CHAPTER I: TRACES OF WAR
1. John Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps: The Invasion of Italy and the Punic Wars (Cambridge, Mass.: Da Capo Press, 1998), pp. 73–74, believes that enough physical evidence of the march existed to personally inspect the route Hannibal took. Similarly, Patrick Hunt of the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project believes that, unlike Livy, Polybius appears to have known the geography of where Hannibal crossed.
2. Gregory Daly, Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War (London: Routledge, 2002), pp. 203–4.
3. Mary Beard, cited by Jane Kramer, “Israel, Palestine, and a Tenure Battle,” The New Yorker, April 14, 2008, p. 50.
4. The inscription first cited in F. Ribbezo, Il Carroctodel Sud, S. ii, vol. 4.2, February 1951.
5. Adrian Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars (London: Cassell & Co, 2000), p. 11.
6. Serge Lancel, Hannibal, transl. Antonia Nevill (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1998), p. 29; John Rich, “The Origins of the Second Punic War,” in The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal (London: Institute of Classical Studies, 1996), pp. 4, 32.
7. Cited in H. H. Scullard, Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician (London: Thames and Hudson, 1970), p. 14.
8. Martin Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” Militargeschichtliche Mitteilungen, vol. 47 (1990), pp. 8–9.
9. Hans Delbrück, History of the Art of War, vol. 1, Warfare in Antiquity (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), p. 311.
10. J. F. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War: A Military History of the Second Punic War (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1998)
11. Daniel Mendelsohn, “What Was Herodotus Trying to Tell Us?” The New Yorker, April 28, 2008, p. 72.
12. P. G. Walsh, Livy: His Historical Aims and Methods (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1961), pp. 110 ff., 138ff., and ix.
13. Daly, Cannae, p. 24.
14. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, pp. 328–31.
15. D. T. McGuire, “History Compressed: The Roman Names of Silius’ ‘Cannae Episode,’” Latomus, vol. 54, no. 1 (1995), p. 118.
16. J. F. Lazenby, The First Punic War: A Military History (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996), p. 1.
17. Dating the origins of war will always be dependent upon the exact definition applied to war. Still, the proliferation of walled towns and other signs of warfare in the general region of the Neolithic Middle East around 5500 B.C. provide as good a reference point as is presently available for the first appearance of what would become more or less continuous organized violence. Robert L. O’Connell, Ride of the Second Horseman: The Birth and Death of War (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), pp. 73–4.
18. Glynn L. Isaac, “Traces of Pleistocene Hunters: An East African Example,” in R. B. Lee and I. DeVore, eds., Man the Hunter (Chicago: Aldine Publishing, 1968), p. 259; L.S.B. Leakey, “The Predatory Transition from Ape to Man,” International Anthropological and Linguistic Review, vol. 1, no. 4 (1953), pp. 201–13.
19. Dating these devices is difficult since they all are organic and degradable; however, it makes sense to place their origins around the time of Homo sapiens’ so-called great leap forward, around fifty thousand years ago.
20. W. H. McNeill, The Pursuit of Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), p. 131; see also W. H. McNeill, Keeping Together in Time: Dance and Drill in Human History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995).
21. M. N. Cohen, The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of Agriculture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), pp. 93, 116.
22. S. J. Mithen, Thoughtful Foragers: A Study of Prehistoric Decision Making (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), chs. 7–8.
23. Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 242–3.
24. I. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, Human Ethology (New York: Aldine De Gruyter: 1989), p. 405; Dave Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1995), p. xxix.
25. For a summary discussion of these characteristics, see O’Connell, Ride of the Second Horseman, pp. 36–7.
26. The Stele of the Vultures from Telloh, Early Dynastic III, is presently located in the Louvre in Paris.
27. “Gilgamesh and Agga,” in J. B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts: Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1950), lines 1–40.
28. “Sargon of Agade,” in Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts, pp. v–vi, 5–52, 268.
29. M. A. Edey, The Sea Traders (Alexandria, Va.: Time-Life Books, 1974), p. 61.
30. D. Harden, The Phoenicians (London: Penguin, 1980), plate 51.
31. P. Bartoloni, “Ships and Navigation,” in M. Andreose, ed., The Phoenicians (New York: Abbeville Press, 1988), pp. 72–4.
32. S. P. Oakley, “Single Combat in the Roman Republic,” The Classical Quarterly, no. 35 (1985), p. 402.
33. See, for example, The Iliad 8.174; 11.286; 13.5; 15.509–10.
34. The Iliad, 2.385–87.
35. Livy 1.43. “Servian” after the semi-mythical Servius Tullius. For all references to Livy, I have used Loeb Classical Library series (Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
36. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 44, makes this point about the wars between Rome and Carthage, but with rare exceptions, such as fights over key mountain passes and other choke points, the observation seems true of the whole strategic environment.
37. Agathocles of Syracuse’s victorious troops, after they had defeated the Carthaginians in 310 B.C., found thousands of pairs of handcuffs in the enemy’s camp. Serge Lancel, Carthage: A History, transl. Antonia Nevill (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1995), p. 278; see also Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 186.
38. The Melian Dialogue. Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (5.84–116).
39. H. H. Scullard, A History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC (London: Routledge, 2006), p. 142.
CHAPTER II: ROME
1. Adrian Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War: 100 BC–AD 200 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1996), p. 127.
2. Daly, Cannae, p. 29; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 104; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 75–6.
3. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 3–4, 75.
4. Daly, Cannae, p. 57.
5. Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 17) states that this was the major difference between Rome and Carthage, which was a nation of traders. This is basically a correct statement but one in need of amplification.
6. Arnold J. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy: The Hannibalic War’s Effects on Roman Life (London: Oxford University Press, 1965), vol. 2, chs. 1, 2, and 6.
7. M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (New York: Viking Press, 1980), p. 81; Tim Cornell, “Hannibal’s Legacy: The Effects of the Hannibalic War on Italy,” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds., The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 98.
8. Cumulative estimates of ancient numbers are always difficult, but such figures seem reasonable in light of the fact that in 211 the population of Capua, the second-largest city in Italy, was enslaved and two years later the Romans sold thirty thousand Tarentines.
9. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 257–8.
10. Ibid.
11. H. H. Scullard, A History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC, fourth edition (London: Routledge, 1980), chs. 3, 5; pp. 128–9.
12. See for example Livy 21.63.2ff, in which he states that Flaminius was hated by the nobility, or 22.25.19 when he disparagingly calls Varro the son of a butcher.
13. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 162.
14. Adrian Goldsworthy, Cannae (London: Cassell, 2004), p. 63; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 42–3.
15. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 4.
16. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, p. 127.
