August 2, 216 BC · Cannae, Apulia (southeastern Italy) Theater
August 2, 216 BC
Rome committed 86,000 soldiers — the largest army it had ever put in the field — to crush Hannibal once and for all. Hannibal deployed 50,000 men with the weak Gauls and Spaniards in the centre, forming a convex bulge toward the Romans. As the Roman mass pushed forward and the centre retreated, it curved inward around the advancing legions. At the precisely right moment, Hannibal's African veterans on the flanks wheeled inward, and the heavy cavalry — having routed the Roman horse — returned to complete the encirclement. The Romans were so tightly packed they could barely raise their shields. Between 50,000 and 70,000 Romans died; perhaps 4,000 Carthaginians.
Commanders