TEXT: David Campbell
  Roman Legionary
  Carthaginian Warrior
  Second Punic War 217–206 bc
  VERSUS
  
  Roman Legionary 
  Carthaginian Warrior
  David Campbell
  Illustrated by Adam Hook
  Second Punic War 217–206 bc
  
  INTRODUCTION 
  4
  THE OPPOSING SIDES 
  8
  Army formation • Infantry • Cavalry • Morale • Leadership and command
  LAKE TRASIMENE 
  29
  June 217 bc
  CANNAE 
  41
  Summer 216 bc
  ILIPA 
  57
  206 bc
  ANALYSIS 
  72
  Lake Trasimene • Cannae • Ilipa
  AFTERMATH 
  76
  BIBLIOGRAPHY 
  78
  INDEX 
  80
  
  4
  On the eve of the first major encounter between Roman and Carthaginian 
  troops in the Second Punic War, Hannibal drew his army around to watch a 
  single combat, a fight to the death between a pair of Gauls chosen by lot from 
  among those who had had the misfortune to be captured during his army’s 
  advance through the alpine passes. For the winner there would be horses, fine 
  cloaks, armour and weapons as well as a place in Hannibal’s army, for the loser 
  the consolation of death, an escape preferable to the harsh servitude under 
  which all the young Gauls had been labouring. Freed from their shackles and 
  Ancient ropes and wood 
  are discovered at a 
  Carthaginian shipwreck off 
  the coast of Sicily. Punic 
  naval supremacy was the key 
  to the Carthaginian empire’s 
  reach and power, allowing 
  it to dominate the whole of 
  the western Mediterranean 
  with its merchant vessels and 
  warships, a state of affairs 
  that would be overturned 
  by the Romans in the First 
  Punic War at the battle 
  of the Aegates in 241 bc. 
  Though engagements at sea 
  would play a minor role in 
  the Second Punic War, the 
  real impact of continuing 
  Roman naval supremacy was 
  to force the Carthaginians 
  into land-locked campaigns, 
  abandoning strategies that 
  relied on seaborne transport 
  or supply. (Photo by Jonathan 
  S. Blair/National Geographic/
  Getty Images)
  Introduction
  
  5
  given fine weapons and mail coats, the two warriors set about one another, 
  fighting until one fell; the remaining Gauls congratulated the victor, but 
  also the dead man on his freedom from any further woes, a sentiment that 
  was echoed by the watching throng of Carthaginian troops. At this point 
  Hannibal came forward and explained that the fight they had just witnessed 
  was an example of the fate that awaited them all: they too could conquer, and 
  the unimagined wealth of Rome would be theirs, or they could die fighting, 
  knowing that they gave their lives in a noble cause. The only other option 
  was to try to flee, but where they now stood, in the shadow of a Roman 
  army, there could be no successful escape, so far away were they from their 
  homelands; those who sought to save their own lives would be damned to live 
  as prisoners and slaves. Only by giving themselves up to the alternatives of an 
  honourable death or glorious victory would they have the necessary strength 
  to overcome such a formidable foe in his own lands (Polybius 3.63).
  Such was the mind-set of the Carthaginian army at the outset of the 
  Second Punic War in 218 bc. The uncompromising nature of Hannibal’s 
  words was a sign of the deep enmity that burned between Carthage and 
  Rome, a fierce and driven antagonism that had fuelled both powers in the 
  First Punic War (264–241 bc), a ferocious battle for supremacy that lasted 
  for a generation and left the Romans victorious. Defeated on land and broken 
  at sea, the Carthaginians had been punished by losing the war, then again 
  in having to endure a humiliating peace that saw them surrendering vast 
  treasures in tribute. The fires that had burned so bright during the war were 
  not extinguished by such a peace, the embers continuing to glow until the 
  opportunity came to fan them back to life.
  LEFT
  A denarius bearing the 
  image of Scipio Africanus, 
  2nd century bc. The reputations 
  of both Scipio and especially 
  Hannibal would far outlive 
  their own day, with later 
  ages finding much to admire 
  and emulate in the deeds 
  of their ancestors. Their 
  battles and campaigns would 
  become tactical touchstones 
  for future generations of 
  military men, but their impact 
  was also cultural, both men 
  being viewed as paragons 
  of leadership and virtue 
  according to the particular 
  needs of their inheritors. 
  (DEA/D. DAGLI ORTI/
  De Agostini/Getty Images)
  FAR LEFT
  A Carthaginian coin depicting 
  an elephant, from Spain, 
  237–206 bc. Though Hannibal’s 
  elephants have seized the 
  imagination of writers and 
  artists down to the present 
  day, they were a mixed 
  blessing on the battlefield. 
  The Carthaginian elephants 
  are assumed to have been 
  the now-extinct North African 
  variety (distinct from the 
  African Bush elephant and 
  African Forest elephant), with 
  Polybius noting their relatively 
  small size in comparison to 
  Asian elephants. In battle their 
  main value was as a shock 
  element that would disrupt 
  enemy lines by causing panic 
  and charging through tightly 
  packed ranks of legionaries, 
  which they certainly did 
  on occasion. They were 
  an unpredictable resource, 
  however, causing more havoc 
  for the Carthaginians than 
  the Romans at the battle of 
  Zama in 202 bc, for example, 
  and the fact that the Romans 
  never developed their own 
  version of elephantine 
  cavalry suggests that their 
  tactical value lay more in the 
  threat than the execution. 
  (DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/
  De Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  6
  Hannibal, inheritor of his family’s army in Iberia, had made the most 
  of his time in that province, a land rich in silver and warlike tribes. The 
  men of his army trusted him ‘because he seemed to have great aptitude and 
  fondness for war’ (Appian 7.1.3), something he demonstrated in the spring 
  of 219 bc by laying siege to Saguntum, an Iberian coastal town under the 
  protection of Rome, taking it after eight months. Naturally outraged at such 
  an act, Rome blustered, demanding Hannibal’s head from Carthage if they 
  wished to avoid another war. As Hannibal was at that very moment making 
  his preparations to invade Italia, such an ultimatum fell on deaf ears.
  A republic with elected leaders and an enfranchised, engaged citizenry, 
  the city that Hannibal sought to conquer was a nascent empire in all but 
  name. Through battle and bloodshed Rome had spread its authority over 
  all its neighbouring lands, eventually controlling the whole of Italia through 
  a series of alliances that fed money and men into its army, the ever-hungry 
  tool of its expansion. The first war against Carthage had set the seal on 
  Roman ascendancy outside Italia, and even without Hannibal’s provocation 
  at Saguntum another war with the Carthaginians was likely unavoidable when 
  their interests collided once again, as they inevitably would. For Hannibal 
  the aim was to bring the war home to the Romans, to drive deep into their 
  heartlands, defeat their armies, make a mockery of their claims to power and 
  fracture their carefully nurtured network of alliances, leaving Rome stripped 
  bare and at his mercy. He would come to learn that though he could breach 
  their borders, lay waste to lands the length and breadth of the country, and 
  not just defeat but annihilate their armies in battle after battle, they would not 
  yield. Hannibal certainly understood war, practising it as few others before 
  him had, but he did not understand Rome, and that misapprehension would 
  cost him – and Carthage – dearly.
  Rome and Carthage had already fought the First Punic 
  War over the possession of Sicily (264–241 bc), a conflict 
  Carthage lost, being forced to withdraw from the island and 
  pay an indemnity of 1,000 talents of gold immediately and a 
  further 2,200 talents over the following ten years (a Roman 
  talent weighed 32.3kg). That failure provoked a domestic 
  rebellion known as the Mercenary War (240–238 bc), this 
  time with the loss of Sardinia and Corsica as the price, 
  again to Rome, though the Romans were not belligerents 
  in the war – more avaricious bystanders who made the 
  most of their neighbour’s misfortunes, an insult that was 
  further compounded by the Roman demand for another 
  1,200 talents to boot.
  One brief glimmer of hope for Carthage came from the 
  accomplishments of its native son Hamilcar Barca, who 
  had succeeded in quelling the revolt. His success became 
  a stepping stone to an expedition from Carthage to Iberia 
  led by Hamilcar, the object being to rebuild the fortunes of 
  the mother city that had been so sadly diminished by the 
  war with Rome. Hamilcar arrived in the old Phoenician city 
  of Gades (Cádiz) in 237 bc intent on ‘re-establishing the 
  Carthaginians’ affairs in Iberia’ (Polybius 2.1.6), which he 
  set about doing with a vengeance, pacifying large areas 
  dominated by warlike tribes and developing the silver mines 
  of the Sierra Morena mountains. The violent expansion of 
  ‘Carthaginian affairs’ was as much an expansion of the 
  Barcid family’s influence and power as it was a state-driven 
  enterprise, perhaps even more so; it certainly would benefit 
  Hannibal when he came into his inheritance at the age of 
  26 in 221 bc, continuing the subjugation of the tribal peoples 
  of Iberia that had been started by his father, expanding his 
  fiefdom in a series of impressive campaigns around the 
  country. The difference with Hannibal was that his efforts to 
  strengthen Carthage (and his own power) had a definite end 
  in mind – to generate the money and manpower needed to 
  allow him to make war upon Rome.
  The Western Mediterranean, 218–206 bc
  
  7
  Iberi
  Boii
  Celtiberi 
  Liguri
  Insubres
  Galli
  Lusitani
  Senones
  Numidi
  Massylii (Maesulii)
  Masaesylii
  G A U L
  CORSICA
  Saguntum
  SICILY
  SARDINIA
  Tiber
  Tyrrhenian Sea
  (Mare Tyrrhenum)
  Numantia
  Massilia
  Lake Trasimene
  Ariminum
  BALEARIC
  ISLANDS
  I B E R I A
  Carthage
  Genua
  Gades
  Tunis
  Syracuse
  Ticinus
  Rome
  Trebia
  New Carthage
  Cannae
  Baecula
  Ilipa
  I L LY R I A
  M e d i t e r r a n e a n  S e a
  Baetis
  Padus
  A P E N N I N E S
  P Y R E N E E S
  A L P S
  Adriatic Sea
  (Mare Adriaticum)
  Rhône
  N
  0
  250 miles
  0
  250km
  
  8
  ARMY FORMATION
  Roman
  The Roman army of the mid-Republican period was not, strictly speaking, 
  a professional force; rather it was made up from a legio (levy) of citizens who 
  passed requirements of age (between 17 and 49 years) and property (to the 
  value of or above 11,000 assēs, an as being a bronze, later copper coin, ten of 
  which were worth one silver denarius). Despite this civic foundation, the men 
  who found themselves as legionaries would have almost certainly undergone 
  much in the way of martial training during their early years, either from 
  militaristic activities such as hunting or directly as part of their education 
  within their families, for whom the bearing and use of arms was a primary 
  duty of manhood. When a man fought for Rome he was not just fulfilling 
  his duty to the state, he was also demonstrating his responsibilities as a citizen 
  as well as fighting for his own home and prospects in a very practical sense.
  The development of Roman civic life and institutions in the period up 
  to and during the Punic Wars was reflected in the army, and certainly by the 
  time of the war against Hannibal the city’s military culture was not so much 
  a facet of Roman society as it was an expression of it. The broad basis of the 
  men who served, the fact that their officers on campaign were the same men 
  that they had elected at home, the ethos of their life within the legions, the 
  development of a regular and repeatable system of supply and camp-building 
  – all bespoke an army that was becoming indivisible from the state that 
  employed it. The hallmarks of such a force were discipline and training, with 
  Romans developing professional attitudes to warfare long before the army 
  had professional institutions (Keppie 1984: 55), a process that was much 
  accelerated by the intense battles against Hannibal. Such an army may have 
  had its origins in a civic militia but it had evolved into a radically different 
  The Opposing Sides
  
  9
  beast from the sorts of traditional armies fielded by contemporary Hellenistic 
  states, with war becoming both the means and the ends to the men who 
  served within it.
  The Roman military establishment was based around a body of four 
  standing legions with a commensurate number of allied troops, but this 
  system underwent substantial increases throughout the Second Punic 
  War (218–201 bc). In 218 bc Rome had raised six legions to meet the 
  Carthaginian threat, a force that more than doubled to 14 in the wake of the 
  losses at Lake Trasimene (217 bc) and Cannae (216 bc), eventually rising to 
  a high of 25 legions in 212–211 bc. The average number of legions remained 
  around 20 until 203–201 bc when the discharge of various units reduced the 
  overall number to 14. Such numbers were probably matched by alae (allied 
  legions), though in both Roman and allied cases it is impossible to say what 
  the active strength of such legions was. Certainly after 200 bc the supplementa 
  system seems to have ensured that most legions were kept at or near their full 
  strength, but it is reasonable to assume that during the preceding period of 
  warfare that lasted for an entire generation, such efficiency would not always 
  have been possible (Brunt 2001: 417–22).
  To augment its own soldiers, Rome relied on the formula togatorum (‘rota 
  of toga-wearers’), a list that detailed the military obligations that were owed 
  by cities of the Latin League (the nomen Latinum or ‘Latin name’) and the 
  socii (Italian ‘allies’). During the Second Punic War it was usual for half a 
  Roman force (sometimes more) to be made up of such troops, with each 
  Roman legion being matched by an allied one. Though there is little direct 
  evidence as to how they were armed or trained, the implication is that they 
  were comparable to the Roman legions; it is likely that allied legions were 
  trained, armed and organized in much the same way, if perhaps to a less 
  A Roman fresco representing 
  a Campanian hoplite, 
  6th century bc. The old 
  Roman hoplite army of the 
  5th century bc was first and 
  foremost a political institution 
  that performed various tasks of 
  self-defence with reasonable 
  efficiency in much the same 
  manner as its neighbours did. 
  The practice of Roman arms 
  underwent significant change 
  throughout the 4th century bc, 
  however: the state evolved 
  to be more responsive to the 
  needs of its citizens, allowing 
  greater participation in politics 
  as well as a better share of 
  war booty which in turn helped 
  to light the expansionist 
  aggression that would be 
  such a hallmark of Rome in 
  the following century. In the 
  practice of warfare they grew 
  into the habit of adopting 
  weapons, armour and tactics 
  that they knew to be effective 
  (having been on the receiving 
  end of them), for example 
  the oblong shield from the 
  Samnites, and an evolution 
  towards relying more on the 
  sword than the spear for close 
  combat. By the time of the 
  Punic Wars the tactics and 
  methods of a Roman battle 
  were distinctive and notably 
  more effective than those 
  of many of their opponents. 
  (DEA PICTURE LIBRARY/De 
  Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  10
  The legionary, a princeps of the 
  second line, is around 30 years old 
  and is a tried-and-tested veteran, 
  having come through the disaster at 
  the Trebia during the dying days of 
  the previous year. As a man of some 
  means he can afford fine armour and 
  weapons, though all are somewhat 
  worn with heavy use. The legionary 
  himself is dusty and his tunic rather 
  faded and dirty, as one might expect 
  after some days of hard marching in 
  pursuit of the elusive Carthaginians. 
  He is moving aggressively towards 
  his enemy, left foot forward, shield 
  held high to protect his body and 
  lower face, with his pilum at the 
  ready for a killing thrust.
  Roman princeps
  12
  4
  5
  1
  8
  9
  2
  10
  
  11
  Weapons, dress and equipment
  The legionary carries a pilum in his right hand (1) – based on 
  examples found at the excavations of Ephyra in Greece and Castellruf 
  in Spain – with a gladius Hispaniensis (2) belted to his right hip and 
  a pugio (3) on his left hip. He wears a Montefortino-style helmet (4) 
  with ‘Olympia’ style cheek-pieces and which sports a feather crest; as 
  a wealthier citizen of Rome he is protected by a lorica hamata (5) with 
  shoulder-doubling for added protection, worn over a subarmalis (a 
  form of padded shirt to make the mail shirt more comfortable to wear) 
  and a red linen tunic (6); though this colour is usually associated with 
  Roman legionaries, there probably was not any consistent ‘uniform’ 
  for legions during this period, especially considering that each soldier 
  was responsible for the supply of his own clothing and equipment. 
  The lorica hamata is cinched at the waist with a cingulum (a plain 
  leather belt; 7); as well as being the means for carrying his weapons, 
  a legionary’s belt was beneficial because it transferred some of the 
  weight of the lorica hamata to the wearer’s hips, reducing the burden 
  on his shoulders (Bishop & Coulston 2006: 67). His shins are protected 
  by a pair of greaves (8) – again a sign of wealth, as most hastati and 
  principes would only have a single greave if they were lucky, worn 
  on their ‘dominant’ left leg – and his feet are shod with caligae (hob-
  nailed boots; 9), though their inclusion here is speculative as there is 
  no evidence for when this footwear was adopted by the Roman army. 
  He carries a coin purse on his belt (10), as well as a worn leather 
  water bottle suspended from a thong slung over his shoulder (11). He 
  carries the heavy curved scutum in his left hand (12). The total weight 
  of his weapons, armour and equipment comes to around 26kg.
  Lake Trasimene 217 bc
  6
  3
  7
  11
  
  12
  exacting standard than for those raised by Rome proper, and thus they were 
  well able to take their place in a force that was to campaign and fight in the 
  Roman fashion.
  Carthaginian
  Carthage had been the dominant power of the western Mediterranean for 
  centuries, its strength derived from trade across a broad maritime empire, 
  an empire that was severely shaken and reduced as a result of Carthage’s 
  defeat in the First Punic War. In the wake of that disaster considerable 
  efforts were expended in developing new territories and wealth in Iberia, 
  actions that would have a considerable impact not just on the strategy of the 
  Second Punic War but also on the composition and character of much of 
  the Carthaginian army. Coming to definite conclusions about most aspects 
  of the organization, composition and tactics of Hannibal’s armies is fraught 
  with difficulty and relies more on inference and assumption than one would 
  like; archaeological evidence is scant, and textual observations derive almost 
  entirely from Greek or Roman sources, all with their own agendas, some 
  of them written at some considerable distance in time from the events they 
  recall. Nevertheless, the impact such armies made on the Graeco-Roman 
  world was substantial enough to ensure that even their enemies gave them 
  their due.
  Though Carthaginian power was still formidable during Hannibal’s 
  ascendancy, the city itself was nowhere near as populous as Rome, and its 
  traditional focus had always been on the manning of its navy, so it had a 
  much more restricted pool of manpower on which to call when it came to 
  A line of re-enactors in 
  loricae hamatae, their gladii 
  at the ready. The process of 
  transforming a young Roman 
  into a man ready to stand 
  in the legion began early. 
  His father, uncles and older 
  brothers would all likely have 
  had extensive experience in 
  war, creating a sea of stories 
  and examples that would spur 
  the young man’s interest in 
  warfare, likely augmented by 
  the ownership and display 
  of personal armour within 
  the household, perhaps 
  even trophies or awards 
  for great deeds. Growing 
  up in such an environment 
  a boy would learn the 
  martial values expected of 
  him; he would see, handle 
  and begin to train with the 
  same sort of weapons and 
  armour that he could one day 
  expect to wear into battle 
  himself. (DEA/C. BALOSSINI/
  De Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  13
  the raising of armies. The nature of Carthaginian society was oligarchic, as 
  might be expected from a state whose power came from its wide-ranging 
  mercantile endeavours, and the armies that it assembled had a similar quality, 
  being drawn from different provinces and allied states, with treaty and 
  payment being the primary method of securing the large numbers of men 
  that were needed. Usually raised for a specific campaign, a Carthaginian army 
  would have a small backbone of citizen soldiers significantly outnumbered 
  by tributary levies from allies, as well as large mercenary contingents from 
  warrior cultures such as the slingers of the Balearic Islands or the Celtiberians, 
  the recruitment of whom would be facilitated by Carthage’s extensive trading 
  network. The chief sources of such troops were the tribes and societies of 
  North Africa and the broad swathes of southern and central Iberia, all of 
  which were underneath the Carthaginian heel (Fields 2010: 15–16). After 
  Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps considerable numbers of warlike Gaulish 
  tribes would also be drawn to his banner through a blend of revenge and 
  mercenary opportunity.
  Once marshalled these heterogeneous forces would be commanded by 
  Carthaginian officers, most of whom were likely drawn from the city’s great 
  families who often had generations of experience in raising armies and fighting 
  them on campaigns throughout North Africa, Iberia and the Hellenistic 
  world. Such a ‘cultural unity’ of command was important because of the 
  disparate nature of the armies; made up from a patchwork of troop types, the 
  contingents varied in size and skills, with different equipment and tactics as 
  well. Organization was based on nationality, the structure of the mercenary 
  contingent or allied levy remaining the same as when it was admitted to the 
  army; no attempts were made to force these groups to adhere to predetermined 
  A relief depicting a phalanx, 
  Thessaloniki, Greece. The 
  use of the phalanx had 
  dominated Greek and later 
  Hellenistic warfare for 
  centuries, and it continued 
  to play an important role in 
  Hannibal’s armies, scoring 
  some notable successes such 
  as the envelopment of the 
  Roman army flanks at Cannae. 
  Despite such victories, 
  Hannibal’s use of the phalanx 
  was different from those 
  employed by Alexander, for 
  example, in that his Libyo-
  Phoenician phalanges were 
  only one part of a larger army 
  that also employed a variety 
  of other types of infantry 
  and cavalry, all of whom 
  were organized differently 
  and employed their own 
  particular tactics in battle. 
  Homogeneity, one of the great 
  strengths of a Hellenistic 
  battle line, was nowhere 
  to be found in Carthaginian 
  armies. (DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/
  De Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  14
  This Iberian scutarius is a man of some standing, made evident by his wealth of arms and 
  armour. As part of Hannibal’s lure he and his fellow Iberians have endured the brunt of 
  the Roman column’s attack; he has been fighting hard, and it shows in his battered shield, 
  rough appearance and several small cuts and scrapes to his arms and legs. Trying to stop 
  the extraordinarii from breaking through he is rearing back in the act of casting his light 
  spear, using his shield as a counterweight to impart more force to the throw.
  Iberian scutarius
  5
  6
  4
  9
  
