The Battle of Cannae (216 b.C)

The Battle of Cannae

      The battle of Cannae was the greatest victory of the general Hannibal Barca from Carthage.
The strategy of Hannibal consisted in a weak front line, and make it move back. About the cavalry, Hannibal knew that his horsemen were stronger than the roman equites, so he decided to destroy them fast to encircle all the roman legionaries with his heavy lybian infantry, which were in the rear of the carthaginian army, in the front and with his strong cavalry charging in the back of the roman army (This is called the Incus and the Hammer).

This battle is one of the most important battles in ancient times. This battle letted Hannibal conquer the most part of Italy. This domain were stopped in the 202 b.C by Scipio in the Battle of Zama.



The Armies

    The roman army was compound by about 40000 heavy roman legionaries, a similar amount of ally infantry, and more than 6000 horsemen. This strong army was guiend by the consuls Varrus and Paullus (Paullus died in the battlefield).
The carthaginian army was compund by 8000 light infantrymen that camed from the carthaginian colonies (like the iberian tribes) or were hired in the south of Italy as mercenaries. The army also had about 30000 heavy infantrymen from Carthage (these troops were Lybian swordsmen, carthaginian hoplites and the powerfull Sacred Band of Carthage) and 8000 cavalrymen. This army was leaded by Hannibal Barca, one of the most brillian generals of all times.
                                     

Comments

  1. Eduardo Santolaria16 May 2019 at 00:07

    Ooh my god! You´re better than an history teacher, I learn so many things with your blog. The strategy of the romans was so bad. If you were been there you will planed a better strategy, the army of Carthage wouldn´t be able to do anything.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Carlos Ripalda24 May 2019 at 08:26

    Oh It sounds great and also your explanation . In my opinion romans needed more horseman for winning the battle

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jutsmeandthebooks26 May 2019 at 12:01

    Instead of going to history class I should be taught history by you. I had never heard of this battle before, now I do know about it. I actually agree with the comment above, romans needed more horseman for obtaining the win of the battle.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Margot Farina2 June 2019 at 03:07

    Thank you very much, you explain great, you have helped me a lot with my history exam, in class I did not understand it well.
    I think the strategy of the weak front line was not the best but it turned out to be effective

    ReplyDelete
  5. Alejandro Uriel4 June 2019 at 14:52

    The 1st strategy was good and they won due to that, but why was the carthagian army stopped if they had almost everything under control? Pd. the blog is awesome, keep on writting

    ReplyDelete

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