17. William V. Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome: 327–70 B.C. (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1979), chs. 1 and 2; John Rich, “The Origins of the Second Punic War,” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds., The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, pp. 18–9.
18. Daly, Cannae, p. 57.
19. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 40.
20. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, p. 80.
21. E. S. Staveley, Historia, vol. 5 (1956), p. 101ff.
22. Theodore A. Dodge, Hannibal: A History of the Art of War Among the Carthaginians and Romans down to the Battle of Pydna, 168 BC, with a Detailed Account of the Second Punic War (London: Greenhill Books, 1994), p. 42.
23. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 45.
24. See for example Scullard, A History of the Roman World, pp. 365–6.
25. Grossman, On Killing, pp. 120–3.
26. James Grout, “Gladiators,” Encyclopaedia Romana (penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/gladiators/
gladiators.html).
27. J. E. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts: A History of Battle in Classical Antiquity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), p. 176.
28. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, pp. 146–9.
29. B. W. Jones, “Rome’s Relationship with Carthage: A Study of Aggression,” The Classical Bulletin, vol. 9 (1972), p. 28.
30. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, p. 109.
31. E. Badian, Foreign Clientelae (254–70 B.C.) (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1958), pp. 6–7, 154.
32. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, p. 363.
33. Goldsworthy, Cannae, pp. 49–50.
34. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 45.
35. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” pp. 11, 23–4.
36. Oakley, “Single Combat in the Roman Republic,” p. 403.
37. Lendon, Soldiers and Ghosts, p. 177–8.
38. Sallust, Bellum Catilinae (51.38); op. cit. Alexander Zhmodikov, “The Roman Heavy Infantrymen in Battle,” Historia, vol. 49, no. 1 (2000), pp. 72–4.
39. Duncan Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars: 359 to 146 BC (Goring-by-Sea, UK: Wargames Research Group, 1982), p. 157.
40. M. C. Bishop and J. C. Coulston, Roman Military Equipment (London: Batsford, 1993), p. 50.
41. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 47.
42. Livy 31.34.4–6 describes graphically the nature of such wounds inflicted during the Second Macedonian War: “When they had seen bodies chopped to pieces by the Spanish sword, arms torn away, shoulders and all, or heads separated from bodies … or vitals laid open … they realized in a general panic with what weapons, and what men they had to fight.”
43. Flavius Vegetius Renatus, “The Military Institutions of the Romans,” in The Roots of Strategy (Harrisburg, Penn., 1940), pp. 85–6 (1.12).
44. See Goldsworthy, Cannae, pp. 135–7.
45. Peter Connolly, Greece and Rome at War (revised ed.) (London: Greenhill Books, 1998), p. 131; Bishop and Coulston, Roman Military Equipment, pp. 58–9.
46. Daly, Cannae, p. 68; Polybius (6.23.13).
47. Daly, Cannae, pp. 64–70.
48. Philip Sabin, “The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War,” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds., The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 74.
49. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 15.
50. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, pp. 274–5.
51. Carl von Clausewitz put it at twenty minutes, while J.F.C. Fuller reduced it to fifteen. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, p. 224.
52. F. E. Adcock, The Roman Art of War Under the Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940), pp. 8–12; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 53–4.
53. See for example Daly, Cannae, p. 62, fig. 2.
54. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 51–2.
55. Ibid., p. 49; Daly, Cannae, p. 78. Polybius in particular has nothing to say on this matter.
56. Emilio Gabba, Republican Rome, the Army, and the Allies, transl. P. J. Cuff (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976), pp. 5–6; Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 12; Lawrence Keppie, The Making of the Roman Army: From Republic to Empire (London: Batsford, 1998), p. 33.
57. Daly, Cannae, p. 73; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 48.
58. Livy, 22.37.7–9.
59. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 13.
60. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 48.
61. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, p. 125.
62. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 49.
63. Ann Hyland, Equus: The Horse in the Roman World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990), pp. 88–9.
64. Dodge, Hannibal, pp. 63–4.
65. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, p. 110.
66. See Polybius 6, 27–35; Edward Luttwak, The Grand Strategy of the Roman Empire: From the First Century A.D. to the Third (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), p. 55.
67. Goldsworthy, The Roman Army at War, p. 113.
68. Ibid., p. 112.
69. Polybius 6.35.4; Daly, Cannae, pp. 133–4.
70. This reconstruction largely taken from Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 82; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 56–7; Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 15. See also Polybius, 3.72, 113, 6.31; Livy 34.46, 44.36.
CHAPTER III: CARTHAGE
1. Daly, Cannae, p. 132.
2. F. N. Pryce, in H. H. Scullard, A History of the Roman World: 753 to 146 BC, fourth edition (London: Routledge, 1980), pp. 163–4.
3. Gilbert and Colette Charles-Picard, Daily Life in Carthage at the Time of Hannibal, transl. A. E. Foster (New York: Macmillan, 1961), pp. 154–5.
4. Lancel, Carthage, p. 111.
5. Ibid., p. 205.
6. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 27.
7. Lancel, Carthage, p. 43.
8. C. R. Whittaker, “Carthaginian Imperialism in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries,” in P.D.A. Garnsey and C. R. Whittaker, eds. Imperialism in the Ancient World: The Cambridge University Research Seminar in Ancient History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 59.
9. Charles-Picard, Daily Life in Carthage, p. 60.
10. Whittaker, “Carthaginian Imperialism in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries,” p. 68.
11. See for example Charles-Picard, pp. 83–4; B. D. Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” Ancient History, vol. 19 (1989), p. 88; see B. D. Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics, 237–218 BC,” Rheinisches Museum für Philologie, vol. 137 (1994), pp. 265–6 for a summary of the second line of argumentation.
12. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 29.
13. Charles-Picard, Daily Life in Carthage, pp. 111, 116; Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics,” p. 267.
14. Ricardo first articulated comparative advantage in his book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, in AD 1817.
15. Lancel, Carthage, pp. 404–6.
16. Ibid., p. 140. The mendacious Cato may have picked the fig from his own trees.
17. See Appian, Libyca, 95, for a description.
18. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 117.
19. Diodorus Siculus, 14.77.3.
20. Whittaker, “Carthaginian Imperialism in the Fifth and Fourth Centuries,” pp. 89–90.
21. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 25. There is evidence that Liby-Phoenicians were liable for military service abroad, but this does not seem to have generally been true across the empire.
22. For a differing interpretation of the relationships see Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 21; Lancel, Carthage, p. 116; and Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 30.