  15
  Weapons, dress and equipment
  The warrior is armed with a hasta velitaris (1), a Roman light javelin 
  that proved to be very popular among the Romans’ Punic enemies. 
  He carries a falcata (2) suspended from a baldric – the falcata 
  (likely derived from the very similar Greek kopis) was a fine weapon 
  that excelled at slashing blows, but which could also be used for 
  thrusting, – and a simple dagger (3). His broad leather belt (4) is 
  a distinctive Iberian item. He is protected by a Celtic-influenced 
  Montefortino-type helmet (5) with triple-disc cheek-pieces and 
  a horsehair crest, as well as a mail shirt (6) worn over a leather 
  subarmalis (7) and linen tunic; his legs are protected by a pair of 
  greaves (8) and he carries an Iberian-pattern shield (9) decorated with 
  a personal motif. His weapons and armour weigh around 20kg.
  Lake Trasimene 217 bc
  1
  2
  3
  8
  7
  
  16
  tactical divisions, or to adapt their ways of warmaking towards some abstract 
  tactical principle (Daly 2002: 83). Each fought in the way they always had, 
  with their own people by their side.
  INFANTRY
  Roman
  The Roman legion of the Punic Wars was 4,500 men strong (4,200 infantry, 
  300 cavalry), having evolved from 4th-century versions that had followed the 
  hoplite pattern of deploying the heavy foot soldiers in a single line of varying 
  depth, towards the triplex acies, a system of three distinct lines – the hastati, 
  principes and triarii. The main advantage of the triplex acies seems to have 
  been the flexibility it offered the Romans in the replacement of weary troops 
  with fresh men, enabling them to maintain the pressure on their enemy’s more 
  monolithic line as well as being better able to resist being worn down by his 
  attacks (Sabin 2000: 7). The first line was made up of the hastati (1,200 per 
  legion); the hastatus was a younger man armed with the pilum (heavy javelin) 
  Bas-relief depicting a warrior 
  from a memorial monument 
  found in Urso (Osuna), 
  southern Spain. The spined 
  oval shield, broad belt and 
  horse-head falcata are typical 
  of the warriors of the late 
  3rd century bc, though the 
  crested, apparently layered 
  headgear he wears has 
  been the subject of debate, 
  some associating it with the 
  description of caps made of 
  sinew recounted by Strabo. 
  The figure appears to wear 
  only an embroidered tunic, 
  with no other armour. (DEA / 
  G. NIMATALLAH/De Agostini/
  Getty Images)
  
  17
  and gladius (short sword) and protected by a scutum (large shield), a helmet 
  and bronze pectoral, with some men probably having greaves as well. The 
  second line was made up of the principes (1,200 per legion); the princeps was 
  typically a man in his prime armed and armoured in the same fashion as the 
  hastatus but probably more likely to wear a lorica hamata (mail coat). The 
  third line was made up of the triarii (600 per legion), older men with plenty 
  of experience. The triarius would very likely wear a lorica hamata and was 
  armed with a long hasta (spear). A legion would also have a contingent of light 
  infantry – the velites (1,200 per legion) – who would form up as a loose screen 
  ahead of the main force; the typical veles was probably unarmoured, wearing 
  a simple helmet and carrying a light shield, armed with a handful of javelins 
  and a gladius. A 300-strong cavalry element completed the legion.
  Developed from a design 
  originating in Iberia, the 
  gladius (a generic Latin term 
  for a sword) was most likely 
  adopted by the Roman army in 
  the years after the First Punic 
  War (Bishop 2016: 9–11). This 
  drawing shows Republican 
  gladius Hispaniensis-type 
  swords from Alfaro in Spain 
  (1), Šmihel in Slovenia  
  (2, 4), Delos in Greece (3) 
  and Giubiasco in Switzerland 
  (5). During the mid-
  Republican period the gladius 
  Hispaniensis would be worn 
  on the right hip by legionaries, 
  attached to the wearer’s belt 
  and not worn on a baldric, as 
  in later periods. Centurions 
  used baldric-slung swords, 
  but traditionally wore them 
  on their left hip. There is little 
  in the way of archaeological 
  evidence to suggest the exact 
  methods used by legionaries 
  to attach swords to their 
  belts, though as the sword 
  was not a piece of issued 
  equipment but rather the 
  personal property of the 
  individual who carried it, it 
  seems reasonable to assume 
  that there were a variety 
  of methods of attachment 
  depending on the design of 
  a given sword’s scabbard, as 
  well as the preference of the 
  wearer. (M.C. Bishop)
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  
  18
  A crucial element in the effective employment of the triplex acies was 
  the use of maniples. Literally meaning ‘a handful’, a maniple (manipulus) 
  consisted of two centuries; a century (centuria) was 60 men strong. Each of 
  the three main lines was broken down into ten maniples (120 men each for 
  the hastati and principes, 60 men each for the triarii), each maniple being 
  commanded by a centurion (centurio) with an optio acting as a junior officer. 
  There is still much debate about the exact manner in which maniples were 
  deployed, as well as the methods they used to manoeuvre during battle, but 
  what does seem certain is that the maniple gave the Roman battle line much 
  more tactical flexibility than that afforded to their enemies. The maniples of 
  the three lines were spaced in a quincunx pattern (named after the pattern of 
  five pips on the side of a die): the hastati would deploy with their maniples 
  in line, spread out so that there was a maniple-sized space between each one; 
  the principes would deploy behind them in the same fashion, but in such 
  a way that their maniples covered the gaps left in the first line, and so on 
  with the triarii. Such a system made it easier for other troops – cavalry or 
  velites, for example – to filter through a Roman battle line, and it would make 
  manoeuvring over rough or broken ground without losing cohesion a much 
  more straightforward affair.
  The nature of how a Roman battle line behaved as it approached that of 
  an enemy has been the subject of some research by the historian Philip Sabin, 
  who does not subscribe to the traditional view of ancient warfare (Sabin 
  1996). By most historical accounts the battles of the mid-Republican period 
  (c.290 bc–88 bc) lasted for hours, and thus were unlikely to have been a 
  constant clash of hand-to-hand combat into which succeeding lines of men 
  were fed only to be hewn down by their apparently tireless enemies. Rather, he 
  RIGHT
  The bent shank and point of a 
  pilum, found at Cambodunum 
  (Kempten), southern Germany. 
  The pilum, like much of the 
  Roman legionary’s weapons 
  and equipment, was adopted 
  from his enemies, though 
  exactly when and from 
  which enemy is a matter of 
  conjecture (for historians 
  both ancient and modern); 
  it seems most likely to have 
  been adopted from either the 
  Samnites or Iberians, but the 
  textual and archaeological 
  evidence is not definitive. 
  (Xocolatl/Wikimedia/
  CC BY-SA 4.0)
  FAR RIGHT
  Replicas of Roman lead 
  slingshot (glandes plumbeae, 
  ‘lead acorns’). Slingshot were 
  manufactured from a variety 
  of materials including shaped 
  stone, clay and lead. Lead 
  slingshot were often cast 
  (in clay or stone moulds) in 
  semi-industrial processes that 
  produced numbers of bullets 
  on a single sprue, often with 
  symbols, monograms or words 
  inscribed on them. Symbols 
  used included lightning bolts, 
  scorpions and bulls’ heads, 
  while those with monograms 
  or words could refer to 
  the name of a unit or its 
  commander, personal names, 
  civic locations, and jibes or 
  insults such as ‘greetings’, 
  ‘take this’ or ‘ouch’. The 
  markings on Roman glandes 
  in particular tended to be 
  provocative sexual taunts, 
  in line with the conflation of 
  military and sexual success 
  that was common in Latin 
  culture (Kelly 2012: 290–96). 
  (Image courtesy of Mike 
  Loades)
  
  19
  suggests that combat between two lines of infantry was dominated by pauses 
  and lulls, both natural and deliberate, during which the two sides would 
  pull back from one another to recuperate (or swap out exhausted maniples 
  for fresh ones in the Roman case), the space between them filled by periodic 
  surges led by more disciplined and aggressive elements of each force. Such 
  assaults would involve short but intense bouts of close combat that would 
  last until one side or the other sought to disengage, withdrawing to the safety 
  of their main line, a practice that would occur all along the battle line in 
  successive locally organized waves that would likely see one side being slowly 
  pushed back by the other, something mentioned in the sources. Such a process 
  would continue until one side’s line began to fracture through localized stress 
  or an overall loss of cohesion caused by the rolling attacks, the slow retreat 
  suddenly turning into a rout that allowed the serious bloodletting to begin 
  (Sabin 1996: 72). Such behaviour would certainly make sense in the light of 
  Roman deployments of their three battle lines and manipular tactics, both 
  of which could be seen as an attempt to manage the realities of ancient close 
  combat between large bodies of organized troops.
  Carthaginian
  A distinct people that should not be confused with the citizens of Carthage, 
  the Libyo-Phoenicians lived in towns and cities between the Atlantic coast of 
  Modern Morocco (including a stretch of Iberia between Cádiz and Almería), 
  through the coast of North Africa to the borders of Egypt (Salimbeti & 
  D’Amato 2014: 17). They were at one remove from full Carthaginian citizens, 
  and proved to be extremely useful as a source of manpower; Libyo-Phoenicians 
  were most likely recruited through levy, and though some may have been light 
  infantry the majority would have been armed and armoured in the Hellenistic 
  fashion, with a helmet, cuirass (possibly of the linen linothorax type), greaves, 
  shield, sword and probably a long sarissa-style spear. There is no agreement 
  as to the type of spear used, its length, or the tactical formation employed 
  by the Libyo-Phoenicians on the battlefield; the historian Gregory Daly, 
  for example, believes it unlikely that Libyo-Phoenician troops operated in a 
  traditional Greek phalanx, instead being heavy spearmen comparable to the 
  Roman hastati and principes (Daly 2002: 86–90). They certainly re-equipped 
  themselves (probably with loricae hamatae) from the dead at Trasimene, 
  though the pilum and scutum would have required retraining to make them 
  useful to their nascent owners, something that would be out of character 
  for a Carthaginian army, so those items were probably ignored. Polybius 
  described them as fighting in phalanxes at Cannae and elsewhere, and those 
  formations may have been the Macedonian-style tactical unit (something that 
  should not be dismissed – Polybius was trained and experienced in Hellenistic 
  warfare) or a simple mass of spearmen, relying on weight of numbers. In the 
  grand tactical scheme, however, it makes relatively little difference – they were 
  heavy infantry.
  The success of Carthage in bringing most of central and southern Iberia 
  under its control was a crucial element in Hannibal’s ability to prosecute his 
  war against Rome, the peninsula offering him something like the manpower 
  resources enjoyed by his enemy (Rawlings 1996: 81). Iberian levies probably 
  
  20
  A reproduction of a seven-
  strand esparto grass Balearian 
  sling with a stone bullet. 
  Slingers carried three slings 
  of various lengths – long for 
  long distance, medium for 
  medium distance and short 
  for close range – and wore 
  them as belts and headbands, 
  for example, when not in 
  use. Slingers would decide 
  upon their target (probably 
  an individual enemy soldier 
  for a short sling, more likely 
  a body of men for the longer 
  slings) and then launch their 
  projectiles in a single fluid 
  motion. The damage that 
  such stones and lead bullets 
  (glandes) could do varied, 
  depending on the strength and 
  skill of the slinger, the distance 
  to the target, the location of 
  the impact on the body, and 
  the armour (or lack of it) worn 
  by the victim, but they could 
  certainly penetrate skin, break 
  bones and kill. (Image courtesy 
  of Mike Loades)
  A remarkably well-preserved 
  Iberian falcata, likely 
  5th–1st centuries bc, with an 
  (inaccurate) set of modern 
  replacement wooden grips. 
  The falcata (a 19th-century 
  term coined by a Spanish 
  antiquarian) was similar to 
  (and likely developed from) the 
  Greek kopis by way of the Celts, 
  which it resembled in most 
  particulars; it could be used for 
  thrusting, but the pattern of its 
  blade, dropping towards the 
  point with a convex edge, lent 
  itself to significant slashing and 
  hacking blows. (Metropolitan 
  Museum of Art, www.
  metmuseum.org)
  fell into two rough classifications, the scutarii and the caetrati, determined by 
  their type of shield (the scutum being a large flat oval shield with a wooden 
  spine and metal boss, sometimes cut flat at the top and bottom, while the 
  smaller and lighter caetra was flat and round with a circular metal boss). Both 
  would be armed with a dagger and sword, the latter most likely a falcata type 
  but also straight-bladed weapons similar to the gladius Hispaniensis, as well as 
  spears for hand-to-hand fighting and for throwing. Helmets would have been 
  of a variety of types, but most of the men would not have had any other armour 
  (the better-off perhaps owning a bronze pectoral) The scutarius with his large 
  and heavy shield would be a conventional infantryman, while the caetratus 
  was a light infantryman, using his speed to dart forward and throw javelins at 
  the enemy, fending off attacks with his light and manoeuvrable shield.
  
  21
  Known for their large stature, often terrifying appearance (their hair 
  stiffened with limewash) and violent war cries both before and during battle, 
  Gauls were an intimidating enemy. They had no regular formations, being 
  divided by tribe and most likely operating in clans and family groups, perhaps 
  250 men strong (Connolly 1998: 187). Their tactics were rudimentary, 
  consisting of a wild and violent charge that, if it failed to overwhelm on the 
  first try, would often lose what little cohesion and impetus it had. Gauls were 
  also perceived to lack endurance and suffer from brittle morale, fleeing the 
  battlefield when things took a turn for the worse (Rawlings 1996: 87), though 
  on an individual basis their courage and willingness to throw themselves on 
  their enemy, driven by competition with one another as well as an intense 
  sense of martial pride, made them a foe to be reckoned with.
  As opposed to the Iberians, who were drawn from the central and southern 
  parts of Iberia under Carthaginian control, the Celtiberians were from the 
  north, and those of them who joined with Hannibal and his armies would 
  likely have done so as mercenaries. In organization and military effectiveness 
  they would have been much the same as the Gauls: fierce, independent and 
  dangerous. The Balearians were mercenary slingers with a long association 
  with Carthage going back to service before the First Punic War. Unlike other 
  slingers, the Balearians used large stones in favour of lead bullets, and seem to 
  have been one of Hannibal’s more reliable units.
  CAVALRY
  Roman
  There is no doubt that the cavalry contingent of a Roman army was important, 
  its turmae (squadrons) being composed of some of the city’s wealthiest and 
  most ambitious young equites (horsemen), but it was hampered by its usually 
  small size. Generals (such as Paullus and Varro at Cannae) rode with their 
  cavalry, commanding their armies from the wings where such forces were 
  traditionally deployed. Initially coming to the fore in the First Samnite War 
  of 343–341 bc, probably under the influence of the Campanians who were 
  noted horsemen, the Roman cavalry contingent was a recognized part of a 
  legion’s organization by the time of the Punic Wars. Each legion would field 
  300 men divided into ten turmae of 30 men each; each turma was led by a 
  senior decurion (decurio) assisted by two more decurions, with three optiones 
  acting as junior officers. A Roman cavalry contingent rarely comprised 
  more than 10 per cent of an army’s strength, and would often find itself 
  overmatched when facing the larger numbers of Hannibal’s more rough-and-
  ready horsemen from Iberia and North Africa.
  Roman horsemen were probably armed and armoured in the Greek 
  fashion, with helmet, cuirass (or mail coat), round or oval shield, spear and 
  sword; owing to their good armour it is more likely that they would use 
  their spears in hand-to-hand combat, as opposed to throwing them in the 
  Numidian fashion. They were likely well-trained, and good riders too, even if 
  not so naturally gifted as some of Hannibal’s native horse contingents; though 
  they were made up of mostly young aristocratic men the equites would have 
  A Celtic sword with a 
  distinctive anthropomorphic 
  grip, from the Tène culture, 
  c.450 bc–ad 1. (Held in 
  pantoffeln/Wikimedia/
  CC BY-SA 4.0)
  
  22
  been training for war and command from the age of 17, and as most of them 
  likely had political ambitions they would have to serve through at least ten 
  campaigns before they would be eligible for election to public office, making 
  the majority of them rather experienced as well (Daly 2002: 76). The 300 
  horsemen of a legion would be complemented by 600 from that legion’s ala, 
  presumably organized and led in a similar fashion to that of the Romans, with 
  the riders most likely drawn from the ranks of the allied region’s aristocrats 
  and the well-to-do.
  Carthaginian
  The Numidians formed one of the Carthaginian army’s most effective cavalry 
  forces. Drawn from two North African Berber kingdoms, the Masaesyli 
  (Masinissa’s people) and the Massyli, Numidian horsemen were born to 
  a life on horseback, learning to ride from a young age without saddles or 
  conventional bridles (control of the horse being managed by the use of a 
  plaited rope around the animal’s neck); their mounts were small, rather 
  A reproduction of a Roman 
  four-horn saddle. Used 
  without stirrups, such a style 
  of saddle would give a rider a 
  very secure seat from which 
  to engage foot soldiers or 
  other riders. Roman cavalry 
  were drawn from the highest 
  social classes (primarily the 
  equites, though later from 
  the First Class as well), and 
  as such they were expected 
  to supply their own horses, 
  weapons and equipment (in 
  a similar, if more expensive 
  manner, to the legionaries, 
  though they would be 
  reimbursed for the loss of a 
  mount on campaign). Though 
  there is little reliable evidence 
  for the arms and equipment 
  used by mid-Republican 
  cavalry, the fact that their 
  members came from the 
  wealthiest sections of Roman 
  society meant that they were 
  most likely well-armoured, 
  wearing some form of lorica 
  hamata or comparable 
  Hellenistic cuirasses. They 
  carried either small circular 
  ox-hide or Greek clipeus-type 
  shields that would evolve 
  into the parma equestris, and 
  would have carried swords 
  (almost certainly of the 
  gladius Hispaniensis type) and 
  spears. (Image courtesy of 
  Kim Hawkins)
  
  23
  scrawny ponies that seemed puny in 
  comparison to the bigger and better-
  fed Roman mounts, but which 
  proved to be hardy, nimble and 
  able to endure much punishment. 
  The Numidians were most likely 
  organized in small troops of 30–40 
  horsemen as opposed to the larger 
  homogenous tribal cavalry of the 
  Gauls or Celtiberians (Daly 2002: 
  92), and wore no armour, carrying 
  only a light shield and a handful of 
  javelins. Their primary tactic was to dash in 
  close to their enemy, discharge a volley of spears 
  and ride away before their enemies could close and force a hand-to-hand 
  engagement, something that may have led to some of the dismissive views of 
  them as cowardly and prone to excessive flight when beaten.
  Hannibal also had around 2,000 Iberian cavalry with him during his 
  descent into Italia, most likely armed and armoured in the Hellenistic pattern 
  (cuirass or mail coat, helmet, shield and spear), but his Gaulish allies brought 
  enough horsemen to more than match the numbers of his Numidians and 
  Iberians combined, 4,000 of them remaining by the time of Cannae. Drawn 
  from the wealthiest and most important elements of Gaulish tribal societies, 
  the horsemen were a social and military elite; they most likely operated in self-
  contained war bands of varying size, with each group following a particular 
  noble or chieftain and his retinue. They were armed with heavy spears for 
  thrusting rather than throwing, and the long cutting swords common to 
  Celtic peoples; protection came in the form of helmets, shields and a much 
  higher proportion of mail coats than would likely be found among the Celtic 
  foot soldiers. Tactics would be rather simple, not dissimilar to the practice 
  among Gaulish foot troops, with particular attention paid to displays of 
  martial vigour and perhaps horsemanship as well.
  The reverse of a Carthaginian 
  gold stater (a coin originating 
  from Greece, originally silver, 
  the gold versions being worth 
  20–28 drachmae) depicting a 
  wild horse, 4th century bc. The 
  Carthaginian cavalry was, like 
  the infantry, a heterogeneous 
  affair consisting of North 
  African tribal contingents 
  (the most famous being the 
  Numidians), as well as bodies 
  of Iberians and Gauls, the 
  latter two being formed of the 
  most prestigious and wealthy 
  warriors and their attendants, 
  probably in loose groups of 
  100–200 horsemen. As with 
  the infantry, Carthaginian 
  cavalry units were organized 
  according to their national 
  and tribal groupings, each 
  section fighting in their 
  own traditional manner, 
  quite unlike the practised 
  homogeneity that could be 
  found among the ranks of 
  the Roman horse and their 
  alae. (DEA/G. DAGLI ORTI/
  De Agostini/Getty Images)
  Numidian cavalry (at right) 
  depicted in Scene LXIV 
  on Trajan’s Column, early 
  2nd century ad. During the 
  Second Punic War, the 
  Numidians were considered 
  the best cavalry in North 
  Africa. They were natural 
  horsemen and rode without 
  the aid of saddle, bit or bridle, 
  controlling their mounts 
  with a simple rope around 
  the animal’s neck, a stick 
  and vocal commands. They 
  seem to have worn little or 
  no armour, relying instead 
  on their speed and agility 
  to avoid trouble, while 
  their main weapon was the 
  javelin or light spear. (Conrad 
  Cichorius/Wikimedia/Public 
  Domain)
  
  24
  MORALE
  Roman
  The Roman people understood the value of warfare and actively sought the 
  benefits that it could bring, namely wealth and prestige. The martial culture 
  of the Roman state was not a discrete element of the body politic, but rather 
  a fundamental aspect of being a Roman citizen. Such an attitude had been 
  developing since the 4th century bc, and was fully formed for all to see by 
  the time of the wars against Carthage, there being only a single instance prior 
  to 151 bc where the citizenry exhibited even a slight pause before voting for 
  war, and that case – against King Philip V of Macedon – was due to the fact 
  that it came fast on the heels of the end of the Second Punic War, a time 
  when even the Romans may have sought some respite from constant conflict 
  (Harris 2016: 39).
  Service in the city’s legions was commonplace among the citizenry, with 
  a young man of the levy knowing that his grandfathers, father and older 
  brothers had trodden the same path before him, the stories of their service 
  augmented with battle trophies or keepsakes, not to mention the arms and 
  armour that would have been a feature of every citizen’s household, physical 
  representations of the duty that was owed and the prosperity it could bring. 
  When he entered the legion a Roman would find himself in an environment 
  where acts of bravery could be recognized by his fellow legionaries and officers, 
  resulting in the awarding of battle decorations that would secure his honour 
  in both civilian and military life; a good indication of the esteem in which 
  such awards were held is demonstrated by the fact that at religious processions 
  the only decorations a man was allowed to wear were those that he had won 
  by virtue of his own bravery on the battlefield (McDonnell 2006: 184–85).
  The reality of life as a Roman soldier was certainly brutal, but the men 
  who fought and killed on such a grand scale in Rome’s wars did so from 
  within a system – the legion – that was well-organized and gave a sense of 
  An image of Mars (left) 
  and a scene featuring two 
  legionaries and an eques 
  (right) from the Altar of 
  Domitius Ahenobarbus 
  (c.122–115 bc). For the Roman 
  soldier, public recognition 
  of his bravery was a crucial 
  motivating factor in his 
  decision to fight – and 
  fight well. Military glory 
  was raw meat to ambitious 
  Romans of every class. It 
  was not so difficult to see 
  glory won on the field of 
  battle as an expression of 
  divine favour, which in turn 
  encouraged the sense that 
  such glory was a virtue in 
  and of itself. For a people 
  as aggressive and militarily 
  minded as the Romans, the 
  knowledge that success in 
  war brought wealth, fame 
  and the admiration of all 
  was seductive. (Jastrow/
  Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 4.0)
  
