Hannibal, Mithridates and Spartacus... Of these three great, external, existential threats to the Roman Republic in its last century of existence, prior to being converted into an empire by Augustus, Hannibal came the closest to conquering the unconquerable Italians. After marching his expeditionary force out of Spain and into Italy via the Alps, he vanquished Roman army after Roman army until he stood at the very gates of Rome, his sworn enemy. How was a son of Carthage able to impose himself and his largely international army into achieving such an unthinkable feat against the world's mightiest power? Cannae, the site of a battle that transformed warfare, changed an empire and sowed Hannibal's downfall.
Though estimates vary, it is generally assumed that Hannibal, after his victories over the Romans had a fighting strength of some 40,000 Spanish, Galls and Carthaginians. Opposing him?Almost 90,000 Romans who, in spite of Hannibal's prior victories, were commanded by generals far too confident in their own abilities. Trusting that the massed might of the Roman republic would smash the Carthaginians to dust, they pursued a seemingly skittish Hannibal to Cannae where they were finally able to engage with his forces, eager to dispatch him. But Hannibal was ready. Retreating the center of his force before the Roman charge, he lured the bulk of the enemy force into the midst of his army, putting terrible strain on the men along his interior line who had to hold long enough for his flanks to pincer in from the sides, collapsing down on the Roman from three sides. Though this maneuver had been speculated upon previously, history records Cannae as the first successful deployment of the Double Envelopment, a tactic that annihilated the Roman army at Cannae, scattering only a few thousand survivors to the wind.
Mr. O'Connell describes the battle in vivid detail, attempting to reconstruct key points like its precise location, the weather conditions, and the mindset of the belligerents, but his tale is strongest when elucidating the consequences of the battle. We admire roman culture, but we don't understand it. This was a people who believed so strongly in their own superiority that, when the few thousand Roman soldiers fled the field, they were condemned by the republic, stripped of all comfort and glory, and banished from Rome. But while the defeat seemed to have put the republic on the ropes, Mr. O'Connell explains how this was, in a real sense, an illusion. Hannibal's army was never built to besiege Rome. He could terrorize the countryside all he liked, but if he couldn't take the capital, he could never complete his victory. Hannibal assumed that Rome would surrender, but when they refused, Hannibal was actually forced, thanks to a series of tactical retreats, to leave Italy where, upon his return to Carthage, he oversaw the downfall of his homeland as Cannae became a rallying cry for a merciless Rome which punished Carthage and sent Hannibal into permanent exile. Cannae was one of the greatest tactical victories ever recorded, but it was also the moment at which Hannibal lost the larger war. Such a dichotomy makes Cannae one of the most unusual and fascinating moments in history and Mr. O'Connell does it justice with an account both vivid and expansive. (3/5 Stars)
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