23. Colette and Gilbert Charles-Picard, Vie et Mort de Carthage (Paris: Hachette, 1970), p. 307.
24. Polybius, 1.82.12.
25. B. H. Warmington, Carthage (New York: Praeger, 1960), p. 124, estimates that the total population including slaves, women, and children was probably never higher than four hundred thousand. On this basis, it seems reasonable that somewhat more than one in four would be capable of military service.
26. Polybius 1.75.1–2.
27. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 20.
28. Daly, Cannae, p. 125.
29. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 176–7; Charles-Picard, Daily Life in Carthage, p. 98.
30. Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 49.
31. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 27.
32. Modern sources are somewhat divided on the subject, but in the absence of more evidence, many assume citizens and allied Liby-Phoenicians rowed in the fleet. See for example B. D. Hoyos, “Hannibal: What Kind of Genius,” Greece and Rome, vol. 30, no. 2 (October 1983), p. 172; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 31–2.
33. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 31–2.
34. Rankov, “The Second Punic War at Sea,” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds. The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 50.
35. Livy, 30.43.12–13.
36. Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 24.
37. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 35.
38. See for example Harris, War and Imperialism in Republican Rome, p. 182ff.
39. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 4–5; Lancel, Carthage, p. 365.
40. Polybius, 1.20.1–2.
41. Lazenby, The First Punic War, pp. 71–2.
42. Ibid, p. 81.
43. Cape Bon is the modern terminology.
44. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 110.
45. Diodorus, 23.4.1; Polybius, 1.17.4–6; Diodorus, 23.8.1; Polybius, 1.38.1–5; 1.44.1–2.
46. Tenney Frank, Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 7 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928), p. 685.
47. Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 114.
48. Appian, History of Rome: Book 6: The Wars in Spain, 4; Lazenby, The First Punic War, p. 144.
49. Since Hannibal was nine when his father brought him to Spain in 237, it seems likely that he was born around the time his father left for Sicily.
50. Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 87.
51. Polybius, 1.56.3.
52. Ibid., 1.59.7.
53. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 10; C. Nepos, Hamilcar, 1.5.
54. Lazenby (The First Punic War, p. 164) is quite typical when he says: “We have no census-returns from Carthage, of course, … but … their losses cannot have been high.”
55. Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 88.
56. Appian, The Wars in Spain, 4.
57. Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics,” pp. 250–1.
58. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 135–6.
59. Polybius, 1.72.3.
60. Appian, The Wars in Spain, 4.
61. Nepos, Hamilcar, (3.5–8).
62. Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics,” p. 251.
63. Polybius, 3.11.5–7; Livy, 35.19.
64. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 41; Dodge, Hannibal, pp. 145–6.
65. Hoyos, “Barcid Proconsuls and Punic Politics,” p. 274.
66. Lancel, Carthage, p. 379; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 36.
67. Lancel, Carthage, p. 378.
68. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 40–1.
69. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, pp. 196–7.
CHAPTER IV: HANNIBAL’S WAY
1. See for example Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 157–8.
2. Plutarch, “Fabius Maximus,” 6.3; Appian, Hannibalic War, 14; 28.
3. Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia, 3. 103.
4. B. D. Hoyos, “Maharbal’s Bon Mot: Authenticity and Survival,” The Classical Quarterly, New Series, vol. 50, no. 2 (2000), pp. 610–14.
5. Plutarch, Fabius, 15.2–3; Livy, 27.16.10.
6. Livy (21.3–4) even cites a tradition that has Hannibal, after his father’s death, repatriated to Carthage, only to have Hasdrubal urgently request that he return to Spain.
7. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 256. The five occasions were at Lake Trasimene, at Cannae, the destruction of Marcus Centenius’s force, the first battle at Herdonea, and the second battle at Herdonea.
8. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 62.
9. Livy, 25.11.16.
10. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 257.
11. Ibid., p. 27; Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 89; Daly, Cannae, p. 10.
12. Abram N. Shulsky, Deterrence Theory and Chinese Behavior (Santa Monica, Calif.: Rand Corporation, 2000), p. 30.
13. Louis Rawlings, “Celts, Spaniards, and Samnites: Warriors in a Soldier’s War,” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds., The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 84; Oakley, “Single Combat in the Roman Republic,” p. 407.
14. Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 57; see for example Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities, 14.
15. Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 37.
16. Rawlings, “Celts, Spaniards, and Samnites: Warriors in a Soldier’s War,” p. 83.
17. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 139; Jones, “Rome’s Relationship with Carthage: A Study in Aggression,” p. 28.
18. Polybius, 2.28.10; 2.31.1.
19. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” pp. 11, 18.
20. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 140.
21. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 352.
22. Lancel, Carthage, p. 384.
23. Polybius, 3.15.7–8; Appian, The Wars in Spain, 10.
24. Polybius, 3.8.6–7.
25. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, pp. 57–8; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 155; Rich, “The Origins of the Second Punic War,” p. 18.
26. Polybius 3.33.17–18.
27. Polybius 3.35.1; Appian, Hannibalic War, 1.4.
28. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 20; Daly, Cannae, pp. 127–8.
29. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 17.1.
30. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 241.
31. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 33.
32. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 85; see also Goldsworthy, The Roman Arm, Appendix: Logistics.
33. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 84; Livy 21.23.4.
34. Polybius, 3.60.5; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 34.
35. Livy, 21.30.8.
36. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 355.
37. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 50.
38. Polybius, 3.40.2–13; Livy, 21.25.10–14; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 151.
39. Polybius, 3.49; Livy, 21.31.8.
40. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 71.
41. Lancel (Ibid.) notes that at the end of the nineteenth century a French scholar counted more than three hundred books and articles on the crossing, and Lancel opines that today a second lifetime would be necessary to cover the entire literature that now exists about the crossing.
42. Ibid.; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 166.
43. Polybius, 3.50.3–6.
44. Livy, 21.33; Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 114.
45. Hoyos, “Hannibal’s War: Illusions and Ironies,” p. 90; Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, pp. 127, 151.
46. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, pp. 129–30; Dodge, Hannibal, p. 217.
47. Roger Dion, “La voie heracleenne et l’itineraire transalpine d’Hannibal,” in Melanges a A Grenier (coll. “Latomus,” LVIII) (Brussels: 1962), p. 538; Werner Huss, Geschichte der Karthager (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft series, vol. 3, no. 8) (Munich: Beck, 1985), p. 305.
48. Eduard Meyer, “Noch einmals Hannibals Alpenubergang,” Museum Helveticum, vol. 21 (1964), pp. 90–101.
49. Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 172.
50. Livy, 21.35.8–10.
51. Polybius, 3.55; Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 150.
52. Polybius, 3.56.4.
53. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 168.
CHAPTER V: THE FOX AND THE HEDGEHOG
1. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 133.
2. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 311.
3. Polybius, 3.61.1–6.
4. Livy, 21.39.3.
5. Livy (21.42) and Polybius (3.62–3) have similarly elaborate versions of the same story, apparently believing it emblematic of Hannibal’s character and mindset.
6. Livy (21.46.7) is the main source for this vignette, although Polybius (10.3.3–7) mentions it. Livy is also honest enough to note that Coelius Antipater gives credit for the rescue to a Ligurian slave. Nevertheless, Scullard (Scipio Africanus, p. 29) argues that Coelius’s version was probably a later invention designed to discredit Africanus.
7. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 53.
8. Ibid.; Daly, Cannae, p. 42.
9. Polybius, 3.66; Livy, 21.47.
10. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 172.
11. Charles-Picard, Vie et Mort de Carthage, p. 239; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 84; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 174.
12. See Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 175–6, for an examination of this line of reasoning.
13. Polybius, 3.72.11–13. Livy, 21.55.4, says the Romans numbered eighteen thousand, but Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 56, considers this mistaken.
14. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 178.
15. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 56.
16. Polybius, 3.74.1.
17. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 180.
18. Livy, 21.56; Polybius, 3.74.11.
19. Polybius, 3.75.1.
20. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 58.
21. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 181; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 59–60.
22. Polybius, 3.77.3–7.
23. Ibid., 3.78.1–4; Livy, 22.1.3–4.
24. With apologies to Mel Brooks.
25. Appian, Hannibalic War, 8.
26. Livy, 21.63.1; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 183–4.
27. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 61.
28. Polybius, 3.78–79; Livy, 22.2.10–11.
29. Polybius, 3.82; Livy, 22.3.8–9.
30. Ovid (Fasti, 6.767–8) says the battle took place on June 21. The site of the battle is subject to some dispute. Those interested in the various arguments should see Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 62–3; Connolly, Greece and Rome, pp. 172–5; and J. Kromayer and G. Veith, Antike Schlachtfelder in Italien und Afrika (Berlin: Weidmann, 1912), pp. 148–93. However, it seems that the whole basis for any certainty is undermined by the likelihood that the lake’s level and shore must have shifted significantly over the course of twenty-two hundred years.
31. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 299.
32. Livy, 22.5.8.
33. Goldsworthy (The Punic Wars, p. 189) attributes this figure to Fabius Pictor.
34. This passage of Livy’s (22.7. 6–14) is particularly vivid and illustrates the historian’s almost cinematic qualities.
35. Goldsworthy, Cannae, pp. 59–60.
36. F. W. Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 1 (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1957), pp. 410–11.
37. John F. Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules: The Logistical Limitations of Hannibal’s Army and the Battle of Cannae,” Historia, vol. 45, no. 2 (1996), p. 181.
38. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 195.
39. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 101.
40. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 1; Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 39.
41. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 4.
42. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 68; Livy, 22.11.3–4.
43. Polybius, 3.87.1–3; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars.
44. Polybius, 18.28.9.
45. Daly, Cannae, pp. 89–90, takes this position.
46. Head, Armies of the Macedonian and Punic Wars, p. 144. Polybius uses the term “long-chophoroi,” which is sometimes translated as “pikemen,” but it is clear from his use of such troops as skirmishers that he does not mean they were used in a phalanx, nor that they carried pikes.
47. Polybius, 3.87.4–5.
48. Ibid., 3.88.9.
49. Livy, 22.12.4–5.
50. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 317; Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules,” p. 181.
51. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 5.
52. Livy (22.13.5–8) says that was only one guide, but Plutarch (Fabius Maximus, 6.3) maintains it was a number of guides.
53. Polybius, 3.93–94.5; Livy, 22.16–17.
54. Livy, 22.23.4–5.
55. Polybius, 3.100.4.
56. Ibid., 101–102.
57. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 72.
58. Polybius, 3.104–5; Livy, 22.28.
59. Polybius, 3.105; Livy, 22.29–30.
60. Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules,” p. 183.
CHAPTER VI: CANNAE
1. Livy, 22.35.37.
2. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 74.
3. Livy, 22.39–40.4; Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 14.
4. Ibid., 22.45.
5. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 60.
6. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 199.
7. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 74.
8. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 67.
9. Ibid.
10. The force that defeated the Gauls at Telamon was of a similar size, but this had been the accidental result of two double consular armies trapping a large body of Gallic troops between them.
11. Polybius, 3.107.9–15.
12. Daly, Cannae, p. 27.
13. Samuels (“The Reality of Cannae,” p. 12) argues that there is little sign of any formal Roman military training beyond experience. This seems extreme. It is true that the evidence is fairly shallow, but there do seem to have been well-established procedures. When, for instance, Scipio Africanus established a training program for his troops at New Carthage (Polybius, 10.20.1–4), it seemed far too well organized to have been simply extemporized.
14. See for example Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 77; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 200–1.
15. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 200; Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 67.
16. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” p. 12.
17. Livy, 22.37.7–9.
18. Livy, 22.41–43; Polybius, 3.107.1–7.
19. Dodge, Hannibal, pp. 348–50.
20. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 75.
21. Ibid., p. 57.
22. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” pp. 18–19.
23. Polybius, 3.114.5; Livy, 22.46.6; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 81; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 207. However, Daly (Cannae, p. 29) adds that this figure does look “suspiciously like an estimate.”
24. Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 81) estimates around 28,600 line infantry, with 11,400 skirmishers, while Goldsworthy (The Punic Wars, p. 207) and Parker (Cannae, p. 32) assign around 32,000 to the heavy infantry and 8000 to skirmishers.
25. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 326.
26. Foster Grunfeld, “The Unsung Sling,” MHA: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, vol. 9, no. 1 (Autumn 1996).
27. Samuels, “The Reality of Cannae,” pp. 19–20.
28. Appian, Han. 17, also states that Hannibal was short on supplies; Paul Erdkamp, “Polybius, Livy and the ‘Fabian Strategy,’” Ancient Society, vol. 23 (1992), pp. 127–47.
29. Polybius, 3.110–112; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 78.
30. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 315.
31. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 101.
32. Dodge, Hannibal, p. 396.
33. See Appian, Han. 22; Livy, 22.48.
34. Edward Fry, “The Field of Cannae,” The English Historical Review, vol. 12, no. 48 (1897), p. 751, for the geography of the battlefield.
35. Polybius, 3.112.
36. Polybius, 3.117.8; Daly (Cannae, p. 29) discusses the disposition of those left behind and agrees with Polybius that the great majority would have been left in the main camp, since the smaller camp would be behind the Roman line and therefore need no more than a token garrison.
