War and Military Atlas

How Battles Were Fought
Open Questions

What were Hannibal's and Rome's true troop strengths and casualties at the Battle of Cannae?

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Open Question

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.
OpenAncient historiography and battlefield archaeologyWikipedia: Battle of Cannae
Cross-Tradition Connections

Question On

Sources
Wikipedia: Battle of Cannae
WikipediaCasualties sectionView the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.