men alive and unwounded; " and these were made

prisoners.

Varro,

Both Livy and Polybius state the number of Romans actually killed to have exceeded 40,000 men. with a handful of cavalry escaped to Venusia; but the other consul Emilius, the proconsul Servilius, the late master of the horse Minucius, two quæstors, twentyone military tribunes, and eighty senators, were among the slain.

During the battle, the Romans who had been left. behind in their large camp attacked that of Hannibal according to their instructions, but without success, and with the loss of 2000 men.

Of the Roman infantry who had fled from the field, 7000 men took refuge in the small camp which was not far from the right of their line of battle; 10,000 made their way across the river to the large camp. About 15,000 spread themselves over the country and took refuge in the neighbouring towns. During the night following the action about 4000 men quitted the camps. and in one body made their way to Canusium, and on the next day the troops which remained in both camps surrendered to the conqueror.

Hannibal's loss in the battle barely amounted to 6000 men. It is no wonder that the Carthaginian officers were elated by this unequalled victory. Maharbal, seeing what his cavalry had done, is reported to have said to Hannibal: "Let me advance instantly with the cavalry; do thou follow to support me, and in four days thou shalt sup in the Capitol." But Hannibal knew

* Arnold.

the resources of the great city and the spirit of its citizens too well to follow such counsel. Rome, it is true, was plunged in grief, and if the iron courage of the Roman aristocracy was for one moment unnerved, in the next their inborn spirit revived with an elastic rebound, and the word "peace" being prohibited in the city, all ranks braced themselves to prosecute the war with renewed energy.*

*See Observation 4.

H

OBSERVATIONS.

1. The want of common foresight exhibited by the consuls Servilius and Atilius, in leaving the great depot of Cannæ at the mercy of a coup de main, is incomprehensible. The distance from that place to their camp near Geronium was, by the shortest route across the plain, fifty miles; but the Romans could not safely follow Hannibal's march across the plain, because the Carthaginians, at this time, outnumbered them in cavalry by three to one; and the road round by the foot of the mountains was nearly seventy miles long. Under these circumstances they ought clearly to have given Cannæ such a garrison and such defences as would have rendered its sudden capture impossible.

There is something not easily explained in the uniform neglect of the Romans to organise a more numerous and efficient cavalry. It may almost be said without exaggeration that it was his superiority in that arm which enabled Hannibal to remain in Italy, as without it his troops must have starved; and to it he was without contradiction mainly indebted for his victories in the field.

In ancient times cavalry was undoubtedly the arm whose effect was the most decisive on the issue of a battle. The missiles hurled by the heavy infantry being harmless at a greater distance than twenty yards, the cavalry could safely hover at a little more than that

distance from the infantry, ready to swoop on any spot where confusion or looseness of order became apparent. The march of infantry therefore across a plain in the presence of hostile cavalry became a very tedious and dangerous operation.

The relative strength of infantry has increased in constant proportion to the improvement of firearms; and at the present day the position of those horsemen, who should sit quietly on their saddles within 600 yards of the muzzles of the Enfield or Whitworth rifles, would be decidedly uncomfortable.

2. Niebuhr's judgment as regards the field of battle has been adopted in opposition to that of all other commentators, because,

1st. All agree that the Romans faced the south, sealing the assertion by the statement that they were consequently nearly blinded by clouds of dust carried full into their faces by the south wind which blew (and still blows) in Apulia daily during harvest time, in which season the battle was fought.

Assuming this to be true, it is impossible that the Romans could have formed their line perpendicular to the river with their right flank only resting on it, because the course of the Aufidus being from S.W. to N.E., the south wind would, in such a case, have blown obliquely into the faces of the Carthaginians.

Arnold, the only author who has done so, has endeavoured to reconcile the discrepancy by forming the Romans perpendicular to the river with their left flank resting upon it, in which position the south wind would blow the dust obliquely into their faces. But in at

tempting to get over this difficulty, he was driven to the necessity of placing the Romans with their backs to the sea, and with the Carthaginians directly interposed between them and the towns of Canusium and Venusia on which they must retreat if defeated; a most improbable supposition.

2nd. The diminution of the front of the Roman infantry by increasing the depth is incomprehensible, excepting on the hypothesis that the outflanking of the enemy was rendered impossible by some natural obstacle; and the loop a m b in the diagram exactly agrees with this hypothesis.

3rd. Such a field of battle exactly suited Hannibal's circumstances. The ground was favourable both to the inferiority of his infantry since the Romans could not outflank him, and to the superiority of his cavalry since within the loop the ground is a perfect plain.

So favourable indeed was the supposed field of battle to Hannibal, that it has been here assumed that the initiative in crossing the river was taken by him rather than by the Romans, contrary to the opinion of all other commentators.

All agree that Hannibal derived great advantage from having the wind in his back: some say that he took up his position expressly that he might have the wind in his back; and one writer goes so far as to say that on the day before the battle he caused the ground on which he meant to fight to be ploughed up, so that there might be a great deal of dust which the harvest wind might blow into the faces of the Romans.

Without accepting the last statement, nothing is