37. Polybius, 3.113.2–3.
38. K. Lehmann, Klio, vol. 15 (1917), p. 162; Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, pp. 324–5.
39. J. Kromayer and G. Veith, Antike Schlachtfelder, vol. 3, no. 1 (1903–31), pp. 278–388; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 77–9.
40. Connolly, Greece and Rome at War, p. 184; Goldsworthy, Cannae.
41. Polybius, 3.113; Livy, 22.46.1.
42. Appian, Han. 20; Ennius, Fragment, 282; Livy (22.46.9) also refers to the dust problem.
43. Appian, Han. 21; Livy, 22.47.1; Polybius, 3.115.1.
44. Martin Samuels’s characterization of the Roman cavalry (“The Reality of Cannae,” p. 13) as being more like “an English public school outing, rather than a military unit,” is probably appropriate, considering the losses it had recently taken.
45. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 16. Livy (22.47.1–5) roughly follows this version also.
46. Daly, Cannae, p. 165.
47. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 316.
48. Goldsworthy, Cannae, pp. 111–12.
49. Daly, Cannae, pp. 185-6.
50. Adrian Goldsworthy’s insights (Cannae, pp. 127–39) into the nature of this kind of combat are very persuasive. See also Zhmodikov, “The Roman Heavy Infantrymen in Battle,” p. 71.
51. Lazenby, Hannibal, p. 83.
52. Polybius, 3.116.5–6.
53. Polybius, 3.117.2
54. Daly, Cannae, pp. 195–6.
55. Sabin, “The Mechanics of Battle in the Second Punic War,” p. 76.
56. Victor Davis Hanson, “Cannae,” in Robert Cowley, ed., Experience of War (New York: Norton, 1992), p. 42.
57. Daly, Cannae, pp. 196–8.
58. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 153.
59. Polybius, 3.117.1–2; see also Appian, Han. 24.
60. Grossman, On Killing, p. 71.
61. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 155.
62. R. J. Ridley, “Was Scipio Africanus at Cannae?” Latomus, vol. 34 (1975), p. 161.
63. Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 84) reaches this number using a variety of Livy’s figures from 22.49–54.
64. Daly, Cannae, p. 198.
65. Polybius, 3.117.7–11.
66. Goldsworthy, Cannae, p. 159; Frontinus, Stratagems, 4.5.7; Livy, 22.52.4.
67. Livy’s figures (22.49.15) are the most convincing and consistent in this regard.
68. Livy, 22.51.5–9.
69. Again, this is Lazenby’s compilation (Hannibal’s War, p. 84) using Livy’s figures.
70. Polybius (3.117.6) puts Carthaginian losses at four thousand Gauls, fifteen hundred Spaniards and Libyans, and two hundred cavalry, while Livy (22.52.6) places the losses at around eight thousand total.
71. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 108.
72. There is considerable disagreement about whether the incident ever took place. John Lazenby (“Was Maharbal Right?” in Cornell, Rankov, and Sabin, eds., The Second Punic War: A Reappraisal, p. 39) argues that “like most good stories, this one is probably apocryphal.” Lazenby maintains that because Polybius does not mention Maharbal in his accounts of Cannae, Maharbal was probably not there. On the other hand, Dexter Hoyos (“Maharbal’s Bon Mot,” pp. 610–11) points out that Livy did have Maharbal commanding the Numidians at Cannae, and that Maharbal may well have urged Hannibal to march on Rome after Trasimene and possibly again after Cannae, because, after all, it was good advice.
73. Shean, “Hannibal’s Mules,” pp. 167–73.
74. B. L. Hallward, “Hannibal’s Invasion of Italy,” in Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), p. 55.
75. Hoyos, “Hannibal: What Kind of Genius,” Greece and Rome, pp. 176–7.
76. Daly, Cannae, p. 46; Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 109–10.
77. Bernard Montgomery, A History of Warfare (London: World Publishing Co., 1968), p. 98.
78. The story is contained in Livy (22.53). Some modern authorities question its veracity. R. J. Ridley (“Was Scipio Africanus at Cannae?” pp. 162–3) calls it a “romantic story” and cites Scullard, Scipio’s biographer, as casting doubt, since Polybius didn’t mention it. Yet Scullard himself (Scipio Africanus, p. 30) points out that this section of Polybius is not completely preserved, and that Canusium later struck a coin almost certainly depicting Scipio, apparently as a tribute to the incident.
79. Livy, 22.57.2–6; Appian, Han, 27; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 220.
80. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 91.
81. Livy, 22.61.14–15.
82. Ibid., 22.57.9–11.
83. Ibid., 22.58.1–4.
84. Ibid., 22.60.
85. Appian, Han. 28.
86. Livy, 23.16.15.
87. Livy, 23.24.6–13; Polybius, 3.118.
88. Livy, 23.31.1–3.
89. This interpretation is most clearly evident in Silius Italicus, 10.649–658.
CHAPTER VII: AFTERSHOCKS
1. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 89.
2. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 113.
3. Livy, 23.7.1–2; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 90.
4. Livy, 23.10.1–2.
5. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 115; Livy, 23.18.10–15.
6. Livy, 23.45.4.
7. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 92; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 115.
8. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 223.
9. Livy, 23.11.7–12.
10. Ibid., 23.13.2.
11. Livy, 23.41.10–12; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 112; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 226.
12. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 220–1.
13. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 94–5; Prevas, Hannibal Crosses the Alps, p. 212.
14. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 115; Cornell, “Hannibal’s Legacy: The Effects of the Hannibalic War on Italy,” p. 102.
15. Plutarch, Fabius Maximus, 20.
16. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, p. 340
17. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 358. The highest figures are Lancel’s (Hannibal, p. 145).
18. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 122.
19. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 226.
20. Livy, 23.33.5 and 23.34.4–5.
21. Polybius, 7.9.
22. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 117–8. See also E. J. Bickerman, “An Oath of Hannibal,” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 75 (1944), pp. 87–102; E. J. Bickerman, “Hannibal’s Covenant,” American Journal of Philology, vol. 73 (1952), pp. 1–23.
23. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 253.
24. Livy, 26.24.
25. Information about the raid comes from Polybius 11.7; information about Mantinea comes from Polybius 11.11–18.
26. Livy, 29.12.2.
27. Livy, 23.32.7–12, 23.34.10–15, 23.40–41.7; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 120.
28. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 98.
29. Livy, 24.6.4; Polybius, 7.2.1–6.
30. Livy, 24.29–30. The killing of the two thousand Roman deserters is discussed in Livy, 24.30.6–7.
31. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 35.