  25
  security and belonging. Discipline was harsh and public, encouraging not just 
  obedience but a broad sense of intolerance towards cowardice or the attitudes 
  that might encourage it. The older men, the centurions and senior officers 
  would all serve as examples of bravery in the face of the enemy, stiffening 
  the resolve of newer, younger legionaries. The practice of maniples camping, 
  marching, training and fighting together encouraged cohesion and a sense of 
  purpose. The smallest unit – the contubernium – was a group of eight tent-
  mates who would quickly come to know and understand one another, such 
  familiarity being invaluable when it came to standing shoulder to shoulder 
  in order to receive a Gaulish charge. It is possible that several of the legions 
  that fought at Cannae suffered from being freshly raised, put into the field 
  before they had a chance to develop the strong bonds of trust that came from 
  training and experience.
  For the allies of Rome the need to send considerable levies of men on a 
  regular basis must have been onerous, but it is not unreasonable to assume 
  that they enjoyed similar benefits to their Roman associates when victories 
  were won. There must also have been a deeper sense of the value in continued 
  relationships with Rome, otherwise Hannibal’s attempts to drag the Italian 
  and Latin states out from under the great city’s shadow would have been 
  more successful. Certainly such ties must have been strained during the 
  worst of the Carthaginian depredations of 218–216 bc, and yet the system 
  of patronage and support that Rome had built withstood such serious threats 
  remarkably well.
  Carthaginian
  Morale is of particular importance in armies like those fielded by Carthage, 
  especially when they were of an expeditionary nature, sometimes spending 
  years in a hostile land far from home. That basic fact was further complicated 
  by the varied mix of contingents that went to make up such an army, men who 
  came from different places, with different cultures and who spoke different 
  languages, and who also most likely had very different reasons for deciding to 
  fight in the first place.
  For some of the North African contingents closest to the Carthaginian 
  state there may have been some sense of patriotic obligation, but in most cases 
  the larger narratives – love of Carthage or resentment of Rome – probably 
  played a secondary role to more immediate concerns (though it is reasonable 
  to assume that for several of the Gaulish tribes who flocked to Hannibal’s 
  banner as he made his way down from the Alps, an active dislike of their 
  violent neighbours to the south did his recruiting efforts no harm). Hannibal 
  built his army through a network of alliances that all provided some benefit 
  (or at least the prospect of it) to those who threw in their lot with him 
  rather than the Romans or anyone else; strong friends were always useful to 
  local chieftains, and the prospects for booty that a commander could offer, 
  particularly a successful one like Hannibal, were highly attractive.
  Finally, the personal merits of the man whom they were choosing to serve 
  must have had a considerable impact on the decision to join such an army, 
  and especially to stay with it when the shadows began to close in. Hannibal 
  delivered victory after victory to those that followed him (at least in the early 
  
  26
  years), but even through the campaigns of 219–216 bc there were reverses, 
  hardship and the very real possibility of a violent end many hundreds of 
  kilometres from home. Hannibal’s charisma, generalship and personal 
  qualities bound the leaders and chieftains of the many different contingents 
  of his army to him, and through them came the loyalty of the men they led 
  in their turn.
  LEADERSHIP AND COMMAND
  It was difficult for a commander to communicate effectively with his army 
  once battle was joined, with messages carried by dispatch-riders being the 
  most likely method employed. Pre-arranged signals could also play a role (it 
  is likely that something of the sort was used at Trasimene to trigger Hannibal’s 
  ambush), while units engaged in battle would take their direction from 
  the example set by their immediate leaders, the movement of their unit’s 
  standards, shouted orders, and signals sent out by musicians. For example, 
  the Romans used cornicenes (horn-players), one of whom would be attached 
  to each century under the command of the centurion, to issue tactical and 
  movement orders that could be heard over the din of battle.
  Roman
  By the time of the Punic Wars the men who led Rome were entirely wedded 
  to a system of dynamic expansion when the opportunity offered, with a 
  senatorial class that was in thrall to the example of personal glory and honour 
  won through martial endeavour, a position that in turn supported their 
  own domestic financial and political interests (Harris 2016: 38–39). It was 
  important for all Roman soldiers, especially ambitious commanders desirous 
  of high office, to be seen performing acts of bravery or martial skill in the face 
  of the enemy, such demonstrations earning them not just personal glory but 
  also likely professional advancement.
  The command of an army (usually two legions and two alae) would fall 
  to one of the city’s two consuls; when individual armies combined (such as 
  at Cannae) the two consuls would command on alternate days – a system 
  with several glaringly obvious flaws. Command of each individual legion 
  fell to tribunes, whereas an ala was administered by a praefectus (prefect) of 
  the allies. Each legion had six tribunes elected every year who also shared 
  leadership duties, two tribunes running the legion together for two months 
  at a time on a six-month rotation, while their compatriots would be at the 
  disposal of the legion’s consul, undertaking a variety of staff-related activities 
  while they awaited their turn in command. At the lower level centurions 
  took responsibility for maniples (decurions for cavalry turmae), supported by 
  optiones, one optio per century (Daly 2002: 58–59).
  Roman commanders projected authority and confidence by their presence 
  on the field, so it was important that they could be seen easily. To that end 
  their appearance was designed to set them apart from the rank and file, with 
  senior officers wearing a distinctive cloak called a paludamentum as a sign of 
  their office, and though shades of red, purple or white were the most common 
  
  27
  for such a garment, there does not seem to have been a set colour. It is likely 
  that armour, cloaks, adornments and crests were common features among 
  the legions’ senior officers and centurions, as they too relied on being visible 
  to their men so that they could ensure that their tactical orders were seen, as 
  well as to stiffen morale (Gilliver 2007: 12–13). The distinctive transverse 
  crest seems to have been closely associated with centurions, certainly in the 
  Imperial period (27 bc onwards), though there is evidence for its use in the 
  mid-Republican period and perhaps earlier as well.
  On the battlefield the role of a commander was to decide upon his 
  objectives, establish the disposition of his troops, and make his wishes known 
  to his subordinates. Once battle was joined a commander was limited in 
  what he would be able to see, and changes he could make. To overcome these 
  limitations of personal command, success in battle relied on detailed planning 
  as well as the delegation of specific tasks or sections of the army to trusted 
  officers (Sabin 1996: 68–69), and though such dispositions could not always 
  react to the kinetic realities of a battle, they provided a framework within 
  which an army’s commanders understood their leader’s overall objective, and 
  the roles they were expected to play in securing that outcome.
  Carthaginian
  Hannibal was, along with Scipio, among the pre-eminent commanders of his 
  age. He exemplified the role of battlefield generalship in his understanding of 
  the capabilities, as well as the limitations, of his troops, his appreciation of his 
  enemy’s goals and behaviour, and his tactical sense when it came to choosing 
  and using terrain to his advantage. In the heat of battle Hannibal, much like 
  the other Carthaginian generals and their Roman opponents, would have 
  been restricted in what he could do once battle was joined, his direct impact 
  being limited to those men who could see him or receive his orders more or 
  less directly (Sabin 1996: 68).
  A Roman legion’s infantry 
  elements were organized 
  into three main lines (the 
  triplex acies), the first being 
  the hastati (A); the principes 
  (B) made up the second 
  line, and the triarii (C) made 
  up the third and final line. 
  The youngest, and probably 
  poorest men, made up the 
  velites (D), the legion’s light 
  infantry who would deploy as 
  a skirmish line to screen the 
  main body of the legion from 
  the enemy’s light troops. The 
  cavalry element, the equites 
  (E), would operate on the 
  army’s wings. Each of the 
  three main lines of infantry 
  was divided into ten maniples 
  of 120 men each (60 for the 
  triarii), allowing the relatively 
  shallow Roman lines much 
  flexibility both in manoeuvring 
  on the battlefield and in 
  sustaining the pressure on an 
  enemy line when engaged in 
  combat. Each legion had an 
  associated allied contingent, 
  an ala, that presumably 
  matched it in terms of 
  composition and organization 
  (though with double the 
  number of cavalry), allowing 
  Roman and allied units to 
  manoeuvre and fight together 
  coherently.
  E
  E
  A
  B
  D
  C
  
  28
  Much of the most important work, therefore, was done before battle was 
  ever joined; assembling forces, gaining allies, drilling the army for the task at 
  hand, planning campaigns that maximized one’s advantages while thwarting 
  those of the enemy, all of which would nurture the development of a strong 
  strategic position that would give one the best possible chance of victory 
  on the day of battle (Sabin 1996: 77). In the Carthaginian case this was 
  particularly important as the armies were a disparate collection of forces that 
  had their own styles of fighting, their own methods of leadership, and their 
  own reasons for taking to the field of battle on any given day. The great 
  strength of Hannibal (and by extension the other Carthaginian commanders) 
  was in his understanding that it was better to allow such contingents to retain 
  their distinctiveness rather than trying to enforce a uniform standard of arms 
  and tactics upon them. Instead, the Carthaginian model would use each 
  contingent to its best advantage within an overarching tactical approach, 
  something that absolutely required a very high degree of intelligent leadership 
  if it was to work; obviously it was necessary for such a general to be intimately 
  familiar with every contingent in his army, but he also had to command the 
  trust and respect of the leaders of those contingents, making his role as much 
  a political as a military one. Hannibal’s performance at Lake Trasimene is a 
  good example of both excellent planning and the ability to make the most 
  of different troop types with varying tactical styles on the same battlefield at 
  the same time.
  Other major Carthaginian leaders included Hannibal’s brothers, 
  Hasdrubal and Mago, while Hasdrubal Gisco was one of the most important 
  commanders outside the Barcid family. The Carthaginians were also fortunate 
  in having not just very good cavalry, but excellent men to lead them, including 
  Maharbal, Hannibal’s trusted lieutenant, and the North African Masinissa, 
  who made a name for himself in the battles in Iberia before he went over 
  to the Romans in 206 bc. It is likely that the distinct ethnic groupings that 
  made up the Carthaginian army would have been led by their own lords and 
  chieftains, with higher command (over heterogeneous groups of infantry and 
  cavalry, special detachments, or large tactical units such as the wings of an 
  army) being exercised by Hannibal’s proven lieutenants.
  If they were available the 
  front of a Carthaginian army 
  would be screened by a line 
  of elephants (A) positioned 
  around 30m from one another, 
  the gaps between them 
  filled with light infantry (B) 
  who were usually some 
  combination of Iberian caetrati, 
  Balearian slingers and Celts 
  (drawn from Celto-Iberian 
  or Gaulish tribes). The main 
  line of infantry (C) would be 
  composed of Iberian scutarii, 
  Gauls and Libyo-Phoenician 
  spear- or pike-armed heavy 
  troops, divided by nationality 
  (for example the line might be 
  made up of blocks of Iberians 
  alternating with Gauls and 
  both ends anchored by the 
  Libyo-Phoenicians, as at 
  Cannae). Such dispositions 
  were necessary where there 
  was no consistency between 
  the training or tactics of each 
  national contingent. The 
  cavalry (D), a mix of Gaulish, 
  Iberian and Numidian units, 
  would be positioned on the 
  army’s wings. The significant 
  victories enjoyed by Hannibal 
  in the early stages of the war 
  were not so much a result of 
  how his army was composed 
  but rather a consequence of 
  how he utilized it on a grand 
  tactical scale, with detailed 
  planning and the wise use of 
  ground being critical factors in 
  the successes he enjoyed.
  B
  D
  D
  A
  B
  A
  B
  A
  B
  A
  B
  A
  B
  A
  B
  C
  C
  C
  C
  C
  C
  C
  
  29
  BACKGROUND TO BATTLE
  As the winter of 218/217 bc drew in its horns, Hannibal, victor of Ticinus 
  and the Trebia a few short months beforehand, had a decision to make. The 
  trials he and his army had endured on their march from Iberia had been 
  rewarded with new Gaulish allies and the destruction of a Roman army, but 
  there was much still to do before his enemy of choice would lie broken before 
  him. His strategy was designed to prise Rome’s allies throughout Italia from 
  its grip, denuding Rome of the manpower, money and strength that it would 
  need to have any chance of defeating him. He aimed to accomplish this 
  through a mixture of battlefield victories that undermined Rome’s military 
  capabilities, as well as by an ongoing provocative political campaign to try to 
  cajole Rome’s allies from its side.
  Hannibal’s overthrow of the consular legions sent against him at the Trebia 
  had spurred a naturally aggressive Roman reaction, with two new armies sent 
  out to thwart any attempts he might make to strike towards central Italia 
  – the first, led by Gaius Flaminius Nepos, marched to Arretium (Arezzo), 
  the second, under Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, was further to the east on the 
  other side of the Apennines, taking up position at Ariminum (Rimini), both 
  well-established by the beginning of spring 217 bc. Flaminius could block 
  Hannibal if he tried to move south into Etruria (Tuscany), while Servilius 
  could contain any move he might make down the eastern flank of the 
  Apennines towards the Adriatic coast.
  Hannibal was well aware that he could not rest on his newly won laurels. 
  To prosecute his war effectively he had to move deeper into Italia and force 
  the issue, making the Romans dance to his tune. His most obvious options 
  were to move on Ariminum before hooking west into the Metaurus valley 
  Lake Trasimene
  June 217 bc
  
  30
  which would lead him out into the Tiber valley. The problem with such a 
  plan was the length of time it would take, time that would most likely allow 
  the two consuls opposing him to bring their armies together and face him 
  with numerical parity. The alternative, which Hannibal chose, was to cross 
  the Apennines at a more northerly latitude and then strike south, a more 
  provocative move as it was not only faster but it positioned him to become 
  a direct threat to Rome. The journey, carried out in harsh spring weather, 
  proved gruelling for Hannibal as well as his army, costing him an eye due to 
  an untreated infection, but soon enough he and his men were through the 
  worst, taking a few days to recuperate at Faesulae (Fiesole). If there was a time 
  for Flaminius to have attacked Hannibal with some chance of success, this 
  was probably it, with his army (and Hannibal himself) worn and tired from a 
  gruelling trek through icy mountain passes and chilling swamps, but there is 
  no record of Flaminius even realizing that his enemy was barely 80km away 
  – a reconnaissance failing that, in light of what was to follow, does not seem 
  so strange (Lancel 1999: 92).
  In short order Hannibal’s army had recovered its vigour and set off down 
  into Etruria, burning and despoiling all that lay in its path. By all accounts 
  Hannibal’s behaviour was a calculated act of aggression designed to provoke 
  a reaction from Flaminius, an unusual, impetuous man. The Roman’s actions 
  throughout the Trasimene campaign earned him a great deal of opprobrium 
  from the Greek and Latin historians who recorded his endeavours in later 
  ages, some of it no doubt as a result of his calamitous failure, but also perhaps 
  in part because he did not fit the mould of a great patrician. His family had 
  no significant standing in Rome, and his reputation was as something of a 
  demagogue, rousing the people to help him get what he wanted in exchange 
  for populist measures such as land distribution and building programmes, but 
  in the febrile world of Roman politics it is extremely difficult to come to a 
  fair judgement about such behaviour, every act being interpreted any number 
  of ways (many of them malicious) by others for their own particular ends. 
  What does seem certain is that Flaminius lacked the military experience of 
  his fellow consul Servilius, and was either impetuous, arrogant or both; his 
  An Iberian buckle and 
  plate, dated to around the 
  5th century bc. The broad 
  leather belts with their 
  large buckles and plates are 
  one of the most distinctive 
  identifying features of 
  Iberian culture, and seem to 
  have been widely worn by 
  light infantry, and perhaps 
  also by heavy infantry (as 
  always when dealing with 
  such ancient artefacts, 
  supposition takes over where 
  supporting evidence is scant). 
  (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
  www.metmuseum.org)
  
  31
  actions leading up to the battle at Trasimene bear out such a view. In the event 
  Hannibal’s rampage through the countryside was the goad that set Flaminius 
  after him.
  There were several advantages for Hannibal in getting the Roman army to 
  break camp and try to hunt him down. First, though it might take Servilius 
  some time to march to Flaminius’ aid, he was presumably on his way, so 
  any strategy that drew the two forces further apart was obviously beneficial. 
  Second, the Carthaginians did not operate from fixed depots and supply 
  lines, preferring instead to live off the land as they went. The advantages 
  of such a method of feeding one’s force were the flexibility of movement it 
  usually afforded, as well as no need to garrison supply routes or to worry 
  about the enemy cutting them; the main disadvantage was the need to keep 
  moving – it did not take long for an army of 50,000 men together with 
  thousands of horses and pack animals to strip an area bare. Third, by drawing 
  Flaminius out Hannibal could retain the strategic initiative, giving him more 
  and better opportunities to exploit than if he were to let Flaminius come to 
  him (Goldsworthy 2006: 185).
  In the event Flaminius had little luck in pinning his enemy down. 
  Hannibal moved southwards, apparently heading towards Rome; Flaminius 
  closed the distance between them, the two forces eventually being less than 
  a day’s march from one another. Moving past the town of Cortona, the 
  Carthaginians made a surprising turn to the east, taking then in the direction 
  of Lake Trasimene, drawing the eager Romans in their wake, eventually 
  slipping through the defile by Borghetto. Flaminius, following closely, opted 
  to make camp near the entrance to the defile in anticipation of continuing 
  his pursuit the following day.
  A belt clasp made in the Iberian 
  peninsula, 2nd century bc. This 
  bronze and silver buckle is 
  unusual in that both its top and 
  bottom plaque are preserved, 
  along with remains of the iron 
  rivets used to attach it to a 
  leather belt. Small figurines 
  show warriors wearing similar 
  clasps, suggesting this was 
  designed for use by a soldier. 
  It is typical of a type of buckle 
  produced in the central plain 
  region of the Iberian Peninsula, 
  where silver is found in the 
  Sierra Morena mountains. In 
  design it is closely related to 
  engraved examples of artwork 
  found in Andalusia in the south-
  west of Spain. Opposing spirals 
  were a popular motif in Celtic 
  art and were often combined 
  with concentric circles on 
  buckles such as this one. The 
  design was created by carving 
  out a pattern on a bronze 
  panel, and then hammering 
  a thin sheet of silver into the 
  indentations. (Metropolitan 
  Museum of Art, www.
  metmuseum.org)
  
  32
  1 At 7am, Flaminius breaks camp, his legions forming 
  column and marching towards what they assume to be a small 
  Carthaginian rearguard set upon some high ground several 
  kilometres to the east. The force passes through a narrow 
  defile into a shallow basin of ground surrounded by high 
  wooded hills on one side and Lake Trasimene on the other.
  2 Hannibal springs his trap, attacking the column at 
  its head, its rear, and all along its flank in a series of 
  simultaneous assaults that take Flaminius and his men 
  completely by surprise. The Romans are unable to deploy, with 
  the general confusion compounded by the dense mist making 
  it impossible for the commanders to know what is going on or 
  to provide one another with mutual support.
  3 The majority of the Roman line disintegrates; the rear of 
  the column is driven into the lake and destroyed, while the 
  main body of the force is broken down and overwhelmed.
  4 Some 6,000 Romans from the head of the column drive 
  through the ambush, unwittingly freeing themselves from the 
  catastrophe developing behind them. They take refuge in a 
  village a few kilometres distant, but are soon surrounded and 
  forced to surrender.
  Lake Trasimene, 217 bc
  Battlefield environment
  The battle took place on the northern shore of Lake Trasimene 
  in the early summer, the mist still lying heavy on the earth as 
  the Romans marched obliviously along the low ground into 
  their ambush. Polybius and Livy do not agree on the exact 
  location of the battle, though most modern historians are 
  certain that it took place on the northern shore in the basin 
  known as Sanguineto; the hills remain more or less as they 
  were (aside from construction), but the lake’s shoreline has 
  changed considerably over the centuries, with opinions varying 
  as to the level of the waterline (and thus the actual size of the 
  battle space) at the time of the ambush (Fields 2017). Along 
  the Roman left flank (to the north) the ground rose up into a 
  semicircle of heavily wooded hills split by winding valleys 
  and pathways, while the right flank (to the south) ran down to 
  patches of marshland and the shore of the lake. Directly ahead 
  of the Roman line of march rose a high spur of land (the location 
  of the modern town Tuoro sul Trasimeno), which Hannibal had 
  manned with infantry, making it the left wing of his deployment. 
  The battlefield that developed along the roadway would likely 
  have been made up of scrubland, smallholdings and their 
  accompanying fields, with no significant defensible structures 
  or terrain.
  An image of the northern shoreline of Lake Trasimene (Lago Trasimeno), showing the stretch of land that was the likely site of the 
  destruction of Flaminius’ army. The Romans entered from the left in column, unaware of Hannibal’s men who were hidden among the 
  wooded slopes in the foreground. The town on the right of the picture (Tuoro sul Trasimeno) is the probable location of Hannibal’s left wing, 
  the scene of the only successful Roman action on that day. (Tom Bennett/Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)
  
  33
  N
  0
  500yd
  0
  500m
  Borghetto
  Lake Trasimene
  Deﬁle
  H
  J
  I
  K
  K
  K
  K
  K
  L
  L
  L
  M
  Roman camp
  Roman forces
  A  Flaminius
  B  Extraordinarii
  C  Ala dextra
  D  Legio I
  E  Legio III
  F  Ala sinistra
  G Baggage
  Carthaginian forces
  H 
  Hannibal
  I 
  Libyo-Phoenicians
  J 
  Iberians
  K 
  Light infantry
  L 
  Gauls
  M Numidian cavalry
  F
  E
  G
  D
  C
  B
  A
  G
  G
  2
  4
  2
  2
  3
  1
  
