to force the path that he had come over by Mount Calicula and so he marches towards it Manuchius's force and Fabius's force they've kind of divided at this point come together

again and 4,000 troops who are actually stationed in the pass are going to block Hannibal and hold him up while these two armies come on him so he's in a really difficult position he's in a tight spot what does he do well there's a story that and I think it must partly be true that he sacrifices about 5,000 of his cattle in a quite an unpleasant way if you're an animal rights kind of person you know what he does is he ties burning brands to the horns of these cattle and then one night and drive these cattle towards the roman position in the past and they begin to spread out of course they're stampeding with these with these burning flames in their in their horns they're accompanied by a few thousand light infantry who are making this seem like a whole attack is happening the garrison in the past is too small it feels to

deal with this whole attack across the whole skyline and calls for help fabius fearing a trap doesn't send any so after a while the garrison just withdraw to a higher ground where they think they can protect themselves from a full assault. Of course, this is just cattle and people running around causing mayhem. Hannibal's main army is actually just marching up the pass quietly and slips past them and gets out. And then the following day, Hannibal's cavalry and his Iberian infantry come back and collect the light infantry. And he gets out of this trap and he gets out of the bowl that is Campania and he heads on back across the Apennines into Samnium and in Samnium he finds a place called Geronium. Geronium indeed I mean it's quite interesting there Louis because it's almost as if Hannibal

by this stratagem this ruse has outwitted the Romans once again like you can imagine I guess the anger of people like municius as well that they thought they've got they finally got him and now he's gone he's left the bowl he's at samnium and he gets to gerunium and i'm presuming as you continue the story the romans they don't sit idly by they go off in pursuit once more yeah i mean it's fabius is an idiot isn't he he's he can't do anything right, according to Manuchius and his supporters. This is a humiliation. They had him, they had him, and he's gone away.

But it does add to this whole reputation of Hannibal being able to get out of situations. And he will constantly twist away from Roman armies whenever he's in adversity, very successfully, all the way through his career. There were many times when the Romans tried to bring him to battle, and actually he's better at delaying in that sense, he's better at avoiding battle or extricating himself from a fighting draw. At the end of a battle where he hasn't won he's able to get away without having to fight the following day at maybe a disadvantage. So Hannibal was able to do this on numerous occasions. Sometimes he

sets traps for the Romans so on withdrawing the Romans advance and then they are deceived and hurt so and their forces are dealt with so Hannibal's got this great advantage and it's part of his reputation the mystique is building now that he is somebody who has a great insight into the mentalities of his opponents and the enemy commanders and can make them do what he will almost like a Hannibal Lecter kind of character you You know, you don't realise you've been on the menu until he actually, you know, catches you. And this is how Hannibal operates. He's able to kind of perceive the weaknesses of even strong opponents like Fabius and use their caution to be bold and escape from what seemed to be almost, well,

very difficult situations. So Hannibal gets to Gerunium. It's a small town. He assaults it and he gets into the city or into the town. And the inhabitants have either fled before or he deals with them. But we don't hear much about that. But he uses this then as the grain store. This is going to be where he winters for the rest of the season

and then into the new year. So we're now getting towards the end of 217 and Fabius's army is only a few miles away from Hannibal, but Fabius is not there. Fabius has had to go back to Rome to do religious things that dictators have to do. So Manuchus is left in command with the order to be delaying, do not get involved in combat.

Unfortunately for him, the sources paint him in the kind of bad light again. He's a kind of character who is a bit rash, a bit impulsive. He's a populist again, in a way. And he is able to catch Hannibal's army as it forages. So we talked about foraging and at Gerunium, Hannibal really needs to get enough stores to last the whole winter and most of the spring because there's no food until things have grown again he details two-thirds of his army to forage and one-third as overwatch to watch under the command of Hasdrubal who is his quartermaster general and that's his kind of almost his official term and he is the guy who's in charge

of supplies and he has around about 4,000 cavalry And he is the guy who's in charge of supplies. And he has around about 4,000 cavalry. And he's the one who's detailed with protecting the foragers, protecting the army as it spreads out to gather as much food for the winter as it possibly can. Manuchus' job is really to disrupt that and to kind of fall on the foragers. And at one point, he's able to attack the foragers as they're returning to Hannibal's camp. Cuts the load off and Hannibal is forced to march out and engage in unfavourable conditions. Hannibal's kind of getting the worst of it, particularly because 8,000 reinforcements suddenly appear, apparently sent by Fabius Maximus.

But these are allies. They're commanded by a Samnite called Lucius Decius and he brings his 8,000 and that's too much for Hannibal. He goes back to his camp. He's only really saved by the overwatch because Hasdrubal rides in with 4,000 men and you know checks that extra advantage that Manuchius has. It's a draw but Manuchius thinks he has won the world cup. He really is. He's so pleased he sends off this report that claims that 6,000 Carthaginians have been killed in this battle it's all over it's on everybody's mouth in rome and they are desperate for a win you know they are desperate for a win so so this is kind of great and his agitators in rome get him

promoted to a very unusual co-dictatorship we even have an inscription for manuchius i love this inscription it says manuchius dedicates to heracles co-dictator so he actually has this phrase you know there so he's raised up from being a humble subordinate to being you know effectively a consul again you know with equal powers with fabius and while fabius is still away he engages hannibal again the two camps are separated by a hill which is quite strategic and engages Hannibal again the two camps are separated by a hill which is quite strategic and Hannibal sends light infantry onto that hill Manuchius attacks with his cavalry starts to win Hannibal sends in his cavalry it's an even kind of fight then Manuchius marches out with his whole army to win this strategically unimportant hill Hannibal marches out with his old army and at that

point hannibal springs his brilliant trap in the night before he's noticed that there are a few little gullies and divots and little lumps and bumps in my mind's going to trebia louise yeah but this is all over the battlefield he has secreted 5 000 infantry and 500 cavalry in groups of 200 to 300 across this battlefield. So as Manuchus is fighting Hannibal up this hill, all these guys start popping up from all over behind him. And he looks like he's going to be completely destroyed. Who should arrive but Fabius Maximus with his force, which he's kind of managed to obtain. And the advance of Fabius means that Hannibal can't win the battle as he withdraws because he can't take on two armies at the same time having already spent some

time and energy fighting Manuchius so just running out of ammunition and that sort of stuff so he withdraws and Manuchius celebrates Fabius's rescue by calling him father which is the most sort of ultimate term of respect and resigns his co-dictatorship and comes back to being thing so this is how the winter plays out then that fabius and manuchius are trying to gain an advantage but often they're coming off second best in lots and lots of skirmishes all through the winter these skirmishes are playing out but the advantage is that fabius's army is getting tougher it's getting more wily it's getting more wise and Hannibal's army is also benefiting because all those 16,000 20,000 Gauls

who have been in the army only for a year are really getting used to the Carthaginian way of war they're getting used to how Hannibal does stuff they're becoming more flexible more disciplined and more more able to kind of work together. And this is essential for the Battle of Cannae when we come to it. Well, there you go. There was Dr Louis Rawlings talking you through the aftermath of Hannibal's victory at Lake Trasimene and what happened in the run-up to his next great clash against the Romans,

his major clash at the Battle of Cannae the following year in 216 BC. Now, we have paved the way for a rundown of the Battle of Cannae itself. That's coming in the next episode with Louis, but I don't want to give too much away, but it is the climax. It's the third and final episode of our mini-series on Hannibal versus Rome with Louis. You don't want to miss that one, so stay tuned for that one being released very very soon. Now in the meantime, if you want more Ancients content

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