32. See Plutarch, Marcellus, 13.
33. Livy (25.6) devotes an entire chapter to a moving recitation of their grievances. The senate’s reply is at Livy 25.7.2–4.
34. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 263.
35. Polybius, 8.3–7.
36. Ibid., 8.5.6.
37. Plutarch, Marcellus, 17.
38. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 107.
39. Livy, 24.36.
40. Polybius, 8.37.1–13; Plutarch, Marcellus, 18.
41. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 265.
42. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 118.
43. Plutarch, Marcellus, 19. Actually, Plutarch gives three versions of the story, all with the same result.
44. Ibid., 21; Livy, 25.40.1–3.
45. Livy, 26.1.10.
46. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 119.
47. Livy, 26.21.14.
48. Livy, 26.29–30.
49. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 172.
50. Ibid., p. 50; Daly, Cannae, p. 11; Polybius, 3.97.1–5.
51. Scullard, Scipio Africanus
52. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 246–7.
53. Polybius, 3.76.8–11.
54. Ibid., 3.96.
55. Livy, 22.20–21.
56. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 249.
57. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, pp. 32–3.
58. Livy implies that it was late in 216, but this seems unlikely given the onset of bad weather in the Alps.
59. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 128. Goldsworthy (The Punic Wars, p. 250) argues against this comparison, maintaining that there is no sign that Hasdrubal deliberately thinned the Spanish center. But Livy (23.29.8) makes it clear that the Spanish troops were irresolute, something Hasdrubal probably understood and was clever enough to exploit, especially in light of his brother’s success at Cannae.
60. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 129.
61. Livy, 25.32.3; Rawlings, “Celts, Spaniards, and Samnites: Warriors in a Soldier’s War,” pp. 91–2.
62. Hoyos, “Hannibal: What Kind of Genius,” pp. 174–5.
63. Livy, 25.33.
64. Ibid., 25.34.
65. Ibid., 25.35–6.
66. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 131; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 253.
67. Livy (26.17.1) gives the figure as six thousand Roman infantry and three hundred cavalry, plus an equal number of allied foot soldiers and eight hundred cavalry. Appian (History of Spain, 17) reports ten thousand foot soldiers and a thousand horse.
68. Livy, 26.17.3–16.
69. Ibid., 23.43.4.
70. Ibid., 25.13–14; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 112–3.
71. Livy, 25.16–17, 25.20.4; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 113.
72. Livy, 25.19.9–17.
73. Ibid., 25.21.
74. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 237.
75. Livy, 26.1.9–10.
76. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 174; Livy, 27.7.12–13.
77. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 121.
78. Livy, 26.4.4–10.
79. Ibid., 26.5–6.
80. For the alternative versions, see Polybius 9.3–7 and Livy 26.7–11.
81. Livy, 26.11.6.
82. Ibid., 26.11.4.
CHAPTER VIII: THE AVENGERS
1. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 138.
2. See for example Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 133, and H. H. Scullard, Roman Politics, 220–150 B.C. (Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, 1973), pp. 66–7.
3. Livy, 26.19.3–9.
4. Polybius, 10.2–3.
5. Livy, 26.19.10.
6. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 40; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 133.
7. Polybius, 10.9.3.
8. Ibid., 10.7.5. Mago’s location “on this side of the Pillars of Hercules,” according to Polybius, is confusing and may have been a copyist’s error.
9. Polybius, 10.8.4–9.
10. Ibid., 10.11.5–8.
11. Ibid., 10.14–15, 1–2.
12. Polybius’s description of the sack of New Carthage is frequently used as a typical example of Roman behavior in such circumstances, a sequential process beginning with indiscriminate slaughter. Polybius, 10.15.5–8, says “They do this I think to inspire terror, so that when towns are taken by the Romans one may often see not only the corpses of human beings, but dogs cut in half and the dismembered limbs of other animals…. After this, upon the signal being given, the massacre ceased and they began pillaging.” Polybius then goes on to describe a very methodical and orderly process by which loot was accumulated and distributed equally to the legionaries. (10.15.4–16). Adam Ziolkowski “Urbs Direpta, Or How the Romans Sacked Cities,” in John Rich and Graham Shipley, eds., War and Society in the Roman World (London: Routledge, 1995), pp. 69–91, argues that the process was likely to have been a lot less orderly, with soldiers grabbing any goods they could get, and raping those citizens they didn’t kill.
13. Polybius, 10.17.6–14.
14. Livy, 26.51.1–2.
15. Polybius, 10.19.1–6; Livy, 26.50.
16. Polybius, 10.20.1–4.
17. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 140.
18. Livy, 26.51.10; Polybius 10.35.6–8.
19. Polybius, 10.37.4–5.
20. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 277; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 141.
21. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, pp. 73–4.
22. Ibid., p. 74.
23. Livy, 27.19.1–3.
24. Ibid., 27.19.8–12.
25. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 142.
26. Plutarch, Marcellus, 9.
27. Livy, 27.9.1.
28. Ibid., 27.10.10.
29. Ibid., 27.12.1–3.
30. Ibid., 27.12–14.
31. Ibid., 27.16.12–16.
32. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 143; Livy, 27.16.8.
33. Plutarch, Marcellus, 27; Scullard, Roman Politics, pp. 20–1; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 176–7.
34. It is probably telling that, despite Fabius Maximus’s success at Tarentum, for the year 208 his imperium was not renewed.
35. See Livy, 27.26–7, and Polybius, 10.32.1–6.
36. Polybius, 10.32.7.
37. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 179.
38. Ibid., p. 178; Livy, 27.24.
39. Livy, 27.36.1–4, 27.39.1–2, 27.39.5–11.
40. Silius Italicus, 15.513–21.
41. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 180.
42. Livy, 27.34–35.
43. Ibid., 27.39.11–14; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 146; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 239.
44. Livy, 27.46.6; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 184.
45. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 183.
46. Livy, 27.43.1–12.
47. Dodge, Hannibal, pp. 547–8.
48. Livy, 27.44.9.
49. Polybius, 11.1.1.
50. Livy, 27.46.1–4.
51. Ibid., 27.46.7ff.
52. Ibid., 27.47.1–5.
53. Ibid., 27.47.10–11; Dodge, Hannibal, p. 551.
54. Ovid, Fasti, 6.770.
55. Scullard, A History of the Roman World, note 6, p. 502; Walbank, A Historical Commentary on Polybius, vol. 2, p. 270.
56. Livy, 27.48.8.
57. Lazenby’s explanation (Hannibal’s War, pp. 188–90) of the course of the battle is lucid and logical.
58. Polybius, 11.3.1.
59. Ibid., 11.2.1; Livy, 27.49.3–4.
60. Livy, 27.50.1; Lazenby, “Was Maharbal Right?” p. 40.
61. Livy, 27.49.5–6.
62. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 191.