  34
  OPPOSITE 
  A drawing of a gladius 
  Hispaniensis found on the 
  island of Delos, Greece, 
  dating from the 1st century bc. 
  It retains its scabbard and 
  the associated fittings. The 
  gladius proved to be a highly 
  effective weapon, excellently 
  suited to legionary infantry 
  tactics and intimidating for 
  Rome’s foes, as noted by Livy: 
  ‘those who, being always 
  accustomed to fight with 
  Greeks and Illyrians, had 
  only seen wounds made with 
  javelins and arrows, seldom 
  even by lances, came to 
  behold bodies dismembered 
  by the Spanish sword, some 
  with their arms lopped off, 
  with the shoulder or the neck 
  entirely cut through, heads 
  severed from the trunk, and 
  the bowels laid open, with 
  other frightful exhibitions 
  of wounds: they therefore 
  perceived, with horror, against 
  what weapons and what men 
  they were to fight’ (31.34.4). 
  The gladius was an excellent 
  all-round weapon, but it was 
  most effective when used in 
  conjunction with a scutum; for 
  a legionary in formation, its 
  ability to deliver short, deadly 
  thrusts allowed the wielder 
  to make the most of the 
  protection his shield offered, 
  limiting his exposure to his 
  opponent’s blows while still 
  being able to drive home his 
  own attack. (M.C. Bishop)
  INTO COMBAT
  The army that Flaminius fielded was of the standard consular type – two newly 
  raised legions (legio I and legio III, made up from fresh levies of soldiers mixed 
  with the remains of the consular armies that had survived the Trebia), with 
  two alae as well – perhaps 25,000–30,000 men in all, of whom perhaps 1,800 
  were cavalry. The fact that the legions were fresh should not unduly prejudice 
  our view of their performance; certainly there would be many new recruits, 
  but plenty of the men who filled out the ranks of the principes and triarii 
  would undoubtedly have served in previous campaigns, and the more callow 
  members (found in the hastati and the velites) would still have had a serious 
  amount of training before they even joined their centuries. The nominal 
  strength of a fully manned legion was 4,500 legionaries, with 300 cavalry 
  (5,400 men with 600 cavalry for an ala), though such numbers undoubtedly 
  varied on campaign. There may well have been extra troops in the form of 
  volunteers eager to accompany the army so as to be in on the victory, though 
  they were probably Latin or Italian socii in origin rather than Roman.
  The core of Hannibal’s army were his Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry, 
  probably numbering around 8,000–12,000 men, supported by levies of 
  Iberian scutarii; he also had considerable numbers of light troops, including 
  more Iberian levies in the shape of javelin-wielding caetrati, as well as Balearian 
  slingers. The various clans of the Gauls made up a significant number of his 
  infantry and cavalry (somewhere around 20,000 foot and 5,000 horse – half 
  his army – from tribes such as the Insubres and probably the Boii, among 
  others), with his remaining horse comprised of Iberians and his contingent 
  of Numidians, splendid North African light cavalry, all commanded by 
  Maharbal. His total force numbered somewhere around 50,000 men, 10,000 
  of whom were mounted, offering a significant advantage, especially in cavalry, 
  over Flaminius’ army.
  The Carthaginian actions in the days leading up to the battle are suggestive 
  of an army looking either to outmanoeuvre its foe or to engage him in battle. 
  Hannibal most likely wanted a fight, and quickly at that, bearing in mind the 
  whereabouts of Servilius, which was an unknown factor and significant threat. 
  With something like double Flaminius’ strength Hannibal was well able to 
  join battle with the Romans almost whenever he pleased, but he refused to 
  do so; the Carthaginian was wary of unnecessary combat that would diminish 
  his finite reserves of manpower, and a pitched battle, even with such good 
  odds, would likely still prove to be a very costly affair. Attempting to tip 
  the odds further in his favour was a natural and understandable way to 
  proceed, especially if he could find a scenario to maximize the benefit of 
  his own numbers while diminishing that of his opponent. It is possible that 
  while he had Flaminius on the line Hannibal played for time, looking for 
  an opportunity where he could force an engagement on the best possible 
  terms, which he certainly seemed to find in the ambush site on the northern 
  shores of Lake Trasimene. How long he might have known about the area, 
  or when he decided that it would make the perfect trap in which to catch his 
  hungry pursuer, will always be a matter of speculation. Irrespective of when 
  he made the decision, the ground he chose was extremely promising for what 
  he had in mind.
  
  35
  Livy describes the approach that the Romans would have to take to get 
  at Hannibal, the ground being ‘a place formed by nature for an ambuscade, 
  where the Trasimenus comes nearest to the mountains of Cortona. A very 
  narrow passage only intervenes, as though room enough just for that purpose 
  had been left designedly; after that a somewhat wider plain opens itself, and 
  then some hills rise up’ (22.4.2). Hannibal had made his main camp on those 
  hills, displaying ranks of his Libyo-Phoenicians and Iberians so that they 
  could be seen with ease by any force approaching along the northern shore 
  of the lake, a glittering fishhook for Flaminius. The head of the valley was 
  stopped with Hannibal’s heavy infantry; he took his light troops including 
  the Balearic contingent together with his Gaulish allies and concealed them 
  in the wooded ravines and hills that overlooked the northern side of the road 
  (the light troops on the eastern side, with the Gauls in the centre and on the 
  left). To complete the deployment he placed Numidian and Iberian cavalry 
  close to the mouth of the defile, well-concealed behind nearby hillocks, their 
  role being to slam shut the door on any possible escape route for the Roman 
  column, ensuring the legions could not go back the way they had come in.
  Flaminius, sure that he was marching to catch an enemy doing its best to 
  flee, does not seem to have considered any other option. He had been dogging 
  Hannibal’s footsteps for several days without ever coming close enough to 
  force an engagement, but now it must have seemed to him that his enemy was 
  just within his grasp. The Carthaginian campfires that burned through the 
  night in open view would surely have given any sensible commander pause, 
  especially considering the occluded nature of the terrain awaiting any army 
  that might try to advance upon them, but for whatever reason Flaminius had 
  made a fundamental mistake: he failed to understand that his army did not 
  have the initiative, merely the appearance of it.
  The next day (21 June according to Ovid) the Romans broke camp early, 
  setting out at around 7am; the sun was up. The way ahead was dominated 
  by a thick and persistent mist that obscured much from view, but which 
  receded on the upper slopes of a series of hills a little over 3km due east. There 
  Flaminius could see unmistakable ranks of Carthaginian soldiers, a rearguard, 
  he must have assumed, set upon the high ground to further delay his pursuit 
  of Hannibal’s main force. Though neither Polybius nor Livy give a description 
  of the Roman column of march at Trasimene, elsewhere Polybius does give 
  an example of how such a column should be disposed: first would come 
  the extraordinarii (the best troops drawn from the alae), followed by the ala 
  dextra (the allied legion of the right wing) and its baggage, then legio I and its 
  baggage, then legio III and its baggage, then the baggage of the ala sinistra (the 
  allied legion of the left wing) which itself comes last, forming the rearguard. 
  Cavalry would ride either at the rear of their respective units or with the 
  baggage animals to help keep them together and protected (Fields 2017: 73).
  Marching on the track that ran close to the shore of Lake Trasimene, 
  Flaminius and his army filtered through the narrow defile at the western end 
  of the road and into the broader fields that lay beyond; the Carthaginians 
  stood out clear in the near distance, their ranks waiting on the high clear crest 
  of the hills that lay directly in the Roman line of march. As the long column 
  of the army snaked its way between the rough wooded hills on one side and 
  the broad expanse of the lake on the other, fully entering the shallow basin of 
  
  36
  ground that preceded the heights on which their brazen foe waited, Hannibal 
  watched. The moment that the leading elements of the extraordinarii came 
  into contact with his Libyo-Phoenician and Iberian veterans, he gave the 
  order to attack, determined to deliver ‘an assault upon the enemy at every 
  point at once’ (Polybius 3.84).
  All along the length of the Roman column’s left flank Gauls, Iberians and 
  Balearians came boiling out of the dense banks of mist and hurled themselves 
  on their stunned enemy; the head of the column found itself under attack 
  as well, with the rear echelon set upon by waves of Carthaginian horsemen 
  who seemed to have appeared from nowhere. The shock of the attack was 
  amplified by the dense mist that made it impossible for the centurions and 
  tribunes to have any clear idea of what was happening, or where, leaving 
  them unable to organize any coherent defence or to support those parts of 
  the column that were under the most serious attack. The individual units 
  within the column had no time to organize even a rudimentary deployment, 
  denying the Romans one of their most significant tactical advantages and 
  allowing the wild individualistic character of Gaulish warfare to show itself 
  to best effect. The ferocity of the attack was compounded by the showers of 
  javelins and slingshot that must have rained down on the densely packed 
  groups of legionaries, targets that were impossible to miss, as well as by the 
  depredations of the Numidian and Iberian horseman who were tearing at the 
  column’s hindquarters.
  The situation was particularly dismal near the defile, where the nimble 
  Carthaginian horsemen had blocked any retreat. Unable to advance or fall 
  back and with no space to execute any sort of deployment, all sense of cohesion 
  disintegrated, with many of the legionaries fleeing into the deceptively safe 
  waters of the lake:
  some in their frantic terror endeavoured to swim with their armour on, and 
  presently sank and were drowned; while the greater number, wading as far as 
  they could into the lake, remained there with their heads above water; and when 
  the cavalry rode in after them, and certain death stared them in the face, they 
  raised their hands and begged for quarter, offering to surrender, and using every 
  Gaius Flaminius Nepos
  Flaminius does not emerge well from the accounts of 
  Livy and Polybius, and there seems little doubt that his 
  tactical and strategic leadership was a significant factor 
  in the disaster at Trasimene, but like other men of his 
  position such military responsibilities were indivisible 
  from his civic duty. He was a novus homo – a ‘new 
  man’, the first of his family to rise to the Senate – who 
  enjoyed a controversial but apparently popular and 
  certainly successful political life, being elected consul 
  twice. Though portrayed as a demagogue who rode 
  to his political victories on the backs of the plebs, it is 
  highly unlikely that he could have risen so far and so 
  fast without patronage from some of the more powerful 
  factions in Roman high society. Though his martial 
  inexperience is cited as a reason for his failure against 
  Hannibal, he had led an army over the Po River and 
  defeated the Gaulish Insubres in battle in 223 bc, and 
  bearing in mind the Roman attitude to personal valour 
  and military experience it does not seem likely that he 
  would have been successful in his political endeavours 
  if he was regarded by his contemporaries as excessively 
  rash or incompetent in such a role. In the wake of the 
  obloquy heaped on him by Livy, Polybius and others 
  for reasons that likely extend far beyond his last great 
  military failing, it is difficult to separate the man from 
  the caricature.
  
  37
  imaginary appeal for mercy; but were finally despatched by the enemy, or, in some 
  cases, begged the favour of the fatal blow from their friends, or inflicted it on 
  themselves. (Polybius 3.84)
  Of the Roman and allied horsemen no mention is made in Livy or Polybius, 
  even though several thousand of them must have been trapped in the ambush 
  with the rest of the army. It is probable that, if they were split up among the 
  various sections of the column as was the common practice, they were quickly 
  hemmed-in just as the infantry were, with even less room to manoeuvre or 
  to organize themselves, failing to fight back or take the chance to break out.
  Flaminius was somewhere near the centre of the column when the 
  hammer fell, most likely riding with legio III, no doubt doing his best to 
  salvage something from the nightmare that was rapidly developing around 
  him. Livy gives a dramatic (if possibly romanticized) account of his fate. The 
  consul was at the heart of the fiercest fighting, personally leading bands of the 
  strongest legionaries into the most desperate parts of the fray to keep his hard-
  pressed men from cracking, exhorting them to stand fast and fight because 
  only martial valour could save them, not wails and prayers to the gods, but 
  despite his best efforts the roiling confusion of the battle drowned out all his 
  pleas and attempts to assert command. His own men may have had difficulty 
  heeding him, but his distinctive armour signalled his status to friend and foe 
  alike, and he soon became the focus of repeated severe attacks, only kept at 
  bay by the exertions of some of his veteran soldiers. Into this maelstrom came 
  an Insubrian horseman named Ducarius who recognized Flaminius as the 
  man responsible for much suffering among his people during a campaign he 
  had conducted through the tribal lands six years previously. Setting his heels 
  to his horse’s flanks, Ducarius charged through a throng of triarii, first killing 
  Flaminius’ armour-bearer before coming down on the consul himself, running 
  him through with a spear and thus ending his part in the battle. One account 
  had Ducarius hacking off Flaminius’ head and bearing it aloft in triumph, 
  much to the dismay of those who saw it. For Polybius the end was rather more 
  prosaic, with Flaminius ‘in a state of the utmost distress and despair’ (3.84), 
  set upon and cut down by a band of Gauls. Hannibal searched for the consul’s 
  Maharbal
  Hannibal’s most important cavalry commander in the 
  early years of the Second Punic War, Maharbal made 
  important contributions to Carthaginian success on 
  the battlefield, having been with the army at least 
  since the siege at Saguntum in 219–218 bc. The son 
  of Himilco (possibly a descendant of the Magonid 
  dynasty, an important Carthaginian family whose 
  great days were long behind them), his date of birth 
  is unknown. At Trasimene his cavalry, fresh from the 
  field of battle, hunted down and captured the Romans 
  who had escaped the worst of that day’s bloodshed, a 
  feat he followed up in even more spectacular fashion 
  shortly afterwards. Gnaeus Servilius Geminus’ army at 
  Ariminum had dispatched Gaius Centenius with a force 
  of 4,000 horse in support of Flaminius, unaware of the 
  disaster that had befallen the Roman commander and 
  his men. Upon hearing of this new force, Hannibal sent 
  Maharbal with a combined force of cavalry and light 
  infantry to intercept it, which he did in what was almost 
  a miniature repeat of Trasimene, killing half the Romans 
  in the initial encounter and pursuing the rest before 
  capturing them the next day. He may well have been 
  at Cannae (Livy and Appian think so, but Polybius does 
  not mention him). The last mention of Maharbal is at 
  the siege of Casilinum at the end of 216 bc, after which 
  nothing more is known of him.
  
  38
  body after the battle, intent on 
  giving it a proper burial, but 
  stripped and no doubt mutilated 
  as Flaminius then was, it was 
  impossible to pick him out from 
  the thousands of bodies that lay 
  beside him.
  The loss of their leader would 
  certainly have had a debilitating 
  effect on the legionaries who 
  witnessed his demise, but in such 
  a ferocious and confused fight 
  the death of Flaminius almost 
  certainly went unnoticed by all 
  but those nearest to him. Even 
  had he survived Ducarius’ attack 
  there would have been little he 
  could have done to save his army 
  from its fast-arriving fate. The careful order of the triplex acies was nowhere to 
  be found as the cohesion of the column distorted and began to splinter under 
  the fury of the Gaulish warriors and their long, slashing swords; individual 
  legionaries could not even make out their own standards, let along their place 
  in the line, with many no doubt also still burdened by their marching packs. 
  The constant clamour of fighting mingled with war cries, screams and the 
  sounds of weapons hammering down on heads, arms and bodies, all in one 
  great disorganized mass, likely led to not just fear but terror in men who drew 
  strength from knowing their place, from sleeping and drilling and fighting 
  in the same way with the same set of men from their contubernium, shoulder 
  to shoulder.
  Attempts at escape were confounded because it was impossible to know 
  which way to go, with apparent openings suddenly closed off by a sudden 
  burst of fighting, or blocked by groups of men coming back who had already 
  tried and failed to get away. Livy observed that
  After charges had been attempted unsuccessfully in every direction, and on 
  their flanks the mountains and the lake, on the front and rear the lines of the 
  enemy enclosed them, when it was evident that there was no hope of safety but 
  in the right hand and the sword; then each man became to himself a leader, and 
  encourager to action. (22.5.6–7)
  Such individual endeavour was hardly unknown in Roman warfare, which 
  paid particular attention to the glories that a man might win for himself 
  on the field of battle, but Trasimene, in the space of a few short hours, was 
  turning from a battle into a massacre in which personal prowess counted for 
  very little. The remnants of cohesion that held the column together began to 
  give way entirely, with men breaking away in wild panic and running blindly 
  in any and every direction, tumbling over one another in their desperation 
  to get clear of the killing field, but there was nowhere to go. Now it was just 
  a matter of time.
  A bronze Montefortino-type 
  helmet with cheek-guards, 
  Etruscan, late 4th century bc. 
  Probably inspired by Celtic 
  prototypes, Montefortino-
  type helmets were especially 
  popular in Etruria from the 
  4th to the 2nd centuries bc. 
  The commanders of armies 
  in the classical period were 
  well aware that appearance 
  mattered. The Greek writer 
  Onasander, discussing the 
  requirements of generalship 
  in the 1st century ad, noted 
  that ‘The general should 
  make it a point to draw up 
  his line of battle resplendent 
  in armour – an easy matter, 
  requiring only a command to 
  sharpen swords and to clean 
  helmets and breast-plates. 
  For the advancing companies 
  appear more dangerous by 
  the gleam of weapons, and 
  the terrible sight brings fear 
  and confusion to the hearts 
  of the enemy’ (28). Though 
  Roman arms and armour of 
  the mid-Republican era were 
  likely much more varied than 
  those of the late Republican 
  or early Imperial periods, there 
  was enough consistency for 
  a force to present a coherent, 
  threatening face to an 
  opponent, especially if that 
  force were as well-drilled and 
  -disciplined as the Roman 
  legions were. (Metropolitan 
  Museum of Art, www.
  metmuseum.org)
  
  39
  The soldiers of the Roman vanguard, around 6,000 men in all made 
  up of the extraordinarii and the ala dextra, managed to do what the rest of 
  their column could not – they kept their heads and their cohesion despite 
  the shocking and intense situation in which they found themselves. It was 
  impossible for the vanguard to know what was happening along the rest of the 
  line, though the sounds and screams they heard would certainly have given 
  them a sense of how serious 
  the situation was, and they 
  were in no better a position 
  than any other part of the 
  army to understand the 
  shape of the battle, or to see 
  where their efforts would 
  be best rewarded. In such a 
  circumstance they attacked 
  the enemy they could see, 
  throwing themselves against 
  the Libyo-Phoenician and 
  Iberian heavy infantry 
  that had closed off the 
  road in front of them. 
  They battled forward, 
  pushing the Carthaginian 
  line further and further 
  back until the Romans 
  broke through, emerging 
  onto higher ground; it was 
  only then, looking back at 
  A Montefortino-type helmet 
  (Etruscan, 4th–3rd centuries bc) 
  that would have been a 
  common sight in the mid-
  Republican legion. The helmet 
  has a hemispherical one-piece 
  bowl of cast, hammered, 
  chased, and engraved bronze, 
  which is surmounted by an 
  integral medial knob-shaped 
  finial, and flanged at the rear 
  into a sloped nape guard that 
  slightly flares upward. It is 
  robust, measuring up to 6.3mm 
  in thickness at the rim, except 
  at the rear, where it becomes 
  thinner as the result of having 
  been hammered into a nape 
  guard. There are two bronze 
  rivets with flush heads at each 
  side of the helmet. These retain 
  bronze washers and fragments 
  of bronze hinges on the interior 
  for attaching the cheek-pieces 
  (which are now lost). There 
  similarly is a bronze rivet with 
  a flush head in the middle of 
  the nape guard, which holds a 
  hinged double bronze loop on 
  the interior, for attaching chin 
  straps. (Metropolitan Museum 
  of Art, www.metmuseum.org)
  A bronze helmet of 
  Apulian-Corinthian type, 
  mid-4th–mid-3rd century bc. 
  Such helmets usually sported 
  crests, with many examples 
  having fittings to accept 
  feathers on either side of the 
  dome as well. The eyeholes 
  and nose-guard on Apulian-
  Corinthian helmets were purely 
  decorative, as the fashion was 
  to wear the helmet pushed 
  back on the head. Though they 
  certainly seemed to have been 
  popular in southern Italy in the 
  4th century bc, it is difficult to 
  say how common such helmets 
  may have been in Roman 
  armies by the time of the 
  Second Punic War; the figure of 
  Mars on the Altar of Domitius 
  Ahenobarbus (c.122–115 bc; 
  see page 24) might be wearing 
  an Apulian-Corinthian helmet, 
  but it is damaged and thus 
  inconclusive. (Metropolitan 
  Museum of Art, www.
  metmuseum.org)
  
  40
  the heaving ruin of the army in the clearing mists below, that the true scale of 
  what had happened dawned on them.
  There was no help that could be offered in such a circumstance. The 
  men of the vanguard gathered up their standards and made for a village 
  some kilometres distant, but found themselves pursued through the night by 
  Maharbal’s cavalry as well as some detachments of light infantry. The Roman 
  survivors gained the relative safety of the village, hungry and dispirited, only 
  to find themselves soon surrounded by the pursuing Carthaginians. Maharbal 
  knew that the upper hand was his, and no doubt the exhausted Romans did 
  too; he offered them their lives and, for the non-Romans, their freedom as 
  well if they would but lay down their arms, which they duly did. The defeated 
  men were marched back to the main Carthaginian camp where they were 
  added to the roster of captives, perhaps 15,000 in all. The Romans among 
  them were kept as prisoners, while the Italians were released without ransom, 
  Hannibal stating that he ‘was not come to fight against Italians, but on behalf 
  of Italians against Rome’ (quoted in Polybius 3.85), an act in furtherance of 
  his broader strategy of trying to drive a wedge between Rome and its network 
  of supporting cities and states across Italia. (As an aside, the fact that the 
  vanguard that broke out contained a mix of Romans and allied troops means 
  that the probable layout of a Roman column listed earlier may be reasonable, 
  the extraordinarii being drawn from allied units and given pride of place at 
  the head of the march.)
  The loss of the Roman army was total, with perhaps 15,000 killed and 
  the rest falling into captivity. The Carthaginians had lost around 30 senior 
  officers and 1,500 others (2,500 or more according to Livy), mostly Gauls; 
  the heaps of Roman dead provided a windfall for many of the Carthaginian 
  rank and file, the helmets, mail coats, swords and spears being stripped from 
  their bodies in such numbers as to 
  be able to re-equip whole units, 
  including Hannibal’s veteran 
  Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry 
  phalanxes among others. The shock 
  felt in Rome when news of the 
  defeat came through was palpable 
  in every section of the city, the 
  scale of the catastrophe being too 
  great to hide or belittle with weasel 
  words. In such circumstances the 
  practice was to select a dictator 
  through a quick election – in this 
  instance Quintus Fabius Maximus, 
  soon to earn the sobriquet 
  cunctator (‘delayer’) – to take 
  matters in hand. Over the coming 
  months Quintus Fabius would do 
  exactly that, but in a manner that 
  frustrated his fellow Romans more 
  than it did Hannibal, with fateful 
  consequences.
  A Roman trilobate arrowhead, 
  with a tang to fit into the 
  shaft (as opposed to a socket). 
  The main types of Roman 
  arrowheads discovered 
  through archaeological 
  excavation have been mostly 
  either trilobite or flat-bladed, 
  and would likely have 
  been shot from self-bows; 
  sagittarii (archers) certainly 
  would come to use the more 
  powerful composite bow (both 
  on foot and on horseback), 
  but the chances are that 
  this was after the Romans 
  had engaged in significant 
  military encounters with 
  Eastern armies, from the late 
  Republican period onwards. 
  Sagittarii who served with 
  the legions in the Punic 
  Wars were to be found in 
  the Latin alae rather than the 
  Roman legions proper. (Image 
  courtesy of Kim Hawkins)
  
