Battles and Campaigns
Battle of Cannae
/ˈkæni, -eɪ, -aɪ/
216 BC, Second Punic War
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Fought on 2 August 216 BC near the village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy, the Battle of Cannae saw Hannibal's Carthaginian army annihilate a numerically superior Roman force. Hannibal arranged his line in a crescent, deliberately weak at the center, luring the Roman legions into a bulging advance before his veteran African infantry closed on both flanks and his cavalry sealed the rear, a double envelopment. The result was one of the worst single-day military disasters in Roman history and is still studied as the archetypal encirclement battle.
Facts
LocationNear ancient Cannae, Apulia, southeast Italy. 1 OutcomeCarthaginian victory. The Roman army was surrounded and practically annihilated. 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Sources
Open Questions (1 open question)
What were Hannibal's and Rome's true troop strengths and casualties at the Battle of Cannae?
Ancient sources disagree by wide margins: Polybius reports 70,000 Romans killed, 10,000 captured and perhaps 3,000 survivors; Livy records 45,500 infantry and 2,700 cavalry killed. Carthaginian losses are given as about 8,000 (Livy) or 5,700 (Polybius). A modern scholar quoted on the source page questions the scale outright, asking whether Hannibal's 50,000 Carthaginians could really have slaughtered 48,000 to 70,000 Romans.
What would resolve this Archaeological or demographic corroboration of ancient troop and casualty figures, or a reconciliation of the Polybius and Livy traditions by a source not yet identified.
Ancient historiography and battlefield archaeologyWikipedia: Battle of Cannae
Frequently Asked Questions
Why is the Battle of Cannae still studied at military academies today?
It is the first fully recorded double envelopment, a textbook encirclement maneuver still taught today.
At Cannae Hannibal used a numerically inferior army to encircle and annihilate a larger Roman force, deliberately weakening his center to draw the Romans into a bulging advance before closing his flanks and cavalry around their rear. Polybius's account is the first fully detailed record of a successful double envelopment, and the maneuver remains a textbook case in the study of encirclement tactics.
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