63. Polybius, 11.3.6.
64. Livy, 27.51.12.
65. Ibid., 28.1.4.
66. Ibid., 28.2.12.
67. Polybius, 11.20.2. Livy (28.12.13–14) places the Carthaginian numbers at fifty thousand infantry and forty-five hundred cavalry. Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 145) argues convincingly that Scipio’s tactic of extending his wings indicates that he was outnumbered considerably in infantry.
68. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 279.
69. Polybius, 11.21.1–5.
70. Ibid., 11.22.1–5.
71. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 146.
72. Livy, 28.14.12–14, 28.15.3.
73. Polybius, 11.22.11–23.2.
74. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 282.
75. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, pp. 94–5; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 282–3; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 150.
76. Polybius, 11.24.1.
77. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 283.
78. Livy, 28.15.11; Polybius, 11.24.7–9.
79. Livy, 28.16.6.
80. Ibid., 28.16.15.
81. Lancel, Carthage, pp. 396–7.
82. Livy, 24.49.1–6; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 151.
83. Livy, 28.17.13–16. An analogous situation occurred in A.D. 1914 during the early stages of World War I when German admiral von Spee’s squadron, featuring the two cruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, sailed up to the Falkland Islands. There the Germans found anchored in Port Stanley harbor a much more powerful British fleet with two capital ships, the new dreadnought battle cruisers Inflexible and Invincible. Like in Scipio’s case, von Spee’s best bet was to close—in this case to fight before his adversaries could raise a head of steam and while they were still sitting ducks. Instead, the German tried to flee and was run down and annihilated.
84. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 152.
85. Livy, 28.22.2ff.
86. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 284.
87. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 153.
88. Livy, 28.25–29; Polybius, 11.25.30.
89. Livy, 28.36.1–2.
90. Ibid., 28.37.4
91. Ibid., 28.38.5.
92. Ibid., 28.40.3–42.22.
93. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 162.
94. Livy, 28.44.1–2.
95. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 286.
96. Livy, 28.45.8.
97. G. de Sanctis, Storia dei Romani (Florence, Italy: La Nuova Italia, 1968), vol. 3, 2, p. 645ff; M. Gelzer, Kleine Schriften (Wiesbaden, Germany: F. Steiner, 1964), vol. 3, p. 245ff; cited in Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 195; Livy, 25.45.13; Appian, Lib 7.
CHAPTER IX: RESURRECTING THE GHOSTS
1. Livy, 28.46.7–10; 28.46.13.
2. Scullard (Scipio Africanus, fn 81, p. 266) argues that the story should probably be rejected since an almost identical story is told by Plutarch about Agesilaus (9). Nevertheless, it remains true that Livy (59 B.C.–A.D. 17) predated Plutarch (A.D. 46–120), so unless the story is based on an earlier tradition, it seems possible to accept it.
3. Livy, 29.1.15.
4. Ibid., 29.24.12.
5. Ibid., 29.24.14; Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 203) argues that the number is too large, since it was not until the Third Macedonian War, thirty years later, that the Roman army had legions this big. Goldsworthy (The Punic Wars, p. 287) counters that this argument “denies the essential flexibility of the Roman military system,” and Goldsworthy says that “it was normal to increase the size of legions when faced by an especially dangerous enemy.” Certainly, this was the case at Cannae.
6. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 202.
7. Livy, 29.1.13–14, 26.1.10.
8. Ibid., 29.24.12.
9. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 111.
10. Livy, 29.9.4–7.
11. Ibid., 29.9.9–11.
12. Plutarch, Cato the Elder, 3.5–6.
13. Livy, 29.19ff.
14. Ibid., 29.22ff.
15. Livy does not state a date, but Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, p. 204) thinks the June-July time frame is a good guess.
16. Livy, 29.25.12.
17. Ibid., 29.28.
18. Appian, Lib 9; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 165.
19. Livy, 29.34.1–6.
20. Ibid., 29.34.7ff.
21. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 164.
22. Livy, 29.28.7.
23. Ibid., 29.35.10–11; Polybius, 14.1.14; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 292; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 206.
24. Polybius, 14.1.3.
25. Livy, 30.3.1–7.
26. Ibid., 30.4.9.
27. Polybius, 14.4.10.
28. Livy, 30.6.8; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 208.
29. Polybius, 14.5.15.
30. Livy, 30.7.6–9.
31. Ibid., 30.7.8–9; Polybius, 14.7.6.
32. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 295.
33. Polybius, 14.7.9; Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 209; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 203.
34. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 209.
35. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 129.
36. Polybius, 14.8.8; Livy, 30.8.7.
37. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, pp. 209–211.
38. Livy, 30.8.7.
39. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 295–6.
40. Livy, 30.8.12–13.
41. Polybius, 14.10.7–9.
42. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 297.
43. Polybius, 14.10.9.
44. Livy, 30.10.12.
45. Ibid., 30.11.5.
46. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 212.
47. Livy, 30.12.11ff.
48. Diodorus (27.7) claims that before Hasdrubal Gisgo’s condominium with Syphax, Sophonisba had been the wife of Masinissa. But this seems unlikely, given the prince’s extensive time in Spain. According to Zonaras (9.11), Sophonisba was betrothed to Masinissa before marrying Syphax.
49. Livy, 30.13.12–14.
50. Ibid., 30.15.1–8.
51. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 213; Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 134.
52. Livy, 30.16.4.
53. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 170.
54. Livy, 30.16.10–11.
55. Ibid., 30.16.12.
56. Appian, The Punic Wars, 32.
57. Livy, 30.16.14–15.
58. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 155.
59. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 214.
60. Livy, 30.19.1ff.
61. Cicero (On Divination, 1.24.48) says the story came from Silenos, Hannibal’s resident historian.
62. Delbrück (Warfare in Antiquity, p. 380) in particular draws attention to this time lag.
63. Hoyos, “Hannibal: What Kind of Genius,” p. 179.
64. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 156–7.
65. Appian, The Punic Wars, 134.
66. Livy, 30.20.7–8.
67. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 299.
68. Appian, The Punic Wars, 34.
69. Livy, 30.25.1ff; Polybius, 15.2.3–13.
70. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 171.
71. Polybius, 15.4.2.
72. Polybius, 14.5.1–2.
73. Lazenby, Hannibal’s War, p. 218.
74. Appian, The Hannibalic War, 59.
75. Polybius, 15.3.5–7; Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 141.
76. Polybius, 15.5.4–7; Livy 30.29.2–3. Some doubt the story, since an almost identical tale exists in Herodotus (7.146.7), but it makes good tactical sense and Scipio was plainly capable of all manner of deception. He also knew Greek and may have actually gotten the idea from The Histories.