  41
  BACKGROUND TO BATTLE
  The calamity of Trasimene had focused Roman minds on the threat their state 
  faced. Trebia had been a severe loss, but Trasimene was a humiliating disaster, 
  an offence against the pride of Rome. The man who had stabilized Rome’s 
  fortunes in the wake of that shock, Quintus Fabius Maximus (insulted as 
  ‘the delayer’), had proved himself able to resist the poisonous temptation of 
  engaging Hannibal in battle, but he had not managed to persuade his fellow 
  citizens that such an approach was either effective or honourable. After he 
  laid down his dictatorship a new, more combative strategy rapidly took shape 
  under the new consuls elected in March, Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius 
  Terentius Varro, with the support of most of the citizenry.
  Understanding the seriousness of the situation the Senate authorized the 
  raising of four more legions with their associated alae – an unprecedented 
  doubling of the consular armies. They would be added to the two existing 
  consular armies led by Marcus Atilius Regulus (replaced with Marcus 
  Minucius Rufus by the time of the battle) and Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, the 
  previous year’s consuls, who were currently shadowing Hannibal’s army as it 
  wintered in Geronium in Apulia (near the modern town of Castel Dragonara). 
  The plan was simple enough: the new legions under Paullus and Varro would 
  set out from Rome and join forces with the legions of Atilius and Servilius, 
  whereupon they would take command of all four armies. Each consul would 
  command the entire force on alternate days – a traditionally Roman method 
  of splitting power, but a poor option for Paullus and Varro, two men with 
  very different dispositions and widely varying ideas of how to best defeat 
  Hannibal. Their brief from the Senate was clear: seek out an opportunity to 
  force Hannibal into battle and then destroy him.
  Cannae
  Summer 216 bc
  
  42
  Hannibal’s army left Geronium in early June 216 bc and made straight 
  for Cannae, a ruined citadel 100km distant that served as a grain and 
  food storage facility for the Roman army. His presence there would 
  threaten the food production of the entire region, an act that could have 
  serious consequences for the Roman state that relied upon the harvests 
  from such areas (Healy 1994: 67). Hannibal’s new tactic would allow his 
  army to enjoy all the food it needed while provoking the Romans into 
  sending another force against him – or to fail to do so, thus proving their 
  impotence in the face of his depredations, which would be a potentially 
  disastrous admission for Rome to make in front of its allies. Either way, 
  Hannibal would get something he wanted. His army had come through 
  the winter well, and was still extremely strong despite the fact that he 
  had been campaigning in one form or another for over two and a half 
  years. The addition of the Gauls had been critical as they now made up 
  A bronze torso (Hellenistic 
  or imperial, 2nd century bc–
  2nd century ad). Originally 
  part of an equestrian statue, 
  the figure wears a cuirass of 
  linothorax-type design, this 
  one with pteruges (strips 
  of protective leather) at the 
  shoulder. It is a good example 
  of the sort of highly decorated 
  distinctive personal armour 
  that would be worn by senior 
  officers of either Roman or 
  Carthaginian armies during this 
  period. (Metropolitan Museum 
  of Art, www.metmuseum.org)
  
  43
  the best part of half his army (including a sizeable portion of his cavalry), 
  but he could still rely on the various elements that made up the rest 
  of his polyglot force, namely his Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry, his 
  Balearian slingers, the nimble Numidian horsemen on their wiry ponies, 
  and the Iberians who performed as light infantry, heavy infantry and  
  cavalry too.
  News of Hannibal’s move spurred Paullus and Varro, who quickly 
  readied their new forces and left Rome, probably in late June, heading 
  south-east to liaise with Atilius and Servilius, who had been gingerly 
  shadowing the progress of Hannibal ever since he had vacated his winter 
  quarters. Though the accounts of Livy and Polybius are clear that the 
  consuls did not get along (and they each share a particularly dim view of 
  Varro), both consuls must have considered the kind of strategy they would 
  need to employ if they were to fulfil the wishes of the Roman people. The 
  A bronze cuirass, of Greek 
  or Apulian manufacture, 
  4th century bc. The musculata 
  (‘muscled’) style of cuirass 
  had been fashionable with 
  senior officers and the well-
  to-do since Archaic times, 
  a popularity that continued 
  down into both Roman and 
  Carthaginian armies. The 
  cuirass would be worn over a 
  leather jerkin with pteruges 
  at the shoulder and waist. 
  (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
  www.metmuseum.org)
  
  44
  These drawings depict 
  Republican spearheads and 
  ferrules from Numantia (1, 2, 
  6, 7, 9, 13, 14), Cáceres (3, 5, 8, 
  10, 12) and Caminreal (4, 11), 
  all in Spain. Polybius describes 
  the pilum thus: ‘The wooden 
  shaft of the javelin measures 
  about two cubits [c.924mm] in 
  length and is about a finger’s 
  breadth [c.19mm] in thickness; 
  its head is a span [c.231mm] 
  long hammered out to such a 
  fine edge that it is necessarily 
  bent by the first impact, and 
  the enemy is unable to return 
  it. If this were not so, the 
  missile would be available 
  for both sides’ (6.22.4). (M.C. 
  Bishop)
  army they had at their disposal was the largest that Rome had ever fielded, 
  but it had several shortcomings. It lacked experienced men, so many having 
  been killed or fallen into captivity in the past 18 months. Moreover, the 
  new recruits would likely have been levied from a broader base than was 
  usual, perhaps with the suspension of the property qualification allowing 
  many more men to become eligible for service (Healy 1994: 65), but 
  they might not have the same level of military skill that many propertied 
  recruits would already have attained before they even joined their legion. 
  The new consuls were only elected in March, meaning that the legions 
  they were raising had almost no time at all to train; this may have meant 
  that standard legionary manoeuvres were too complex to perform for such 
  callow troops, especially in the face of the enemy. The cavalry requirement 
  from the alae had been doubled, but that still left a wide gap between 
  the Roman and Carthaginian numbers, not to mention the fact that the 
  Carthaginian force was proven and battle-hardened, which was the case 
  1
  2
  3
  4
  5
  6
  7
  14
  13
  12
  11
  10
  9
  8
  
  45
  with maybe only one-third of the Roman army’s horsemen. Such factors 
  must have been clear to both Roman commanders, and must in turn have 
  influenced their decisions with regard to the eventual deployment of their 
  army. Nevertheless they both seem to have lacked Hannibal’s sense of 
  strategic initiative, his appreciation of the fact that the easiest way to win a 
  battle was to do it before one ever took to the battlefield. The decision of 
  where and how to fight would be Hannibal’s, not theirs.
  The new legions finally all came together around two days’ march away 
  from Cannae. Something like four months had passed since the new consuls 
  had been elected, during which time they had doubled the size of the army and 
  brought it into the field ready for battle, an astonishing feat of administrative 
  and logistical skill. As the vast force began to move towards Hannibal’s army, 
  there was no doubt that both sides were not interested in any more evasions 
  or strategic delays; each wanted the battle, and each hoped that it would be 
  definitive.
  These drawings show (above) 
  pila from Talamonaccio on 
  the coast of Tuscany, central 
  Italy, late 3rd century bc, and 
  (below) pila from Castellruf, 
  Spain, late 3rd century bc. It 
  is difficult to be exact about 
  the design and construction of 
  the pila that legionaries used 
  against Hannibal’s armies, 
  but the essential design – a 
  thin iron shank seated in a 
  wooden haft with square or 
  flanged tangs – would be 
  quite recognizable as the 
  ancestor of those used in the 
  Marian and later Imperial 
  legions. Lighter javelins 
  of a more straightforward 
  socketed design were carried 
  as well, possibly by principes 
  and hastati in addition to their 
  heavier pila, but certainly 
  by the velites, for whom the 
  lighter javelin was the main 
  weapon. (MC. Bishop)
  
  46
  1 The Roman and Carthaginian armies have drawn up for 
  battle at Cannae. After an inconclusive struggle between their 
  respective light-infantry contingents, the Iberian and Gaulish 
  cavalry of the left wing led by Hasdrubal charge the Roman 
  cavalry opposite, overmastering them and routing them from 
  the field.
  2 The Roman legions advance, engaging with the Gaulish 
  and Iberian infantry that make up Hannibal’s main line, 
  gradually forcing them back behind their original starting point. 
  The Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry positioned on both wings 
  of the Carthaginian line turn inwards and attack both flanks of 
  the Roman infantry.
  3 The Numidian cavalry on the Carthaginian right wing 
  charge at the Roman allied cavalry, engaging them. They are 
  joined by Hasdrubal’s returning cavalry, at which point the 
  Roman allied cavalry flee, pursued by the Numidians.
  4 Hasdrubal’s cavalry turn on the rear of the Roman infantry 
  line and launch repeated attacks. The Roman infantry, assailed 
  from all sides, collapse and are destroyed.
  Cannae, 216 bc
  Battlefield environment
  At the time of the battle much of the ground was cultivated for 
  wheat and other cereal crops, mostly grown in a patchwork of 
  large fields, while smaller groves of olives and citrus trees also 
  dotted the landscape. The modern town of San Ferdinando di 
  Puglia was the probable location of Hannibal’s main camp, with 
  the Romans around 8km to the east. The Aufidius (known today 
  as the Ofanto) was not a particularly large river, winding its way 
  in a north-easterly direction towards the Adriatic Sea, but it 
  was enough of an obstacle to make a safe anchor point for the 
  Roman army’s right wing. There is still some uncertainty as to 
  the exact location of the battle, though it is most likely to have 
  been fought on the wide plains to the east of the high ground 
  on which the ruined citadel of Cannae sits. The day of battle 
  was warm and dry, with the well-known local wind, the hot 
  and dusty Volturnus, rising from the south around midday and 
  blowing in the faces of the Romans, which, according to Livy, 
  interfered with their sight and hampered their use of missile 
  weapons while aiding the enemy in the use of theirs.
  A view looking north-east over the plain of the Aufidius (Ofanto) River from the remains of the ancient town of Cannae; the ruined stone 
  pillar that stands to the right was erected as a modern monument to the battle, and is located on the north-western edge of the site. The 
  modern world has put its stamp on the area of the battle (located around 9–13km to the west of the coastal town of Barletta), which is 
  crossed by roads, drainage ditches and the like, though much of the plain through which the Aufidius flowed remains agricultural, as it 
  always was, with plentiful groves of olives and vineyards peppering the terrain. (Healy 1994: 91). The course of the Aufidius has changed 
  over the centuries; at the time of the battle it was possibly closer to the higher ground where the modern town of San Ferdinando di Puglia 
  now sits (located 6.5km to the west of the Cannae ruins, not shown in this image). (De Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  47
  N
  0
  500yd
  0
  500m
  Cannae
  E
  D
  C
  C
  B
  A
  Auﬁdius
  Roman forces
  A  Lucius Aemilius Paullus
  B  Gaius Terentius Varro
  C  Roman cavalry
  D  Roman legions and alae
  E  Velites
  Carthaginian forces
  F Hannibal
  G Gaulish and Iberian cavalry
  H Numidian cavalry
  I Gaulish and Iberian infantry
  J Libyo-Phoenician infantry
  H
  J
  J
  I
  F
  G
  4
  2
  2
  3
  1
  
  48
  INTO COMBAT
  The Roman force at Cannae likely numbered 80,000 infantry and 6,000 
  cavalry of whom 10,000 (one legion and one ala) were left to garrison the 
  main camp, leaving a total force of around 76,000 to take to the field of 
  battle (Daly 2002: 26–29). Polybius makes mention of the fact that many 
  of the new recruits who filled out the new legions were raw levies, unused to 
  the nature of legionary life and practice, and that they had never seen their 
  enemy. All eight of the legions present were 5,300 men strong, 800 more than 
  the usual full-strength mid-Republican legion. This was probably achieved 
  by increasing the century from 60 to 72 men, each of the legions at Cannae 
  therefore being made up of 300 cavalry, 1,520 velites, 1,440 hastati, 1,440 
  principes and 600 triarii. The allied legions were each 5,000 men strong, with 
  a 600-man contingent of cavalry.
  For Hannibal’s army Polybius gives a total strength of 50,000 men (40,000 
  infantry and 10,000 cavalry), not counting a probable additional force of 
  8,000 Gauls who were the camp garrison and therefore did not take part in the 
  battle. The heavy infantry was made up of around 10,000 Libyo-Phoenicians, 
  6,000 Iberians and 16,000 Gauls, while the light infantry numbered around 
  8,000 (made up of Balearian slingers and other light troops). There were 
  10,000 cavalry in total, probably 2,000 of whom were Iberian, 4,000 Gaulish 
  and 4,000 Numidian (Daly 2002: 29–32). The Numidian horse were 
  commanded by either Hanno (Polybius) or Maharbal (Livy). It is impossible 
  to judge the accuracy of the numbers quoted by Polybius or Livy, but it does 
  seem safe to assume that the Roman army outnumbered that of Hannibal 
  by a reasonable degree, which would in part justify their eagerness for battle.
  Eventually the combined Roman army came within sight of the 
  Carthaginian position, setting up their own encampment 8km distant. Paullus 
  was wary of the site, seeing the potential that the broad flat expanse held for 
  cavalry action, but Varro disagreed, Polybius believes through inexperience. 
  Shortly afterwards Varro overruled Paullus again, sending out a reconnaissance-
  in-force to get a better sense of Hannibal’s position, but it was intercepted 
  by a mixed detachment of cavalry and light infantry. Initially the Romans 
  were thrown into confusion by the spoiling attack, but they reorganized their 
  lines and drove the Carthaginians back, the skirmish developing into quite a 
  fight that both sides had to abandon as night approached. The Carthaginians 
  were discomfited by the Roman performance, but the following day Paullus, 
  now in charge, refused to follow up with another incursion, instead splitting 
  the army in two and setting up a new camp on the opposite side of the 
  Aufidius River to protect the Roman foraging parties and threaten those of 
  their enemy. Varro, no doubt, was less than pleased.
  Hannibal knew that a battle was coming, and sought to reassure his men, 
  gathering them round and giving a speech to remind them of all that they had 
  achieved, pointing out that he did not need to make calls on their bravery as 
  they had proven themselves on that score three times since they had crossed 
  into Italia. A fragment of text from the poet Ennius (who lived through the 
  war) has Hannibal exhorting his men to victory with the words: ‘He who will 
  strike a blow at the enemy – hear me! he will be a Carthaginian, whatever 
  his name will be; whatever his country’ (8.276–77). His encouragement had 
  
  49
  the desired effect, rousing the 
  spirits of the camp in anticipation 
  of the fight to come. The next 
  day he established a second 
  camp on the other side of the 
  Aufidius, beginning the process 
  of preparing his army for battle, 
  but the Romans remained in 
  their encampment; Paullus did 
  not want to give battle in such a 
  place and was intent on waiting 
  Hannibal out, knowing that 
  he would have to move soon as 
  his supplies began to run out. 
  Deciding that a bit of provocation 
  was in order, Hannibal sent his 
  Numidians out to harass the 
  Romans as they tried to gather 
  water, an action that enraged 
  many Romans, including Varro.
  At first light the following day 
  Varro, in charge once more, drew 
  the troops of both camps together 
  on the southern bank of the 
  Aufidius and arrayed them for battle angled southwards. The Roman horse he 
  positioned on the right wing anchored by the river, followed by the infantry 
  in a line that was narrower than usual, the spaces between the maniples being 
  closed-up and the maniples themselves reducing their frontage and increasing 
  their depth. The infantry was most likely arrayed in the four consular armies, 
  advantageous for deployment, but due to the location of Varro and Paullus it 
  meant that the two most inexperienced armies were on the flanks (Daly 2002: 
  156). The cavalry of the allies took up position on the left wing, while the 
  velites and their allied equivalents came to the fore, screening the whole army. 
  Paullus positioned himself on the Roman right wing with the cavalry, while 
  Varro was on the left; Minucius and Servilius, the consuls of the previous year, 
  were positioned in the centre with their armies.
  In response, Hannibal detailed his 8,000 Balearian slingers and light 
  spearmen across the river where they acted as a screen for the remainder of 
  his army as it deployed opposite the Romans. On his left wing he positioned 
  the Iberian and Gaulish horse (6,000–8,000 strong) under the command of 
  a Carthaginian general called Hasdrubal, and next to them half his Libyo-
  Phoenician heavy infantry (5,000 strong); next came the Iberian scutarii 
  interspersed with the Gauls (6,000 and 16,000 men respectively), then the 
  other half of the Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry (another 5,000 men); and 
  finally on his right wing the Numidians (4,000 horsemen) led by Hanno, 
  though Livy says Maharbal had the honour. Hannibal together with his 
  brother Mago took up position in the centre of the Carthaginian line.
  Hannibal gave the order to advance, his battle line conforming to the 
  plan he had laid out for it; the Iberian scutarii and Gaulish infantry moved 
  A pair of bronze greaves, 
  Etruscan, 4th century bc. In 
  earlier centuries Carthaginian 
  heavy infantry would have 
  worn breastplates and 
  greaves in much the same 
  fashion as the Greeks, but by 
  the time of the 3rd century bc 
  it seems likely that most 
  of them were wearing 
  the linothorax (a cuirass 
  with shoulder-doubling 
  made from layers of glued 
  linen) as their main form of 
  protection, though still with 
  bronze greaves (Salimbeti & 
  D’Amato 2014: 32). The fact 
  that these troops stripped 
  the Roman dead of their 
  loricae hamatae after the 
  Trebia and Lake Trasimene 
  is a further indication that 
  they wore linothorax armour, 
  as it would be unlikely for a 
  man possessed of a bronze 
  breastplate to relinquish it 
  in favour of a coat of mail. 
  (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
  www.metmuseum.org)
  
  50
  forwards in a shallow echelon, the central units in the lead, with those either 
  side of them staggered back towards the flanks and creating a line in the 
  shape of a crescent, diminishing in depth towards the edges. Polybius notes 
  how strange the line looked as it advanced, the Iberians in their short linen 
  tunics edged in purple next to the rough, wild-looking Gauls, many of them 
  probably shirtless, all behind their wall of large oval shields. The battle began 
  as the two bodies of light troops, the velites of legions in concert with their 
  equivalents from the allies on one side, confronted by Balearian slingers 
  and Iberian caetrati from the other, closed against one another, the struggle 
  quickly devolving into a series of messy and inconclusive skirmishes as such 
  engagements often did.
  Such skirmishes soon gave way to something much more serious as the 
  Gaulish and Iberian cavalry on the Carthaginian left were unleashed in ‘true 
  barbaric fashion’ (Polybius 3.115), charging along the southern bank of the 
  Aufidius until they crashed head-on into the Roman equites. The ground 
  was narrow, with the river to one side and solid walls of infantry to the 
  other, channelling the battle into a confined space that allowed no room for 
  either side to manoeuvre; there were none of the usual niceties of such an 
  engagement with bodies of horse feinting and riding away from one another, 
  or trying to ride around each other’s flanks, the situation forcing them to 
  attack each other face to face. The action quickly descended into a vicious 
  mêlée of hand-to-hand combat, the two forces grappling with one another as 
  the quarters were so close that the horses were practically standing still next to 
  each other, their riders wrestling one another off their mounts and continuing 
  to fight on foot. The Romans resisted well and with vigour, but they were 
  soon overmatched by the violence of the action and suffered many dead, 
  A Roman republican legionary 
  re-enactor pausing for 
  refreshment on a route march. 
  Ancient accounts together 
  with the results of modern 
  re-enactment and analysis 
  suggest that in battle, Roman 
  lines were not tightly packed, 
  giving legionaries space 
  to fight and manoeuvre 
  effectively. When in line 
  a legionary would take up 
  around 0.8–1m of frontage 
  (Daly 2002: 158–60), and he 
  had room behind him too, 
  with enough space between 
  the ranks to allow for the 
  degree of movement required 
  to cast his pilum. At Cannae, 
  as the Roman lines were 
  forced back upon one another, 
  such room to manoeuvre and 
  fight would have become 
  increasingly constricted, 
  and was a probable factor 
  in the transformation of 
  the battle into a massacre. 
  (DEA/C. BALOSSINI/
  De Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  51
  finally breaking and riding headlong back along the river, the Carthaginians 
  in hot pursuit and giving them no quarter.
  As the Roman right wing began to disintegrate under this onslaught, the 
  heavy infantry of the legions moved into action, marching into contact with 
  the Iberians and Gauls of the Carthaginian centre. Paullus, having survived 
  the onslaught, escaped from the pursuit with a small mounted bodyguard 
  and rode to the centre of the Roman infantry line where he thought he 
  could do the most good as it was clear that the day would be decided by 
  the legionaries, and began encouraging his men in their exertions, much as 
  Hannibal was doing on the opposite side. The Punic line staved off the initial 
  Roman assault, fighting well and holding its own for a short time, but soon 
  the disparity between the two sides started to tell. The Iberians and Gauls 
  were spread thinly, their lines lacking depth, whereas the legions opposing 
  them were densely packed, soon becoming even more so as the Carthaginian 
  line started to buckle and fall back. The Romans pushed forwards, the flanks 
  of the infantry line (Paullus’ and Varro’s inexperienced men, perhaps overeager 
  to be a part of the final victory) contracting inwards to add their weight to the 
  great central thrust that was hammering into the centre of Hannibal’s main 
  line. Scenting victory the maniples pushed harder, driving the Gauls further 
  backwards, the resistance crumbling in the face of a giant Roman wedge that 
  had turned a convex line into a concave one.
  By constant pressure the legions were able to push deep into the retreating 
  Carthaginian centre, advancing to the point where the flanks of the Roman 
  main line were now level with the Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry that had 
  been positioned on the wings of the Gauls and Iberians. The Libyo-Phoenician 
  wings wheeled inwards and charged, crashing into both flanks of the Roman 
  line simultaneously. The legionaries, at first flushed with the prospect of 
  victory, realized that they suddenly had another, more serious battle to fight. 
  What was more, their lines were tired from the exertion of battling the Gauls 
  and Iberians, but now they faced fresh, eager enemy troops. The flanks of 
  the Roman lines must have realigned themselves as best they could, though 
  any such manoeuvring would surely have been extremely difficult as they 
  were still engaged to the front, their ranks had been even further constricted 
  by the nature of their advance, and the simultaneous attacks by the Libyo-
  Phoenicians would have denied them the chance to do much more than form 
  impromptu lines of defence to fend off the initial charge. In addition the shock 
  of receiving attacks in both flanks would likely have knocked the impetus 
  out of the Roman front ranks who had been advancing steadily against the 
  retreating Gauls and Iberians, giving those troops time to breathe and regroup 
  before closing with a now-presumably discomfited Roman battle line.
  As the Roman infantry was dealing with this unanticipated crisis the 
  Numidian horse now made their move, charging at the Roman cavalry on 
  the left wing that was commanded by Varro, where despite the fact that 
  ‘from the peculiar nature of their mode of fighting, they neither inflicted 
  nor received much harm, they yet rendered the enemy’s horse useless by 
  keeping them occupied, and charging them first on one side and then on 
  another’ (Polybius 3.116). It is possible that the allied cavalry could have 
  eventually brushed the Numidians aside, but they were soon reinforced by 
  Hasdrubal and his Gaulish and Iberian horsemen, fresh from the bloody 
  
