Wars and ConflictsÌý permalink
On this day: 2 August
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Message 1.Ìý
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Sunday, 2nd August 2009
216 BC: The Carthiniginian general Hannibal annihilates a Roman army at the Battle of Cannae, killing 60,0000.Ìý
Too many noughts perhaps? -
Message 2
Posted by Spruggles (U13892773) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
Vizzer aka U-numbers,
What's that quote about history being written by the victors?
Regards Spruggs. -
Message 3
Posted by White Camry (U2321601) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
Spruggles,
Vizzer aka U-numbers,
What's that quote about history being written by the victors?Ìý
Victors of the war, not necessarily of the battle. -
Message 4
Posted by giraffe47 (U4048491) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
I heard it was 76,000. Different newspaper reports - the 'Sun Romana', perhaps, instead of the 'Mirror per Diem'?
It was a 'Bad Day At The Office' for someone, anyhow. -
Message 5
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
Too many noughts perhaps?Ìý
Yep, at least one too many; and the comma in the wrong place.
60,000 max (Quintilian's estimate)
45,000 according to Livy.
Both figures probably grossly inflated.
600,000 or (60,0000)?
A typo, I assume? -
Message 6
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Monday, 3rd August 2009
76,000 is the combined losses of both sides according to Polybius. He cites that 70,000 of the Roman army and 5,700 of the Carthaginian forces were killed. Livy, probably working from Fabius Pictor, cites 48,000 Romans and allies were slain compared to 8,000 of the Carthaginian forces. These were the two extremes of ancient opinion on the subject although the most common figure of 60,000 Roman dead that is bandied about is derived from Quintilian.
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Message 7
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
Both figures probably grossly inflated.
Ìý
On the contrary there is no reason to think that Roman historians would inflate Roman casualty figures.
There is some difference between the casualty figures given by Polybios and Livy, but not a vast difference. Probably around 50,000 Roman soldiers died at Cannae and another 20,000 were captured, in any event a Roman army of around 80,000 was utterly destroyed. -
Message 8
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
What a crap army Romans were back then (not that they became much better later). Even if the opponent has a better general with a better plan you just cannot lose so many from an army that fights almost similarly in a close combat style. Especially when the latter is actually a smaller army with a bigger cavalry (cavalry hits and goes, it does not remain on the battleground to slaughter the enemy since this is the best way to lose first your horse, then your life).
Roman army, at least that one back then is the perhaps the crappest known army that the ancient world had seen. -
Message 9
Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
...of course the possibility of internal treason could had played a big factor (we have not any clue on such) but even so, an encircled army cannot lose 50,000 after having killed only 8,000. A more normal ration should had been 50,000 for 15,000, i.e. Carthagenians killing 3 men before being killed by a Roman. All that unless they really encircled them and killed them with arrows from a distance (as far as I know that was not the case). The fact that Roman soldiers back then had virtually no defensive equipment apart their cheap oval all-wooden shields of dubious quality must had aided in them being easily annihilated. Their short spears and their tedency to take out the swords too easily must had aided in them being slaugtered in the 10s: After Romans had been encircled and given the fact that at least 1/3 of Carthagenians died during the effort of encirclement it means that 6000 Carthagenian dead stand for around 40,000 dead Romans. Given the fact that the encirclement line would not be more than 10,000 Carthagenians, the ration comes down to 1 Carthagenians slaughtering 5 Romans before being brought down... for those that know about ancient battles that is simply amazing...!!!
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Message 10
Posted by U3280211 (U3280211) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
there is no reason to think that Roman historians would inflate Roman casualty figures.Ìý
On the contrary, there are several:-
Political,
Military,
Economic. -
Message 11
Posted by englishvote (U5473482) on Tuesday, 4th August 2009
E Nik
The fact that Roman soldiers back then had virtually no defensive equipment apart their cheap oval all-wooden shields of dubious quality must had aided in them being easily annihilated.
Ìý
The Roman legionary at the time of the Carthaginian wars was usually equipped with a helmet, mail armour and a large shield. The Carthaginian’s stripped the Roman dead of their equipment and used it, so obviously the Romans were armoured better then the Carthaginian soldiers.
The Roman shield was made of plywood and served the Roman army well for hundreds of years, it was certainly up to the job and was as good as any shield found in other armies.
Their short spears and their tedency to take out the swords too easily must had aided in them being slaugtered in the 10s
Ìý
Most Roman legionaries of this time did not carry a spear, only the Triarii who formed the third rank in the legion carried a spear.
The main weapon of the legionaries was the sword and heavy javelin known as the Pilum.
This was the equipment of the Roman army that went on to defeat Carthage and later Macedonian. Obviously the Roman army had its disasters but it proved to be better than any other army of the time. -
Message 12
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
Umm, as such it is not a case of the eight thousand Carthaginian dead killing five men a piece, you make is sound as if those who survived the battle had no effect on the outcome at all. Nor is it simply a matter of the attack from the rear being the sole cause for such a large disparity in the two sides casualties. It must be considered that most of the Roman casualties would have been inflicted on troops who had become seriously disorganised. Personally I'm not sure what you mean by betrayal over and above the use of local informants as part of an information gathering network that allowed Hannibal to assess the nature of the two Consuls and therefore present his army for battle on a day when Varo was in charge as he was likely to accept the challenge.