77. Polybius, 14.6.4–8; Livy, 30.30–31.
78. Polybius does not specify the size of the opposing armies. Appian (The Punic Wars, 40), who is generally good with numbers, gives Hannibal 50,000 total, while Lazenby (Hannibal’s War, pp. 220–1) estimates his infantry at thirty-six thousand.
79. Polybius, 15.11.1; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 175.
80. Lancel, Hannibal, p. 175; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 302. Livy (30.26.3 and 30.33.5.) may have been trying to use this as a justification for Rome’s very aggressive behavior leading up to the Second Macedonian War.
81. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 303.
82. Polybius, 15.11.1.
83. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, pp. 202–3; Scullard, Scipio Africanus, pp. 150–1.
84. Polybius, 15.9.6–10.
85. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, pp. 149–50. See also J. Kronmayer and G. Veith, Antike Schlachtfelder, vol. 3 (1912), p. 599ff, and vol. 4 (1931), p. 626ff.
86. Polybius, 15.12.8; Livy, 30.34.2.
87. Livy, 30.34.3.
88. Dodge, Hannibal, pp. 604–5.
89. Polybius, 15.13.6–7.
90. Ibid., 15.14.2.
91. Polybius, 15.14.9. Appian (The Punic Wars, 48) maintain that twenty-five hundred Romans plus some of Masinissa’s men died at Zama.
92. Polybius, 15.19.5.
93. Lancel (Hannibal, p. 177) states that one Euboic talent was equivalent to twenty-six kilograms of silver, or 57.2 pounds. Thus ten thousand talents equaled 572,000 pounds of silver, or 9,152,000 ounces, at $13.25 per ounce spot price on March 5, 2009, which amounts to $121,264,000.
94. Appian, The Punic Wars, 54.
95. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 159.
96. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 317.
97. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy, vol. 2, pp. 277–81.
98. Livy, 31.14.1–2, 32.3.1–5.
99. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 185.
100. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 320.
101. Livy, 33.25.6–7.
102. Plutarch, Flaminius, 13; Livy, 34.50.
103. Delbrück, Warfare in Antiquity, pp. 340–1.
104. Scullard, Scipio Africanus, p. 179.
105. Livy, 33.48; Lancel, Carthage, pp. 402–4.
106. E. Badian, “Rome and Antiochus the Great, a Study in Cold War,” Classical Philology (1959), pp. 81–99.
107. Livy, 34.60.4ff, 36.7.1ff.
108. Pliny the Elder, The Natural History, 5.148.
109. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 206–7.
110. Plutarch, Flaminius, 20.
111. Lancel, Carthage, pp. 404–5.
112. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 331.
113. Charles-Picard, Daily Life in Carthage, p. 165; Lancel, Carthage, pp. 505–6.
114. Appian, The Punic Wars, 69.
115. Appian, The Punic Wars, 132.
116. Arnold J. Toynbee, Hannibal’s Legacy: The Hannibalic War’s Effects on Roman Life, 2 volumes (London: Oxford University Press, 1965).
117. Cornell, “Hannibal’s Legacy: The Effects of the Hannibalic War on Italy,” p. 104.
118. Victor Davis Hanson, Warfare and Agriculture in Classical Greece (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998).
119. T. J. Cornell, Cambridge Ancient History, second edition (London: Cambridge University Press, 1980), pp. 334, 413; M. I. Finley, Ancient Slavery and Modern Ideology (London: Chatto and Windus, 1980), p. 81; Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 364.
120. Cornell, “Hannibal’s Legacy: The Effects of the Hannibalic War on Italy,” p. 105.
121. Goldsworthy, The Punic Wars, p. 362.
122. Lancel, Hannibal, pp. 212–3.
EPILOGUE: THE SHADOW OF CANNAE
1. See for example Daly, Cannae, p. ix (“The battle of Cannae may be the most studied battle in history; it has almost certainly had the most important effect on the development of military tactics.”); Dodge, Hannibal, p. 379; Lancel, Hannibal, p. 107 (“it is not surprising that Hannibal’s military masterpiece has influenced the ideas of war theorists, as far as Clausewitz and even beyond.”).
2. Ed. and transl. George T. Dennis, Maurice’s Strategikon (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1984), p. 27.
3. Charles Oman, A History of the Art of War in the Middle Ages (New York: Burt Franklin, 1924), vol. 2, pp. 265–7.
4. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Luigi Ricci, chs. 31, 53, and 44.
5. Machiavelli, The Prince, ch. 17.
6. Niccolò Machiavelli, The Art of War, transl. Ellis Farneworth (Indianapolis, Ind.: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 120.
7. Ibid., p. 112.
8. Geoffrey Parker, “The Limits to Revolutions in Military Affairs: Maurice of Nassau, the Battle of Nieuwpoort (1600), and the Legacy,” The Journal of Military History, vol. 71, no. 2 (2007), pp. 338–9.
9. Ibid., pp. 345–6.
10. This conclusion is based in part on a personal correspondence with John A. Lynn and Geoffrey Parker, neither of whom recalled any further discussions of Cannae in the military writings of the enlightenment.
11. Parker, “The Limits of Revolutions in Military Affairs,” pp. 357–8.
12. Terence M. Holmes, “Classic Blitzkrieg: The Untimely Modernity of Schlieffen’s Cannae Program,” The Journal of Military History, vol. 67, no. 3 (2003), p. 744.
13. Terence Zuber, “The Schlieffen Plan Reconsidered,” War in History, vol. 6 (199); Terence Zuber, Inventing the Schlieffen Plan (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002).
14. Holmes, “Classic Blitzkrieg,” pp. 757–9.
15. I owe these observations to Bruce Gudmudsson, personal correspondence March 31, 2009.
16. This phrase was suggested by Dennis Showalter; Holmes, “Classic Blitzkrieg,” pp. 764–70.
17. Holmes, “Classic Blitzkrieg,” pp. 769–71.
18. Wolf Heckmann, Rommel’s War in Africa (London: Doubleday, 1981), p. 113.
19. Antony Beevor, Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege: 1942–1943 (London: Penguin, 1999), p. 297.
20. Carlo D’Este, Patton: A Genius for War(New York: HarperCollins, 1995), p. 704.
21. Carlo D’Este, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Henry Holt, 2002), p. 594.
22. Martin Blumenson, The Patton Papers: 1940–1945 (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1974), p. 594.
23. Cited in Goldsworthy, Cannae, cover page.