  52
  
  53
  
  54
  The legions under pressure
  Roman view: The flanks of the Roman battle line have 
  been overwhelmed by the determined attacks of Hannibal’s 
  Libyo-Phoenician phalanxes. The Roman lines have become 
  disordered by the crush of combat, the maniples of hastati 
  and principes now intermingled in the confusion, denying the 
  Romans the space they need to manoeuvre and re-form if 
  they are to maintain an effective defence. Despite the critical 
  position of the legionaries they are still fighting back as best 
  they can; much of their morale comes from the example of a 
  bold centurion who exhorts the men around him to keep their 
  nerve in the face of imminent disaster. The Libyo-Phoenicians 
  are pressing forward over ground increasingly littered with 
  Roman dead and dying, cut down where they stood and 
  left where they fell; the mixed lines of hastati and principes 
  are beginning to disintegrate as their maniples and those 
  stacked up behind them are forced ever further backwards. 
  With Carthaginian troops now on all sides such a retreat has 
  nowhere to go, however, and will drive the legionaries into ever-
  tighter groups that give each man precious little space to fight, 
  and no space at all to flee.
  Carthaginian view: The initial attack by the legions drove 
  into Hannibal’s battle line, engaging it along its length and 
  hammering at the Celtic and Iberian troops that defended 
  the Carthaginian centre. Roman determination looked to be 
  rewarded as the Carthaginians started to retreat, slowly at first 
  then faster. But then, at the height of the Roman advance, the 
  Carthaginian line stiffened, while the allied legions on both 
  flanks buckled under sudden assaults by Libyo-Phoenician 
  phalanxes. Confusion turns to panic as sweeping attacks by 
  Carthaginian cavalry on the rear of the Roman line box the 
  legions in, their room to manoeuvre vanishing before they can 
  do anything to stop it. Hannibal’s fist slowly tightens around 
  the Roman battle line, which begins to disintegrate. The Libyo-
  Phoenician phalangites, many armoured in Roman mail shirts 
  stripped from their enemy dead at Lake Trasimene the previous 
  year, advance steadily, the bristling wall of their sarissae forcing 
  back or killing all in their path. A confused mass of legionaries 
  face oncoming Libyo-Phoenicians who already seem to be 
  exulting in the victory that will so soon be theirs, their sarissae 
  lowered as they advance to finish their bloody job.
  
  55
  execution they had committed on the rest of the Roman cavalry by the river. 
  Faced with such odds, the allied horse broke and ran. Hasdrubal, thinking 
  quickly, set the Numidians after the retreating allied cavalry to harry them 
  from the field, while he pulled his own cavalry together and made for the 
  infantry battle to support the Libyo-Phoenicians. The loss of the remainder 
  of the Roman allied cavalry was a serious blow, as such a force could have 
  made a significant difference to the travails of the infantry if it had been 
  able to attack one of the Libyo-Phoenician wings. As it was their flight, 
  understandable as it may have been in the face of such large numbers of 
  enemy cavalry, left the Roman infantry to fend for themselves.
  The Roman legions and their allies were in desperate trouble. The arrival 
  of Hasdrubal was another hammer-blow, his cavalry charging into the rear 
  of the Roman line (which had presumably turned outwards to receive such 
  assaults), launching a series of rolling attacks with squadron after squadron 
  hitting all along the length of the line, causing havoc and confusion among 
  the Roman ranks, encouragement and elation among those of the Libyo-
  Phoenicians. It is likely that the Carthaginian cavalry fell upon the disordered 
  and lightly armed ranks of velites, who would have fallen back through the 
  main line and re-formed at the rear, unwittingly becoming a perfect target for 
  Hasdrubal’s depredations (Daly 2002: 193).
  The legions still held, perhaps in part due to the examples of their tribunes, 
  Servilius and of Paullus, the fate of whom Livy recounts in some (perhaps 
  embellished) detail. Early in the battle Paullus had been seriously wounded 
  by a sling stone, but despite that he did his best to shore up the lines of the 
  legions, stiffening resolve and averting disaster when it threatened. Finally 
  too weak to stay on his horse he dismounted along with his retinue, who 
  endured the wrath of the Carthaginians, frustrated that these men continued 
  to fight on even though their situation was obviously hopeless. The consul’s 
  retinue were gradually cut down, the few remaining survivors dragging their 
  exhausted and badly wounded bodies back onto their horses if they could 
  in an effort to escape, but Paullus remained, overwhelmed and killed by a 
  band of Carthaginians who did not even realize who he was. Servilius too 
  fell about this time, Appian noting that upon the death of those two generals 
  Roman morale started to crack, with men beginning the task of trying to fight 
  their way out.
  As long as the legions could maintain some sort of coherent front, even 
  if that front was now on all four sides, they could hang together and keep 
  the enemy at bay, but that became more and more difficult to sustain as the 
  outer ranks were continually losing men, with those remaining becoming ever 
  more battered and compressed. In addition it is likely that this great mass of 
  men was being showered with javelins and sling stones from the Carthaginian 
  light infantry, causing casualties, confusion and frustration at the Romans’ 
  inability to do anything to defend themselves against such attacks. At some 
  point Roman cohesion must have started to unravel as different units were 
  forced in on one another; officers could call out orders, but their legionaries 
  would have been physically unable to comply, the increasing crush denying 
  them any sort of chance to deploy or manoeuvre, quarters probably becoming 
  so close that they could not even raise their swords to fight. In such a situation 
  eventually panic and despair would have overwhelmed many, but they could 
  
  56
  not even flee, hemmed-in as they were. Individuals and small groups would 
  have continued to fight, no doubt, but by this stage it could not change the 
  outcome, Polybius recounting that ‘at last were all killed on the field’ (3.116).
  The cost in lives lost was terrible, Livy recounting the scene of the 
  battlefield the day after:
  So many thousands of Romans were lying, foot and horse promiscuously, 
  according as accident had brought them together, either in the battle or in the 
  flight. Some, whom their wounds, pinched by the morning cold, had roused, as 
  they were rising up, covered with blood, from the midst of the heaps of slain, were 
  overpowered by the enemy. Some too they found lying alive with their thighs and 
  hams cut, who, laying bare their necks and throats, bid them drain the blood that 
  remained in them. (22.51.6–7)
  As well as the consul Aemilius Paullus, Marcus Atilius and Gnaeus Servilius 
  Geminus, the consuls of the previous year, were both killed, together with 29 
  tribunes, at least 80 men of senatorial rank (or who had senatorial prospects) 
  who had chosen to go along and fight with the legions, and hundreds 
  of equites.
  The vast majority of the Roman cavalry was lost, some 300 or so escaping 
  the depredations of Hasdrubal and the pursuit of the Numidians, while for the 
  infantry only 3,000 of those engaged on the field of battle survived, escaping 
  to surrounding towns and villages, the rest dying on the field. The contingent 
  that Paullus had left to guard the camp was quickly buttoned up by Hannibal 
  in the immediate aftermath of the battle, some 2,000 being killed and the rest 
  going into captivity. Polybius gives the total Roman dead at around 70,000, 
  though Livy is likely more accurate with his estimate of 45,500 foot and 
  2,700 horse dead, 19,300 captured and 14,550 escaped. Varro, commanding 
  the allied cavalry on the left wing, had broken and fled with the rest when 
  they were threatened with being overwhelmed by Hasdrubal. The pursuing 
  Numidians caused great losses among the fleeing horsemen, but Varro was not 
  among them, eventually making it with some 70 others to Venusia (Venosa). 
  Polybius was damning, describing the shame of Varro’s fight as being as big 
  a disgrace to his honour as his conduct in office had been calamitous for 
  his country.
  For Hannibal, the victory was nearly perfect. His losses were acceptable 
  (especially considering the scale of his victory), with Polybius citing 5,700 
  dead and Livy 8,000 dead. Once again he had sought a battle on his terms, 
  and his enemy had obliged him. The destruction of eight legions and their 
  alae was a massive blow to Roman military power and prestige, a blow 
  so great in fact, that it was reasonable to wonder if it could prove fatal. 
  Hannibal’s officers suggested that he and the army should rest after so great 
  a success, but his cavalry commander Maharbal disagreed, saying he should 
  lose no time in moving on Rome itself; he would ride ahead, arriving in the 
  city before they even realized he was on his way. Hannibal, full of joy at 
  his victory, applauded Maharbal’s zeal but equivocated over the course of 
  action he suggested. Maharbal replied, rather pointedly, ‘You know how to 
  conquer, Hannibal; but you do not know how to make use of your victory’ 
  (quoted in Livy 22.51.4).
  
  57
  BACKGROUND TO BATTLE
  Iberia had become a graveyard of Roman ambition since the start of the 
  war against Hannibal. The nominal cause of the conflict was the treatment 
  of the town of Saguntum, an ally of Rome located on the Iberian 
  Mediterranean coast, which was besieged and eventually captured by 
  Hannibal in 219 bc, as part of his consolidation of his base of operations 
  prior to his invasion of Italia. Even without the Carthaginian presence 
  it would have been a difficult land to manage, split as it was between 
  a number of warring, fractious tribes who could, in the old adage, be 
  rented for a time, but never really bought. It was not just the home 
  of truculent local warlords, though, but of the resurgent Carthaginian 
  empire, marked by the founding of Carthago Nova (New Carthage; 
  A Celtiberian dagger in the 
  remains of its iron-framed 
  sheath, Museo Arqueológico 
  Nacional (National 
  Archaeological Museum) in 
  Madrid. The design is similar 
  in some respects to the 
  Roman pugio (which evolved 
  from Celtic dagger designs), 
  but its distinctive ‘antennae’ 
  mark it out as a Celtic piece. 
  (Prisma/UIG via Getty Images)
  Ilipa
  206 bc
  
  58
  modern-day Cartagena) in 228 bc by Hasdrubal the Fair. In the wake 
  of their defeat in the First Punic War, the Carthaginians (in the shape of 
  Hamilcar Barca and his sons, Hannibal, Hasdrubal and Mago) brought 
  much of Iberia under their heel; the new province proved to be a strategic 
  asset of significant importance, providing plentiful silver from its mines 
  and many warlike men from its various tribes, both of which would be 
  crucial in the prosecution of a much-wanted new war against Rome. Iberia 
  also offered a jumping-off point for overland campaigns against Rome, 
  now a necessity since Carthaginian sea power had never recovered from 
  the battering it had taken from the Romans in the previous war.
  After Hannibal had launched his invasion of Italia it became clear that 
  curtailing his ability to receive funds and reinforcements from Iberia would 
  severely hamper his attempts to destroy Roman power, and to that end several 
  attempts were made to wrest control of the province from Carthage; all 
  proved failures to varying degrees, often resulting in military defeat, death and 
  occasional ignominy. Despite such reverses, Roman persistence did make it more 
  difficult for the Carthaginians to provide Hannibal with the men and matériel 
  he needed, their campaigns forcing valuable resources to be spent in Iberia 
  rather than Italia. Into this arena in 210 bc came Publius Cornelius Scipio, who 
  in being appointed to the Iberian command may, in the eyes of some in Rome, 
  have been taking on something of a poisoned chalice. His task – to break Punic 
  power in Iberia, and destroy or expel all their armies – was significant, and was 
  not helped by the fact that Roman expeditions had often been dogged by poor 
  supplies and infrequent drafts of reinforcements, both factors which exacerbated 
  the difficulties inherent in campaigning in a foreign land.
  Though only 24 years old, the Young Scipio was no stranger to the 
  battlefield, having been at Ticinus and the Trebia, possibly also at Lake 
  Trasimene, as well as surviving the catastrophe of Cannae, and he quickly 
  proved to be a potent enemy for Punic forces in Iberia. Described by Polybius 
  as ‘a man eminently careful, acute, and prompt’ (11.25), he was a scion of the 
  Cornelii Scipiones, a well-established patrician family that had already seen 
  several of its members heavily involved in the war against Hannibal in general, 
  and in Iberia in particular; Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus (‘the bald’, his 
  uncle) and Publius Cornelius Scipio (his father) had both been killed in the 
  Roman defeat at the Battle of the Upper Baetis in 211 bc, by an army under 
  the command of Hasdrubal Gisco. Scipio’s first act was dramatic – a surprise 
  march to capture Carthago Nova in 209 bc, a severe blow to Punic pride, 
  as well as a political boon for Scipio in the form of the Iberian hostages that 
  fell into his hands, allowing him to make significant inroads in negotiations 
  with the important tribes of the region. Scipio followed this in 208 bc by 
  moving on Hasdrubal Barca’s army at Baecula (Santo Tomé), forcing him 
  from a well-prepared defensive position that demonstrated once again Scipio’s 
  tactical acumen and confidence. His victory over Hasdrubal Barca was not 
  significant strategically, but it buttressed his growing reputation among some 
  of the Iberian tribes, making it easier for him to win their support.
  Command of the Carthaginian armies in Iberia fell to Hasdrubal Gisco 
  at Gades (Cádiz) and Mago Barca at Cástulo, a town upriver on the Baetis 
  in south-central Iberia. (Hasdrubal Barca had also had an army in the 
  peninsula, but his death at the Metaurus in 207 bc left Iberia in the hands 
  
  59
  of Gisco and Mago.) Hasdrubal Gisco, described by Livy as ‘the greatest 
  and most renowned general concerned in the war, next to the Barcine 
  family’ (28.12), was a highly experienced general who had enjoyed genuine 
  victories over the Romans, and who also possessed the political skills that 
  were an essential part of Carthaginian high command, as the recruitment 
  and management of Punic armies depended in large part on a mixture of 
  alliances, treaties, bribes and threats.
  The year 207 bc saw Hasdrubal Gisco consolidating his positions 
  throughout southern Iberia, while Scipio indulged in some frustrating 
  incursions that came to naught because Hasdrubal Gisco refused to march 
  out onto the field of battle and fight. Hasdrubal Barca, after his defeat at 
  Baecula, had moved his army over the Alps into Italia in an attempt to 
  reinforce his brother Hannibal, but had come to grief at the Battle of the 
  Metaurus, dashing Carthaginian hopes of a decisive victory on Rome’s 
  doorstep. With Hasdrubal Barca’s failure it became necessary to make short 
  work of Scipio if Hannibal was to be once again reinforced and resupplied 
  from the Carthaginian forces in Iberia. As the year turned, Hasdrubal 
  Gisco took the initiative and moved out of his winter quarters at Gades, 
  assembling a significant force with which he intended to overwhelm the 
  Roman upstart, an endeavour which also drew in Mago Barca (Hannibal’s 
  youngest brother) in support. Hasdrubal moved his army into the field, 
  marching northwards until eventually coming to rest a little way past the 
  town of Ilipa (Alcalá del Río) where he made camp on a hillside, digging a 
  defensive entrenchment at the foot of the slope that gave out onto a broad 
  plain ‘well suited for a contest and battle’ (Polybius 11.20).
  A line of re-enactors’ 
  republican legionary scuta. 
  The Roman scutum gave the 
  bearer significant personal 
  protection, and almost 
  certainly had a tactical role 
  in the way that legionaries 
  en masse were deployed and 
  expected to fight, though this 
  was unlikely to have included 
  the traditional ‘pushing match’ 
  that was a characteristic of 
  the older hoplite phalanxes. 
  Roman ranks were spaced 
  to allow for the casting of 
  pila, whereas a phalanx 
  depended on succeeding 
  ranks being able to close up 
  on one another, adding to 
  the forward momentum of 
  the front line’s ‘push’ against 
  their opponents. The scutum’s 
  weight and heavy iron boss 
  made it a useful offensive 
  weapon too, particularly when 
  used in conjunction with the 
  gladius. (DEA/C. BALOSSINI/
  De Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  60
  1 The Carthaginian army, caught off-guard by harassing 
  Roman attacks, forms up with great haste in the same 
  deployment that it has used on each of the preceding days.
  2 Scipio’s Roman legions, positioned on the flanks of his 
  Iberian allies who form the centre of his line, manoeuvre 
  towards the opposing Carthaginian flanks.
  3 Roman legions crash into Hasdrubal Gisco’s Iberians while 
  Roman cavalry and velites simultaneously envelop both the 
  left and right Carthaginian flanks, causing havoc among 
  the elephants and destabilizing the entire Punic line.
  4 Hasdrubal’s Carthaginians are forced back, slowly at first 
  and then in a rout, towards their encampment in the hills. The 
  Roman pursuit is abandoned due to a fortuitous thunderstorm.
  Ilipa, 206 bc
  Battlefield environment
  The site of the battle was bounded on one side by a winding 
  ridge of high ground which ran from Ilipa (the modern town of 
  Alcalá del Río) in a north-easterly direction, and on the other by 
  the course of the Baetis River (the modern Guadalquivir) which 
  followed a roughly parallel north-easterly path to the hills. The 
  Punic camp was located on a spur of the high ground, within 
  sight of the similarly situated Roman camp a little further away 
  to the north-east. The low-lying area where battle was joined 
  would likely have been a mix of farmland and rough ground, 
  though it is impossible to be precise as to the exact nature of 
  the terrain after so many centuries.
  A view of the plains to the east of Esquivel, a modern village 4.5km north-east of Alcalá del Río (ancient Ilipa) in southern Spain. The site of 
  the battle has been the source of some conjecture over the years, but this location is a reasonable prospect due to topographical consistency 
  with the ancient sources (pointed out by the classical scholar H.H. Scullard in the 1930s, augmented by the work of later historians), as 
  well as the fact that it is the only reasonably flat area in the vicinity of the ancient site of Ilipa and the Baetis (Guadalquivir) River that could 
  accommodate an encounter between two armies of such significant size. (Courtesy of Marje and Vincent van Bijnen, www.the-romans.eu)
  
  61
  N
  0
  250yd
  0
  250m
  H
  H
  J
  K
  I
  I
  F
  G
  E
  E
  E
  E
  E
  E
  D
  D
  D
  D
  D
  D
  C
  B
  B
  B
  B
  B
  B
  A
  Baetis
  Roman forces
  A  Scipio
  B  Legion and ala
  C  Iberians
  D  Velites
  E  Cavalry
  Carthaginian forces
  F 
  Hasdrubal Gisco
  G 
  Libyo-Phoenicians
  H 
  Iberians
  I 
  Cavalry (including elephants)
  J 
  Light infantry
  K 
  Entrenchment
  Carthaginian
  camp
  Roman camp
  4
  2
  3
  1
  