Livy and Appian provide details of the prevailing conditions that favoured the Carthaginians, as they had both the sun and the wind behind them. They also occupied slightly higher ground than the Romans and exploited the elevation and the wind in order that their missiles would travel further. The wind also blew dust clouds into the faces of the Roman army which obscured their vision. This not only kept the layout of the Carthaginian army hidden but also prevented effective evasive action from missiles being taken by Roman troops further increasing the effectiveness of Carthaginian skirmishers. They also highlight various ruses used to sow further confusion in the Roman ranks such as feigned retreats and ambushes from concealed troops. This is further embellished by the report that a small detachment of Carthaginian soldiers got behind the Roman lines by apparently offering to surrender and laying down their visible arms so as to be sent to the Roman rear where they unveiled hidden weapons and charged the troops in front of them. This was amplified by the difficulty in identifying who was attacking from behind and how many there were once this small unit armed themselves with Roman shields that made the Carthaginians indistinguishable from friendly forces.
Most attention was lavished on the overall infantry formations that enabled the Carthaginians to overlap the Roman flanks and thus prevented escape once the envelopment was completed. It is unlikey that the infantry were responsabIe for the great majority of the slaughter as their role appears to have been to hold the Roman infantry until the envelopment was completed. In part the focus, both ancient and modern, stems from the unusual nature of the maneuver whereas the cavalry's attack from the rear was more or less what they were expected to do given their position on the flanks.
As such you appear to be slightly confused about the deployment of the Carthaginian cavalry. You portray them galloping headlong into the points of well prepared infantry and fighting continuously which would indeed be a surefire method of turning cavalry into dog meat. It is unlikely that those soldiers in the rear of the Roman lines would have paying attention to what was happening behind them as they concentrated on the Carthaginian infantry to their front and sides. This would therefore increase the shock of the cavalry when they returned to the battle after routing the Roman flanks. More to the point their mobility allowed them to target areas that would cause the greatest degree of disorganisation. Polibius highlights that Hasdrubal organised the cavalry into waves of squadrons rather than attacking continuously for that matter. Accounts of the Spanish and Gallic horsemen who engaged on the Carthaginian left flank suggest that they were heavy cavalry and equally versed in fighting on horseback or dismounted rather than being light lancers who would be quickly incapacitated once unhorsed. -
Message 13
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Wednesday, 5th August 2009
Economic? I fail too see what economic benefit inflating the number of casualties might have. I'd be interested in theories as to how the Romans benefit from such an inflation in the figures.
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Message 14
Posted by Vizzer aka U_numbers (U2011621) on Thursday, 5th August 2010
I heard it was 76,000. Different newspaper reports - the 'Sun Romana', perhaps, instead of the 'Mirror per Diem'?Ìý
It's still '60,0000' according to the locus aranea CSB (Corpus Scientia Britannica). -
Message 15
Posted by Mutatis_Mutandis (U8620894) on Thursday, 5th August 2010
In modern armies, with firepower as the dominant factor, relatively open formations are the norm. Not so in ancient armies: Men were in dense formations, and often deeper than their frontage. Part of the reason probably was that hand-to-hand combat would quickly exhaust the men in the front row, and then the men behind them would take their place. Another major factor was the importance of simply pushing the enemy forward by bodily force, shield against shield, a contest of brute strength in which the men in the front row of course risked to be trampled.
We don't really know how the Romans arranged their front at Cannae, but Polybius wrote that the maniples were organized to be deeper than wide: As they numbered about 120 men, they may have been twelve to twenty rows deep, with a relatively narrow front. This was probably a necessity, as the battlefield was rather narrow to accommodate a force of 80,000 men, even taking into account that a fraction of them were lightly armed skirmishers. But the Roman commanders are thought to have had the simple plan of using their numbers and the density of their formation to push through the enemy center. The typical Roman deployment in a three-line checkerboard would have left some open space, but nevertheless this was a dense mass of men.
When Hannibal's battle plan came together and his heavy infantry on the flanks started to push the Roman flanks towards the center, while the cavalry harassed their rear, the Roman army probably collapsed in a dense, confused crowd. It would have taken Hannibal's army a long time to kill so many using only the sword, and anyway only the men at the outer edge of the Roman mass were within immediate reach. But in the confusion, with light infantry in front, heavy infantry at the sides, the cavalry in the rear, and stones and arrows raining down from above, it is quite possible that a lot of men, exhausted and confused were trampled underfoot, or died standing without enough room to fall. An ancestor of the recent disaster in Duisburg, but kept going for hours and hours.
Those who managed to break through the more thinly held parts of the Carthaginian lines were of course pursued by the cavalry, although thousands appear to have been able to escape. Hannibal's focus must have been on keeping the mass of enemy soldiers boxed in, pressed more and more together in disorganization by relentless attack, the cavalry charging repeatedly to maintain a state of panic.
There is no reason to assume that the Romans who fell at Cannae were bad soldiers. Unlike the later armies, they were not professionals, but the Romans had demonstrated in earlier wars that their training and discipline were more than adequate to overcome most opponents. However, the strategy of their commanders, to meet Hannibal with the biggest possible Army, was fundamentally flawed: Brute force wasn't the right answer to Hannibal's tactical superiority, and they were unable to effectively control their huge, unwieldy force.
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