  62
  INTO COMBAT
  As always, the exact number of troops in attendance at an ancient battle is 
  difficult to establish with any certainty; for the Carthaginians, Polybius cites 
  74,000 men (70,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry) as well as 32 elephants (Appian 
  says 36), Livy a perhaps more reasonable 54,500 (50,000 infantry, 4,500 
  cavalry). At the heart of Hasdrubal’s force were his Libyo-Phoenician heavy 
  infantry, but he also had considerable numbers of levies that had been drawn 
  from across the Iberian Peninsula, organized and brought to him by Mago 
  Barca. In addition he enjoyed the support of his Iberian allies, including 
  what was most likely a sizeable contingent of the dominant local tribe, the 
  Turdetani, under the leadership of their prince Attanes. The Iberians had 
  heavy-infantry (scutarii) spearmen protected by varying levels of personal 
  armour as well as the large oval shields common to Celto-Iberian cultures, 
  and light infantry (caetrati) who wore little or no armour, protected only by 
  their caetrae, and armed with throwing spears (simple javelins of the usual sort 
  as well as the Iberian saunion – a long, thin all-iron javelin that the Romans 
  called the soliferrum). Also under Hasdrubal’s command was the excellent 
  North African cavalry leader Masinissa, together with his renowned and 
  experienced Numidian horsemen, and possibly some Balearian mercenaries 
  as well, acting as slingers and light infantry.
  For Scipio the army of Romans and allies came to 45,000 infantry and 
  3,000 cavalry, around half of the total force being the two Roman legions 
  and their two accompanying alae, the remainder being made up of Iberian 
  allied tribes. Though his relations with several of the local tribes were very 
  good (they had provided him with important support in his campaigns that 
  led to the victory at Baecula), Scipio well remembered the fact that his father 
  and uncle had relied upon similar alliances only to see their ‘allies’ bought out 
  from under them by Hasdrubal Gisco, a betrayal that severely weakened the 
  Roman position and soon led to the deaths of both Romans. Scipio needed 
  the Iberians, because without them he had no hope of victory in battle against 
  Hasdrubal’s larger force, and yet it would be too great a gamble to rest his 
  hopes of success on such potentially untrustworthy ground. It seems certain 
  that Scipio’s attitude to his local allies played a large part in determining his 
  tactics when it came to facing Hasdrubal.
  Gathering his forces to him as he went, Scipio moved his whole army 
  towards Hasdrubal’s camp, pitching his own camp on a hill opposite that of 
  his enemy. Mago Barca, observing the Romans and their allies as they went 
  about the business of setting up their camp, thought that such activity offered 
  an excellent opportunity for an attack. Mago took the bulk of his cavalry and, 
  in concert with Masinissa and his Numidians, rode for the Roman camp in 
  the expectation of catching Scipio off-guard. Anticipating such a ploy, Scipio 
  had positioned a covering force of cavalry of a similar size in the dead ground 
  between the hills, allowing them to charge the Carthaginian horsemen in the 
  flank as they approached the camp. The result was initial confusion, with a 
  significant part of Mago’s force routed immediately and riding back to their 
  own camp, but a proportion of them closed with the Romans and began a 
  fierce engagement. They were surprised to find themselves overmatched by 
  the Roman horsemen who were soon reinforced by light infantry from the 
  A representation of Masinissa 
  (c.238–148 bc), the commander 
  of the Numidian horse at Ilipa. 
  He was described by Polybius, 
  who knew him personally, 
  as ‘the best man of all the 
  kings of our time, and the 
  most completely fortunate’ 
  (37.10). He had a long and 
  eventful life, the earlier part 
  of which saw him heavily 
  involved in the Second Punic 
  War, initially as a feared and 
  talented Carthaginian cavalry 
  commander in Iberia (he was 
  betrothed to Hasdrubal Gisco’s 
  daughter), and later (after 
  206 bc) as a firm ally to the 
  Romans, in whose cause he 
  fought at Zama. After the war 
  he was rewarded with the 
  kingship of Numidia, enjoying 
  a long life and dying peacefully 
  at the age of 90. (Numidix/
  Wikimedia/CC BY-SA 3.0)
  OPPOSITE
  A 2nd-century bc marble 
  bust of Scipio Africanus. 
  Publius Cornelius Scipio 
  Africanus (236–183 bc) 
  was an extraordinary man 
  who cultivated an image 
  of martial virtue as well as 
  one of cultural depth. His 
  appointment to the Iberian 
  command was unique, as no 
  such post had ever been gifted 
  to a man who had not held 
  public office, and his success 
  there saw him elected consul 
  in 205 bc. The Roman invasion 
  of Africa – an act that would 
  lead to the eventual defeat of 
  Hannibal at Zama in 202 bc, 
  resulting in the surrender of 
  Carthage – was undertaken 
  on his initiative, and earned 
  him the cognomen ‘Africanus’. 
  (DEA / G. DAGLI ORTI/De 
  Agostini/Getty Images)
  
  63
  
  64
  outposts as well as a quickly formed body of legionaries from the encampment, 
  and soon began to fall back, first in an orderly fashion, and then, close-pressed 
  by the aggressive Roman cavalry, in a pell-mell riot of disorder, many of them 
  falling before the remainder gained the safety of their own ground. Though 
  little more than a skirmish in the grand scheme of things, the victory was an 
  important fillip to Roman morale, especially considering the reputation of 
  Carthaginian cavalry in general and Masinissa’s Numidians in particular.
  Such skirmishes between Roman and Carthaginian cavalry and light 
  infantry set the pattern for the next few days, which saw a continuous series 
  of encounters but no decisive actions other than the chance for individuals or 
  bodies of troops to test their mettle against the enemy, a popular pastime in an 
  age when personal glory on the field of battle mattered a great deal. Eventually 
  those inconclusive rigmaroles gave way to a significant demonstration of force 
  by Hasdrubal, who moved his whole army down from his encampment, 
  past his entrenchments and onto the plain where they were drawn up for 
  battle. Scipio, moving off a little later in response, matched Hasdrubal’s 
  movements, deploying his own forces in opposition, ready to fight. And yet 
  nothing happened: ‘both the armies stood drawn up before their ramparts; 
  and as neither party began the attack, and the sun was now going down, the 
  Carthaginian first, and then the Roman, led back his troops into the camp’ 
  (Livy 28.14.2). Hasdrubal had moved off relatively late in the day, perhaps 
  indicating that his deployment was intended more for display than for giving 
  battle, but Scipio matched his inaction. It is possible that Hasdrubal’s lack 
  of initiative stemmed from his force actually being closer to Scipio’s in size 
  (Livy’s 54,500 as opposed to Polybius’ 74,000); without distinct dominance 
  in numbers, and with no obvious tactical advantage to be gained from terrain 
  either, it is understandable that Hasdrubal and Scipio both might have balked 
  at launching an attack on such even terms.
  The following day the same thing happened; Hasdrubal led his army 
  down onto the plain, followed by Scipio in response, where they both waited 
  in the baking sun until the light began to fail and the Carthaginians withdrew 
  to their camp, followed in turn by the Romans. And yet again the day after: 
  ‘Neither party sallied from their posts, nor was a weapon discharged, or a 
  word uttered’ (Livy 28.14.3). Both armies had deployed against each other on 
  successive days as if in compliance with a script, with little or no variation as 
  to overall behaviour or the positioning of individual units. It was Hasdrubal’s 
  habit to have the centre of his line made up of his Libyo-Phoenicians, with 
  his Iberian allies constituting the army’s two wings. The cavalry was split 
  equally and positioned on the edge of either wing, together with the elephants 
  standing like castles (Polybius has them on the wings with the cavalry, Livy 
  studded along the whole battle line), the whole force screened by a skirmish 
  line of light infantry. The Roman dispositions were something of a mirror 
  image: the centre of the line was made up of the two legions and their alae, 
  while both wings were held by Iberian allies; the cavalry were evenly divided 
  and positioned at the extreme end of each wing, while the whole force was 
  screened by a skirmish line of velites.
  Scipio saw an opportunity in this martial theatre. After three days of the 
  same thing, it seemed like a reasonable bet that the Carthaginians would 
  use the same deployment the next day as well. Scipio decided to reverse the 
  
  65
  disposition of his main line, positioning the Iberians in the centre and his 
  legions on either wing. If Hasdrubal deployed as expected, Scipio would have 
  his strongest troops bearing down on Hasdrubal’s Iberians, but to ensure that 
  Hasdrubal played his part Scipio would have to seize the initiative:
  He issued orders through the camp at evening, that the men and horses should 
  be refreshed and fed before daylight, and that the horsemen, armed themselves, 
  should keep their horses bridled and saddled. When it was scarcely yet daylight, 
  he sent all his cavalry, with the light troops, against the Carthaginian outposts, 
  and then without delay advanced himself, at the head of the heavy body of the 
  A Roman bust of a war 
  elephant, from the Staatliche 
  Antikensammlungen (State 
  Collection of Antiquities) in 
  Munich, Germany. Information 
  on Hasdrubal Gisco’s use 
  of his 32 elephants at Ilipa 
  is frustratingly patchy. 
  The traditional method 
  of employment was to 
  place them in front of the 
  main infantry line, spaced 
  about 30m apart with the 
  intervening gaps filled by light 
  infantry of one type or another 
  (Hoyos 2011: 106), where 
  their very presence could 
  induce panic in an attacker. 
  Livy mentions the elephants 
  at Ilipa, standing in a line at 
  the front of the army in the 
  deployments on the days prior 
  to the battle (Livy 28.14.4), 
  while Polybius says nothing 
  of that, instead noting that on 
  the day of battle Hasdrubal 
  had his elephants on the 
  wings with his cavalry (11.24), 
  something confirmed in Livy 
  who notes that the elephants, 
  distressed by the attacks upon 
  them on the flanks, retreated 
  to the centre of the main 
  Carthaginian line (28.15.5). 
  (MatthiasKabel/Wikimedia/
  CC BY-SA 3.0)
  
  66
  
  67
  
  68
  legions, having strengthened his wings with Roman soldiers, and placed the allies 
  in the centre, contrary to the full anticipations of his own men and of the enemy. 
  (Livy 28.14.7–9)
  Scipio’s gambit had the desired effect. The rapid advance of Roman cavalry 
  and velites not long after the sun had broken the horizon landed upon the 
  enemy as a complete surprise; the Carthaginian outposts were overrun and a 
  general sense of alarm spread through the whole camp. Hasdrubal scrambled 
  from his tent, ordering his army to arms at once, dispatching his cavalry 
  and light infantry to keep the Romans at bay while he pulled the rest of his 
  force together to meet this unexpected threat. The Libyo-Phoenicians and 
  Iberians hurried into their arms and, without breakfast, began deploying 
  onto the plain behind a roiling screen of cavalry attack and counter-attack, 
  positioning themselves as they had done each previous day, with Hasdrubal’s 
  main strength in the centre once again, his wings manned by his Iberian allies. 
  Once on the field, Hasdrubal must have soon discovered that the Romans 
  had changed the balance of their line, but he was already drawn up for battle 
  and too close to the enemy to be able to make any change to his existing 
  dispositions without exposing himself to immediate attack.
  Separate battles between the opposing cavalry and light infantry see-
  sawed between the two armies for most of the morning, with neither side 
  developing any advantage; if the fight was going against a particular troop 
  or group of light infantry, they quickly retreated towards the safety of their 
  main line, resting for a time before sallying forth once again to resume the 
  attack. Eventually Scipio gave the signal to retreat, whereupon the cavalry 
  and velites broke off their attacks and pulled back through the intervals in 
  the maniples in his army’s main line, whereupon they distributed themselves 
  into two groups and formed up behind the wings, velites in front and cavalry 
  behind. The whole Roman line then began to advance.
  Scipio himself was positioned on the right wing of the line, his trusted 
  subordinates Lucius Marcius and Marcus Junius Silanus on the left wing, 
  ensuring that the next manoeuvre would be executed exactly as Scipio wished. 
  Each wing was already in the triplex acies pattern when, while still around 
  Skirmishing between the lines
  The light troops of Roman and Carthaginian armies, like those of 
  later ages, often fought their own private battles well forward 
  of their respective forces, trying to gain the upper hand and thus 
  bring their arrows, spears and sling bullets within range of their 
  foe’s main line. On the morning of battle Hasdrubal Gisco’s army 
  has rushed to form up opposite Scipio’s threatening battle line, 
  while Roman velites advance on the Carthaginian force’s screen 
  of light infantry; missiles are exchanged as the two bodies of 
  light troops dart back and forth, and as the morning drags on 
  a series of intense localized skirmishes ensue. At one point 
  the Iberians and Romans have come into contact, sparking a 
  number of fast, vicious hand-to-hand combats. Several velites 
  are casting their light spears (in one case using a coiled string 
  to impart extra accuracy to his throw), while others dodge 
  away from a hurled Iberian saunion (known as the soliferrum – 
  literally ‘just iron’ – to the Romans). Several pairs of combatants 
  are slashing and feinting at one another, while a veles with a 
  wolfskin-decorated helmet catches an Iberian spear-thrust with 
  his shield, batting it away and slashing his gladius at the throat 
  of his foe.
  
  69
  700m from the enemy, the order was given for them to turn (the right 
  wing to the right, mirrored by the left wing turning to the left), effectively 
  transforming the three lines of each wing into three columns (with a column 
  of velites and a column of cavalry as well). The columns advanced outwards 
  left and right before wheeling, still in column, to face the outer edges of the 
  Carthaginian line; resuming their forward advance, their faster pace (columns 
  almost always move faster than lines) meant that they outstripped their own 
  allies in the centre who were still marching forward slowly, line abreast. As 
  they drew close to the Carthaginian wings, both Roman columns wheeled 
  90 degrees inwards, returning to the triplex acies line, while the cavalry and 
  velites wheeled in the opposite direction, swinging around either end of the 
  Carthaginian line.
  The manoeuvre executed by Scipio’s Roman legions has been the source of 
  much historical discussion, some tactical due to the apparently overly complex 
  nature of the movements involved, some linguistic because of difficulties 
  in interpreting Polybius’ exact meaning – for his part, Livy does not give 
  a detailed description of the action. (For those wishing to examine Scipio’s 
  tactical manoeuvres in greater detail, two of the more interesting modern 
  interpretations are those given by the historians Peter Connolly (1998: 199–
  201) and John Lazenby (1998: 147–50).) In any event, Scipio’s intention was 
  to throw his legions against Hasdrubal’s weakest troops on the Carthaginian 
  wings, while his cavalry and light infantry wheeled around the ends of the 
  A bronze ‘Pilos’ helmet, 
  Greek, 5th century bc or later, 
  of the sort that would have 
  been worn by various troops 
  within Hannibal’s armies. This 
  style of helmet was derived 
  from a common brimless 
  travelling cap of similar 
  shape usually made of felt 
  or leather; it was a simple 
  and effective form of head 
  protection, supposedly first 
  popularized by the Spartans, 
  and it became common 
  among various types of 
  Hellenistic foot soldiers. In 
  comparison to the more florid 
  helmets of the Corinthian 
  or Attic style it was light, 
  cheap and quick to produce, 
  and though it offered less 
  protection to the face and 
  neck it allowed the wearer 
  to see and hear unimpeded. 
  (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 
  www.metmuseum.org)
  
  70
  line to achieve a double-envelopment – and that appears to be exactly what 
  happened. Hasdrubal’s best troops, the Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry in 
  the centre of his line, were not yet engaged as the creeping Roman-allied 
  centre had yet to even come within javelin range, but they could offer no help 
  to the beleaguered Iberians on their left and right as that would expose them 
  to a potentially devastating counter-attack from that slow-moving enemy 
  line in front of them. The Carthaginian cavalry and light infantry seem to 
  have played no part in interfering with the Roman manoeuvres, having been 
  withdrawn to the wings to await the attack, though it is possible that they 
  were positioned in such a manner by Hasdrubal in anticipation of being 
  employed as a counter-attacking or enveloping force against the legions when 
  they were fully engaged with the Iberian wings. Such a tactic would make 
  sense, especially when employing elephants as well, bearing in mind the havoc 
  they tended to cause in organized bodies of troops, but if that was Hasdrubal’s 
  intention then it was stymied by Scipio’s own use of his light infantry and 
  cavalry, which precluded anything other than a defensive response.
  Scipio’s simultaneous attack on both wings of Hasdrubal’s army brought 
  terrible pressure to bear on the defenders, ‘Balearians and raw Spaniards’ 
  (Livy 28.15.1), who were fighting hard for their lives against the best that 
  Rome and its Latin allies had to offer. The attacks by the cavalry and the 
  velites on the flanks took a particular toll on Hasdrubal’s elephants, Polybius 
  describing how ‘When these troops were at close quarters the elephants were 
  severely handled, being wounded and harassed on every side by the velites and 
  cavalry, and did as much harm to their friends as to their foes; for they rushed 
  about promiscuously and killed every one that fell in their way on either side 
  alike’ (11.24).
  The disadvantage of their quick deployment so early in the morning now 
  began to tell on the Carthaginians. They had been forced onto the field with 
  no food and presumably little water other than that which individual soldiers 
  carried with them. They had been standing in the slowly growing heat of the 
  day for hours, resting on their shields as Scipio’s cavalry and velites engaged in 
  a seemingly interminable back-and-forth struggle with their own light troops 
  and horsemen; their army seemed to have lost all initiative, and now the 
  Romans had both ends of the Carthaginian line trapped in a vice, and were 
  squeezing hard.
  The Carthaginian line, battered at every turn, began ever so slowly to give 
  way, ironically it being the Libyo-Phoenicians in the centre who were the 
  first to falter. At the outset the retreat was barely perceptible, being slow and 
  steady, as if under the orders of Hasdrubal himself. His men were gradually 
  giving ground under the constant pressure exerted by the Romans, but ‘when 
  the victors, perceiving that the enemy had given way, charged them on all 
  sides with increased vehemence on that very account, so that the shock could 
  hardly be sustained, though Hasdrubal endeavoured to stop them and hinder 
  them from retiring’ (Livy 28.15.6–7). What had been a reluctant withdrawal 
  became something closer to a panicked retreat. Even so, their position need 
  not have been calamitous as long as the cohesion of their lines held, for their 
  path of retreat led to the base of the hill on which their camp was sited; but 
  the aggression of the Romans was too much, with ‘fear getting the better of 
  their sense of shame, and all those who were nearest the enemy giving way, 
  
  71
  they immediately turned their backs, 
  and all gave themselves up to disorderly 
  flight’ (Livy 28.15.8–9).
  The general rout of Hasdrubal’s 
  army was stopped all too briefly at the 
  base of the hills where the Carthaginian 
  camp lay, but the consistent pressure 
  applied by the closely following Romans 
  quickly broke their fragile resolve and 
  Hasdrubal’s men fled back through 
  their own fortifications into their camp. 
  It is likely that Scipio could have forced 
  matters to a grim conclusion there and 
  then, but a sudden turn in the weather 
  led to a thunderstorm that bogged the 
  Romans down, forcing them to abandon 
  their pursuit and return to their own 
  lines. Through the night Hasdrubal’s 
  Iberian allies melted away, and though 
  some small efforts were made to 
  reinforce the camp’s defences with local 
  stonework, the loss of his allies decided 
  the matter for Hasdrubal, who chose to 
  withdraw with all dispatch.
  Scipio gave chase at first light 
  the next day, with his cavalry and 
  light infantry in the vanguard, harrying the flanks and rear of the broken 
  Carthaginian army at every opportunity. The necessity of fighting off such 
  repeated attacks delayed the retreat, which allowed time for the legions to 
  catch up with the vanguard, whereupon Livy describes the scene as being ‘no 
  longer a fight, but a butchering as of cattle’ (28.16.6). Hasdrubal managed to 
  flee into the neighbouring hills with a rump of 6,000 men, the rest falling to 
  slavery or the sword. Though the remnants of the Carthaginian army found 
  that they could keep the Romans at bay due to their well-chosen position in 
  the hills, their situation – with half the men unarmed, negligible provisions 
  and no prospect of relief – was insupportable. All too soon the survivors 
  deserted or gave themselves up, with Hasdrubal abandoning his dying army 
  during the night, fleeing back to Gades and making good his escape by sea.
  The cohesion of the various bodies of troops that was so crucial a part 
  of Carthaginian command was broken by Scipio’s attack, the threads that 
  bound the various elements of Hasdrubal’s army together dissolving in the 
  thunderstorm that followed. Once that sense of control had been lost, it was 
  impossible for Hasdrubal to succeed against Scipio, the disintegration of his 
  army becoming an inevitability under continuous Roman pressure. There 
  are no figures for casualties at Ilipa, though the turn in the weather surely 
  stopped the Carthaginian losses from being too great on the day of battle. In 
  most defeats, however, the real damage tends to be done during the losing 
  side’s retreat, and such certainly seems to have been the case for Hasdrubal’s 
  unfortunate force.
  A bronze helmet with cheek-
  guards, Etruscan, from the 
  mid-4th century bc. It is of 
  the ‘jockey-cap’ type with 
  a hemispherical crown 
  topped with a knob often 
  decorated with a rosette. 
  The cheek-guards are hinged 
  and decorated with a ‘triple-
  disc’ pattern that was a 
  popular style among Celts (it 
  probably had its origins in the 
  Celtic tribes from southern 
  Germany), but which was also 
  worn by Iberian and no doubt 
  some Roman troops as well; 
  examples of breastplates 
  following a similar design 
  also exist. (Metropolitan 
  Museum of Art, www.
  metmuseum.org)
  
  72
  LAKE TRASIMENE
  Like Cannae that followed it, Trasimene is seen as an exercise in military 
  brilliance. Hannibal set out to gain the strategic initiative from Flaminius, 
  and once he achieved it he never lost it, seemingly drawing the Roman army 
  whichever way he pleased. Trasimene also offers one of the key lessons of 
  generalship in the classical world, namely that Hannibal had completed all 
  his preparations long before the two sides ever met; when the time came all 
  he had to do was issue a single, simple order to put his plan into effect, all his 
  subordinates and their men knowing what they were supposed to do. As for 
  his ambush, whether long-planned or the genesis of a set of circumstances 
  that he found before him, it was a reasonable gamble that paid a spectacular 
  dividend, though it is worth remembering that victories like Trasimene are 
  only as complete and devastating as they are because the enemy ‘plays his 
  part’ by doing all the wrong things at all the wrong times. Few commanders 
  are lucky enough to have such an opponent.
  The Romans made some notable errors in the immediate prelude to the 
  battle, the most significant of which was their failure to throw forward any 
  sort of reconnaissance force to probe the potentially devastating area of ground 
  into which the whole Roman army was about to march. Flaminius’ aggressive 
  pursuit of Hannibal was hardly an unusual act, especially considering the 
  damage that Hannibal was inflicting upon the lands and properties of Rome’s 
  Italian allies, but the way in which he executed that pursuit does seem to 
  have been unusually careless. Hannibal’s force outstripped that of Flaminius 
  by many thousands, added to which he had already proved that he could 
  fight and win against a Roman army on far closer odds. It is possible that 
  there were reasons for Flaminius’ behaviour that are not understood because 
  we simply do not have enough information on the matter – the chance that 
  he was acting in closer concert with Servilius than we realize, for example. 
  Analysis
  
  73
  Even so, the rashness of his close pursuit of an extremely strong enemy into 
  unknown terrain without any sort of screen bespeaks a mixture of arrogance 
  and thoughtlessness that would prove fatal for many more men than 
  Flaminius himself.
  The ambush was the perfect opportunity for Hannibal’s Gauls, light 
  horsemen and other irregulars to make the most of their varied fighting 
  styles. Gaulish charges, while they could be terrifyingly intimidating, rarely 
  succeeded against a well-disciplined line of legionaries who were prepared 
  to receive them, but that was not the case at Trasimene. The Gauls fell on 
  the long unguarded flank of a column, the surprise, speed and ferocity of 
  their first attack wrecking any chance that the legions may have had to put 
  up a proper battle line. The lack of space to manoeuvre meant that it was 
  not possible for the legionaries to disengage and re-form, thus forcing them 
  to fight on their enemy’s terms. The short-term success of the vanguard was 
  impressive in the circumstances, but the small victory they gained could 
  not be used to the Roman army’s – or their – advantage, so quick was the 
  immolation of the rest of the force, so strong the immediate pursuit that was 
  launched to bring them to heel.
  CANNAE
  The actions of Quintus Fabius Maximus prior to Cannae proved effective 
  despite their unpopularity, though it was unlikely that a strategy based on 
  delay and evasion would ever bring a decisive victory over the Carthaginian 
  armies in Italia. Sooner or later Hannibal would have to be brought to heel 
  and destroyed; his army’s capability to roam where it pleased, living off 
  the land, was an intolerable state of affairs for the government of Rome, as 
  Hannibal well knew, so a clash was inevitable. The Roman decision to try to 
  draw Hannibal into a battle was not necessarily bad; they outnumbered him, 
  and any halfway-serious defeat for the Carthaginians would probably mean 
  the disintegration of their army and the end of the Punic menace, at least on 
  the mainland.
  Hannibal clearly understood the mind-set of his enemies, which appeared 
  to be one of straightforward aggression unchanged from Trasimene. The 
  seemingly infinite Roman proclivity for intemperate action reasserted itself in 
  disastrous form once again, and yet again it was a case of the Romans allowing 
  Hannibal to dictate when, where and how he would fight. The observations 
  of Polybius on the importance of cavalry – ‘in actual war it is better to have 
  half the number of infantry, and the superiority in cavalry, than to engage 
  your enemy with an equality in both’ (3.117) – are borne out by the events at 
  Cannae, but only in as much as the Romans opted to fight on good ground 
  for horses even though their opponents outnumbered them by very nearly 
  2 to 1 in cavalry. Varro and Paullus took no other action to try to mitigate 
  the threat that Hannibal’s horsemen posed either to Rome’s horsemen or to 
  its infantry.
  The haste with which the legions were raised and pressed into service, 
  exacerbating the issues inherent in a lack of training, may also have been a 
  factor. The decision to compress the Roman line, thus hampering one of the 
  The remains of a Roman 
  spearhead. Polybius noted 
  how ‘it is a peculiarity of the 
  Roman people as a whole 
  to treat everything as a 
  question of main strength; 
  to consider that they must of 
  course accomplish whatever 
  they have proposed to 
  themselves; and that nothing 
  is impossible that they have 
  once determined upon. The 
  result of such self-confidence 
  is that in many things they 
  do succeed, while in some 
  few they conspicuously fail, 
  and especially at sea’ (1.37). 
  Aggressiveness was an 
  important quality in Roman 
  warfare and also in Roman 
  society, a situation in which 
  both spheres probably fed off 
  one another, often resulting 
  in glory but also on occasion, 
  as the early battles of the 
  Second Punic War such as 
  Trasimene tended to show, in 
  disastrous reverses. (Science 
  & Society Picture Library/
  Getty Images)
  
  74
  legion’s major advantages – manipular tactics – was also unusual, though it 
  may have been in response to the callowness of many of the troops engaged, 
  who would probably have lacked the experience to execute such manoeuvres 
  properly, making a more traditional deployment a simpler option. As for 
  leadership, Paullus is cast as the hero, Varro the villain, but the split leadership 
  was the most serious of the problems they faced, making it impossible to 
  have any consistent plan or even approach to deal with the threat posed by 
  Hannibal. Varro, being the commander on the day, must take the lion’s share 
  of responsibility for such carelessness in the face of an opponent of known 
  skill and experience, though somewhat like Flaminius at Trasimene Varro did 
  seem to make decisions that accorded very much with his enemy’s wishes. 
  Rome would have to learn how to win against Hannibal’s military system, a 
  process that would necessitate ever-greater efforts in the raising and especially 
  the training of new legions to replace those immolated at Cannae, as well 
  as the promotion of new commanders such as Scipio, a man with much to 
  prove, and avenge.
  ILIPA
  Ilipa is often touted as the apotheosis of Scipio’s tactical genius, the deployment 
  of his army to effect a ‘reverse Cannae’ being seen as worthy of Hannibal 
  himself. Leaving aside such hyperbole, his victory is noteworthy not just for 
  its strategic implications (which were significant), but for its demonstration 
  of Scipio as a man who had learned to take advantage of his enemy’s failings. 
  Scipio’s decision to reverse his deployment was not the culmination of some 
  long-nurtured strategy; it came about as a direct result of the circumstances 
  in which he found himself, facing an opponent of (probably) greater strength, 
  whose behaviour was predictable and therefore exploitable. It is to Scipio’s 
  credit that he made the most of the opportunity, though it is interesting to 
  wonder what might have happened if Hasdrubal had been more aggressive on 
  the preceding days, forcing Scipio into a more straightforward fight.
  Though it is difficult to understand the exact nature of Scipio’s complex 
  pattern of manoeuvres that led to the double-envelopment at Ilipa, it is 
  possible to say that they seem to have been carried out flawlessly, which 
  is a good indication of the high degree of training that the Roman (and, 
  one assumes, to a lesser extent, the allied) legions had undergone while 
  under Scipio’s command – such a high degree of professionalism was 
  not on display in the war’s earlier years. The execution of such a tactical 
  realignment would require well-drilled troops who had the discipline and 
  nerve to perform it in the face of the enemy; it also shows Scipio to have 
  planned out his battle with great care, and the necessary trust he must have 
  placed in his subordinates to carry out his orders as he had given them.
  In comparison, Hasdrubal Gisco does not emerge with much glory. He 
  had won a notable victory at the Upper Baetis in 211 bc (the only major 
  Carthaginian victory not to come at Hannibal’s hands), and his initial moves 
  towards Ilipa bespoke an aggressive man in search of a fight. Nevertheless 
  his late-in-the-day deployments hint at a degree of indecision, or a desire to 
  let his enemy make the running for him by starting the battle, something 
  
  75
  Scipio did do, though not in the way Hasdrubal anticipated. Once the battle 
  developed, Hasdrubal seemed unable to respond to the Roman attack; he 
  lost the initiative with Scipio’s early morning deployment, and he never came 
  close to getting it back, instead apparently waiting to receive whatever the 
  Romans decided to deliver. His decision to break camp seems to be of a part 
  with his earlier failure, however understandable it might be in the light of the 
  desertion of his allies.
  The Carthaginian loss at Ilipa had significant strategic consequences. By 
  securing Iberia Scipio cut off one of Hannibal’s most valuable sources of money 
  and manpower, effectively hamstringing any further Carthaginian attempts 
  to reinforce Hannibal’s position in Italia with another invasion force. With 
  little prospect of effective reinforcement and no chance of victory without it, 
  Hannibal would be recalled from Latin lands, while the initiative for the final 
  phase of the war passed to an ascendant Roman state, set on vengeance.
  Epigraph for Scipio after his 
  victory in the Second Punic 
  War, from the collections 
  of the Museo Della Civiltà 
  Romana. (De Agostini Picture 
  Library/Getty Images)
  
  76
  Rome’s early defeats were increasingly severe, with the engagements at 
  Ticinus, the Trebia and particularly Lake Trasimene proving to be profoundly 
  humiliating as well as strategically serious. The remedy – to crush Hannibal 
  with an overwhelming hammer-blow of military might – backfired 
  spectacularly, resulting in a defeat of such epic proportions that it is still a 
  common subject of discussion among students of history and warfare over 
  22 centuries later.
  Those early drubbings delivered by Hannibal necessitated some change in 
  the Roman military system, though not in any of its essential characteristics. 
  There was a massive expansion of the legions and their associated alae in 
  the succeeding years to meet the needs of a war fought in Italia, Sicilia and 
  Iberia at the same time, growth that was augmented by better training of the 
  legionaries; Scipio’s manoeuvres at Ilipa would not have been possible unless 
  his army was extremely well-drilled and a much more disciplined force than 
  that which took the field at Cannae. The Roman armies that would go on 
  to dominate the Hellenistic world throughout the following century were 
  effectively forged in the fires of the Hannibalic wars.
  For the Carthaginians, the great promise of Hannibal’s early successes 
  seemed to stall and dwindle into years of fruitless manoeuvrings that never 
  managed to bring Rome as close to defeat as it had been in the wake of the 
  catastrophe at Cannae. Hannibal’s strategy of splintering the close-knit shield-
  wall of alliances that surrounded Rome had some limited success, but never 
  enough to drive the city to seek terms with him. Battle casualties and wastage 
  saw the character of the Carthaginian army evolve over the years, with more 
  Gauls, Italians and Iberians and fewer Africans in the ranks, though such 
  changes were not disruptive in a military structure that was predicated on 
  using troops and allies ‘as they came’.
  Juvenal saw Hannibal as an archetype of vaulting military ambition: 
  ‘Nought is accomplished until my Punic host breaks down the city gates, and 
  Aftermath
  
  77
  I plant my standard in the midst of the Subura! [one of Rome’s less salubrious 
  neighbourhoods]’ (Satires 10.154–56). Ironically, it would be the lack of just 
  such an ambition that kept victory out of his grasp. Hannibal understood 
  Roman drive and aggression on the battlefield, using it for his own ends, 
  but he failed to appreciate that such an attitude was not merely a feature of 
  the Roman legions but was one of the defining characteristics of the state 
  he was trying to subdue. The very fact that he thought Roman Italia could 
  be brought to heel without destroying the heart of the problem – the city of 
  Rome itself – is testament to this. However brilliant his tactical endeavours, 
  his strategic vision was fundamentally flawed, leaving the way open for more 
  flexible and capable men such as Scipio to rise up and meet him on their 
  terms, not his.
  Scipio’s victory in Iberia was strategically disastrous for the Carthaginians, 
  resulting in the effective containment of the diminished Carthaginian armies 
  on the Italian mainland and allowing Scipio to prosecute an invasion of North 
  Africa that was so successful it necessitated Hannibal’s recall, the two great 
  generals finally meeting at Zama in 202 bc. The army that was fielded by 
  Hannibal and the Carthaginians had a core of veterans at its heart but it was 
  nowhere near as cohesive or well-trained as the Roman force that opposed 
  it, and thus was soundly beaten. That defeat effectively finished Carthage as 
  a state with anything more than local influence, and it never again escaped 
  Rome’s shadow, finally receiving the coup de grâce at the climax of the Third 
  Punic War in 146 bc, surrounded and destroyed once and for all by its most 
  unforgiving and merciless enemy.
  FAR LEFT
  The suicide of Dido, Queen 
  of Carthage, by Ferdinando 
  Tacca (1619–86), c.1630–50. 
  In abandoning his lover 
  Dido, Aeneas of Troy – the 
  mythic founder of Rome 
  – is displaying pietas (a 
  sense of personal duty and 
  responsibility that one owes 
  to one’s family and one’s 
  people) in deferring to his 
  destiny, but in so doing he 
  destroys Dido and earns 
  the lasting enmity of her 
  people. Even when Virgil was 
  composing the Aeneid, well 
  over 100 years after the final 
  destruction of Carthage, the 
  cultural memory of the rivalry 
  between the two states 
  was still important enough 
  to see it woven into the 
  fabric of Roman foundational 
  storytelling. (Metropolitan 
  Museum of Art, www.
  metmuseum.org)
  LEFT
  A statue of Hannibal counting 
  the rings of Roman equites 
  killed at Cannae, by Sébastien 
  Slodtz (1655–1726), 1704. 
  Barely past 30 years of age, 
  Hannibal had inflicted the 
  most severe defeat on Rome 
  in centuries. The unfortunate 
  reality for Hannibal, however, 
  was that his greatest military 
  triumph – the latest in a 
  series of impressive and 
  increasingly significant 
  victories – would get him 
  no closer to his goal, the 
  subjugation of Rome. For 
  the next ten years he would 
  campaign throughout Italia, 
  but strategic victory would 
  always remain outside his 
  grasp. (VCG Wilson/Corbis via 
  Getty Images)
  
  78
  BIBLIOGRAPHY
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  his version that usually proves to be the more reliable 
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  80
  INDEX
  References to illustrations are shown in bold.
  alae (allied legions)  9, 12, 23, 26, 35, 76
  composition/strength  27, 34, 40
  raising/training of  25, 41, 44, 74
  use in combat  34, 37, 40, 48, 49, 50, 52–53, 
  54, 56, 61, 62, 64
  ala dextra/ala sinistra  33, 35, 39
  cavalry  22, 37, 44, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 55
  armour/clothing  4, 19, 21, 42, 62: cuirasses  19, 
  21, 22, 23, 42, 43, 49; greaves  10, 15, 17, 19, 
  49; linothorax  19, 42, 49; mail coats/shirts  
  5, 14, 21, 23, 40, 49, 52–53, 54, 57: lorica 
  hamata  10, 12, 17, 19, 22, 49; paludamentum 
  26–27; pectorals  17, 20; pteruges  42, 43; 
  subarmalis  10, 14; tunics  14, 15, 16
  Baecula, battle of (208 bc)  58, 59, 62
  Balearian slingers  13, 20, 21, 28, 43
  slingshot/slings  18, 20, 20, 21, 36, 55, 68
  use in combat  34, 35, 36, 48, 49, 50, 62, 70
  belts  11, 14, 16, 17, 30, 30, 31
  Cannae, battle of (216 bc)  9, 37, 41–46, 46, 58
  Carthaginian forces  13, 19, 23, 28, 42–43, 
  45, 47, 48, 49
  dispositions of forces  13, 47, 49–50, 51
  nature of combat  50–51, 52–53, 54, 55–56, 
  73–74, 77
  Roman forces  21, 25, 43–45, 48, 49, 51, 
  73–74, 77
  significance/overview of  56, 73–74
  Carthaginian army
  battle formations  28, 33, 47, 61, 64
  cavalry  21, 22–23, 28, 28, 33, 34, 37, 43, 
  48, 52–53, 54, 55, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68, 70
  composition/elements of  12, 13, 16, 19–20, 
  21, 22–23, 25, 28, 28, 29, 34, 35, 37, 
  42–43, 48, 62, 64, 76
  light infantry  33, 49, 61, 65, 66–67
  reasons for service  25–26
  troop types/tactical styles  13, 16, 28, 73
  Carthaginian empire  4, 12–13, 19, 58, 62, 77
  Celtiberians/Celto-Iberians  13, 21, 28
  Celtic tribes/troops  20, 28, 52–53, 54, 71
  centurions  17, 18, 25, 26, 27, 36, 52–53, 54
  consuls  26, 36, 41, 45, 55, 56, 62
  daggers  15, 20, 57: pugio  11, 57
  elephants, use of  5, 5, 28, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 
  65, 70
  equites  21, 22, 24, 50, 56, 77
  extraordinarii  15, 33, 35, 36, 39, 40
  First Punic War (264–241 bc)  4, 5, 6, 12, 17, 
  21, 58
  Gaius Flaminius Nepos  29, 30, 36
  actions at Lake Trasimene  30–31, 32, 33, 
  34, 35, 36, 37–38, 72–73, 74
  Gaius Terentius Varro  41, 43, 45
  at Cannae  21, 47, 48, 49, 51, 56, 73, 74
  Gaulish clans/tribes/warriors  4–5, 13, 21, 23, 
  25, 28, 29, 34, 36, 40, 42–43, 76
  cavalry  23, 28, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 55, 73
  heavy infantry  23, 33, 36, 38, 46, 47, 48, 
  49–50, 51
  Gnaeus Servilius Geminus  29, 30, 31, 34, 37, 
  41, 43, 49, 55, 56, 72
  Hamilcar Barca  6, 58, 77
  Hannibal Barca  4, 5
  as battlefield tactician  13, 27–28, 34, 72
  at Lake Trasimene  33, 34, 35–36, 72
  at Cannae  13, 47, 48–49, 56
  building of army  25
  charisma of  6, 26
  crossing of Alps/Apennines  13, 30
  flawed strategic vision  31, 77
  military ambition of  76–77
  resources from Iberia  6, 19–20, 58, 59, 62
  threat to Rome  6, 25, 29, 31, 40, 56
  Hanno  48, 49
  Hasdrubal  49
  actions at Cannae  46, 47, 51, 55, 56
  Hasdrubal Barca  28, 58, 59
  Hasdrubal Gisco  28, 58, 59, 62
  actions at Ilipa  59, 60, 61, 64, 65, 68, 69, 
  70, 71, 74–75
  hastati  11, 16–17, 18, 19, 27, 27, 45
  use in combat  34, 48, 52–53, 54
  helmets  10, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 23, 38, 39, 
  39, 40, 66–67, 69, 71
  Iberia
  Carthaginian control in  6, 12, 19, 58
  reinforcements/resupply from  13, 19–20, 21, 
  58, 59, 62, 75
  Iberian allies/levies
  Carthaginian service  33, 34, 35, 36, 50, 
  52–53, 54, 62, 64, 68, 70, 71, 76
  caetrati  20, 28, 34, 50, 60, 61, 62, 
  66–67, 70
  cavalry  21, 23, 28, 35, 36, 43, 46, 47, 
  48, 49, 50, 51, 55
  heavy infantry  30, 39, 43, 46, 47, 48, 
  50, 51, 62
  scutarii  14, 15, 20, 28, 34, 49–50, 62
  Roman service  58, 60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68
  Ilipa, battle of (206 bc)  57–60, 60
  dispositions of forces  60, 61, 62, 65, 68–70
  Scipio’s tactics  64–65, 68–69, 74, 75
  nature of combat  62, 64, 66–67, 68–71
  overview/significance of  74–75, 77
  Insubrian horsemen  37, 38
  javelins  20, 23, 34, 36, 45, 55, 70: hasta 
  velitaris  15; pilum  10, 16, 18, 19, 44, 45, 
  59; saunion  62, 66–67; soliferrum  62
  Lake Trasimene, battle of (217 bc)  9, 32, 32, 
  34, 35, 49, 54, 58
  Carthaginian army  10, 11, 31, 32, 34, 40
  dispositions of forces  32, 33, 73
  Flaminius’ failings  32, 36, 72–73, 74
  Hannibal’s ambush  26, 32, 34–35, 35–36
  nature of combat  32, 36–37, 37–40, 73
  overview/significance of  40, 41, 72–73, 76
  Roman army  14, 15, 34
  Libyo-Phoenician heavy infantry  13, 19, 43
  arms/armour  19, 40, 52–53, 54
  use in combat  28, 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 46, 
  47, 48, 49, 51, 52–53, 54, 55, 61, 62, 64, 
  68, 69, 70
  Lucius Aemilius Paullus  41, 45
  actions at Cannae  21, 43, 47, 48, 49, 51, 
  55, 56, 73, 74
  Mago Barca  28, 49, 58, 59, 62
  Maharbal  28, 34, 37, 40, 48, 56
  Marcus Atilius Regulus  41, 43, 56
  Marcus Minucius Rufus  41, 49
  Masinissa  28, 62, 62, 64
  Metaurus, battle of the (207 bc)  58, 59
  Numidian cavalry  21, 22–23, 23, 28, 43
  use in combat  23, 33, 34, 35, 36, 40, 46, 47, 
  48, 49, 51, 55, 56, 62, 64
  optiones  18, 21, 26
  principes  10, 11, 17, 19, 45
  position in battle line  16, 17, 18, 27, 27
  use in combat  34, 48, 52–53, 54
  Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus  5, 5, 58, 
  63, 74, 75
  battle experience/planning  58, 74
  calibre as commander  27, 58, 74
  Iberian command  58, 59, 62
  actions at Ilipa  60, 61, 62, 64–65, 68–70, 
  71, 74, 75, 76, 77
  Roman army  8–9, 18–19, 64
  age/property qualifications  8, 44
  columns  35–36, 37, 38, 40
  contubernium  25, 38
  development and training of  8–9, 12
  as expression of martial culture  8, 26
  maniples/manipular tactics  18–19, 25, 26, 
  27, 49, 51, 52–53, 54, 68, 74
  quincunx pattern  18
  supplementa system  9
  triplex acies  16–17, 18, 27, 38, 68–69
  Roman cavalry  16, 17, 21, 23, 26, 48
  battle formations  21, 33, 35, 47, 59, 61
  command/composition of turmae  21, 26
  position in legion  27
  selection for  22
  training of  21–22, 44–45
  use in combat  21, 34, 37, 46, 47, 48, 49, 51, 
  55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 64, 68, 69–70, 71
  Roman legionaries  11, 17, 18, 24, 35
  and military glory  24
  position in battle formations  50, 52–53, 
  54, 59
  training of  8, 76
  use in combat  36, 37, 38, 51, 55–56, 59, 64
  Roman legions  9, 12, 26
  battle formations  27, 33, 47, 61
  cavalry element  21, 22, 27, 33, 34, 47, 61
  citizenry service in  24–25
  composition/strength of  16–17, 21, 22, 27, 
  34, 48
  legio I  33, 34, 35
  legio III  33, 34, 35, 37
  raising/expansion of  9, 41, 44, 73, 76
  training of  44, 73, 74, 76
  use in combat  25, 32, 34, 46, 47, 48, 51, 56, 
  60, 61, 62, 64, 65, 68–69, 71, 73
  position in battle formations  50, 52–53, 
  54, 64, 65, 68–69
  organization of  16–17, 27
  Saguntum, siege of (219 bc)  6, 37, 57
  shields  9, 10, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 
  35, 39, 50, 59, 62, 66–67
  spearheads  44, 73
  spears  20, 21, 22, 23, 28, 40, 62, 66–67, 68: 
  hasta  17; sarissa  19, 52–53, 54
  swords  19, 20, 21, 22, 23: falcata  15, 16, 20, 
  20; gladius Hispaniensis  10, 12, 17, 17, 20, 
  22, 35, 35, 59, 66–67; kopis  15, 20
  Ticinus, battle of (218 bc)  29, 58, 76
  Trebia, battle of the (216 bc)  10, 29–30, 34, 
  41, 49, 58, 76
  triarii  16, 17, 18, 27, 27, 34, 37, 48
  tribunes  26, 36, 55, 56
  Upper Baetis, battle of the (211 bc)  58, 74
  velites  17, 18, 27, 27, 45, 64
  use in combat  34, 47, 48, 49, 50, 55, 60, 61, 
  66–67, 68, 69–70
  Zama, battle of (202 bc)  5, 62, 77
  
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  Dedication
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  Acknowledgements
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  provision of several images as well as the sharing of knowledge of ancient 
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SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Osprey System/Combat (CBT)/Osprey - CBT 035 - Roman Legionary vs Carthaginian Warrior 217-206 BC.pdf