Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/465

Rh HANNIBAL 443 In the spring of the next year, 216 B.C., he moved south and pounced on Cannae, where Roman supplies were stored up in great abundance. The town is about 6 miles from the mouth of the Aufidus and about 8 from Canosa. The Romans were now again eager to strike a decisive blow. So a vast army was raised by the consuls of the year, yEinilius Paulus and Terentius Varro, numbering 80,000 infantry and 6000 cavalry. Hannibal s army was probably far inferior numerically. The consuls on arriving in Apulia made Canusium (Canosa) their headquarters. For some few days the armies faced each other on the banks of the Aufidus. There were some preliminary manoeuvres and skirmishes, till at last Varro, when it came to his turn to command, determined to fight. Both armies crossed the river, and Hannibal s men were drawn up within a loop which it forms near Cannre. On either flank he stationed a strong body of his veteran infantry. His other infantry, ringed in the centre in a crescent form, was soon driven in by the Roman legions, which had advanced to the attack in very deep formation. But meanwhile Hannibal s cavalry had put the Roman horse to rout, and had fallen on their rear. The Roman columns were now attacked also on either flank by the Carthaginian infantry. Pressed into a dense mass they were cut down without the possibility of resistance. The carnage is said to have been prolonged for eight hours. The Roman army was all but utterly destroyed. The consul ^Emilius Paulus, nearly all the officers, and eighty senators, perished in the slaughter. Varro indeed escaped with a few horsemen to Venusia. The remainder were slain or made prisoners. It was at a comparatively small cost to himself that Hannibal won this great victory. It might well be thought that such a victory would prove decisive, and that it must have been had Hannibal instantly pushed ou to Rome. But he had probably good reasons for not doing so. He was, it must be remembered, as much as 200 miles from Rome ; he would have had to march through still hostile populations, and by the time he would have arrived, he must have known that the first panic would have abated, and that the notion of carrying the city by a conp de main was simply preposterous. What he counted on was the dissolution of the Italian confederacy, and a widespread revolt throughout Italy. Nor was he altogether deceived. The disaster of Cannae shook the loyalty of the Italian peoples. Rome was deserted by most of Apulia and Samnium, and almost wholly by the Lucanians and Bruttians. She retained indeed some strong fortresses, as Gales, Fregellse, Casinum, Beneventum, Venusia, and these enabled her armies to maintain their ground. B.it Capua, in Campania, the richest and most powerful city in Italy after Rome itself, was lost to her. Thither Hinnibal made his way from Cannae, and there he went into winter quarters, which were perhaps too com fortable and luxurious. But the story that his men became utterly demoralized is absurd. They proved in the subse quent years of the war that they could move rapidly and fight bravely. We may indeed well suppose that by this time many of his veteran Spaniards and Africans had been replaced by native Italian soldiers. It is, however, clear that ha still had a fine army. It is true indeed that after Cannae his star seems rather to decline, but the explanation of this is that the Romans again reverted to the steady cautious tactics which they had learnt under Fabius. They too^were for the most part well officered. The ablest of their generals was Marcellus. Yet even he never beat his antagonist in anything like a pitched battle. The Romans after Cannae made prodigious efforts. They sent three armies into the field, to watch and to check the enemy s mivemants. They kept themselves in strongly entrenched camps near fortresses which Hannibal had not the means of taking. Some indeed he did capture, as Nuceria, Acerrae, and Casilinum in Campania. At Cumse, Neapolis, and Nola he was foiled. The two years after Cannae, 215 and 214 B.C., passed without much being achieved on either side. Hannibal was vaguely hoping for reinforcements from Carthage, and for the aid of Philip, king of Macedon. Next year, 213 B.C., he gained a considerable success. Tarentum surrendered, and so did Metapontum and Thurii. At Tarentum indeed the Roman garrison still clung to the citadel, and Hannibal could not dislodge it. From Carthage he had received a reinforcement of some elephants and of 4000 Numidian cavalry, but this did not enable him to resume the offensive with much effect. Meanwhile Capua, besieged by two consular armies, seemed doomed to fall again into Roman hands. One of Hannibal s subalterns, Hanno, was defeated in the attempt to revictual the place. Hannibal himself hurried to its aid, but he could not bring the Romans to a battle, though he did temporarily raise the siege. The year 212 B.C. was one of mingled success and disaster for Rome. Syracuse that year had to surrender to Marcellus, and Carthage seemed to have quite lost Sicily. Here was an important gain for Rome. But in Spain the two brother Scipios had been cut off by Hasdrubal, who could now cross into Gaul and advance on Italy. And in Italy there had been some serious reverses. It would appear that there were actually six Roman armies in the field against Hannibal. One of these under Fulvius he destroyed in Apulia; another, made up of enfranchised slaves under Gracchus- a proof this of the extremity to which Rome was reduced he put to rout, Gracchus him self perishing in an ambuscade. By the spring of 211 B.C. the Romans were besieging Capua with three armies. It was clear that the city must fall, unless Hannibal could come to its rescue. He made the attempt indeed, but he could not break the hostile lines, so strongly were they entrenched. Then he conceived the idea of drawing them off by menacing Rome itself. Now for the first time he marched through Latium and made it taste all the horrors of war. At last he encamped 3 miles from Rome on the Ariio. But the Romans did not lose their presence of mind, or even relinquish the siege of Capua ; they simply recalled Fulvius with one of the armies. There were two legions within the city, and Hannibal pro bably never meditated a serious assault. He ravaged the country up to the walls, but he did nothing more. Through Samnium he again marched into Apulia and thence into Bruttium, where he unsuccessfully attacked Rhegium and the citadel of Tarentum. Capua meanwhile was forced to surrender. This greatly discouraged Hannibal s Italian allies. Marcellus too had come back from Sicily after his capture of Syracuse. Altogether the year 211 B.C. was a very unpromising one for Hannibal. Next year, 210 B.C., however, he partly recovered lost ground by completely defeating the Roman praetor Cneius Fulvius at Herrlonea, the modern Ordona. in Apulia, But he could not follow up this success, and his evident weakness led to the speedy return of Samnium and Lucania to the Roman confederacy. The following year saw Tarentum slip from his grasp. But he soon had his revenge. Next year the two consuls, Crispinus and Marcellus, were both cut off and slain by the Numidian cavalry in the neighbourhood of Venusia. Another disaster soon followed. A Roman army was besieging Locri in the extreme south. It was routed and indeed destroyed by Hannibal. Thus at the close of the year 20SB.C. the struggle was clearly by no means decided. Rome had been making immense efforts. We hear of her having twenty-three legions under arms, and possibly the total number of her armies may have reached 200,000 men. The patriotic spirit of her citizens was still at the highest. But her finances were in a deplorable plight, and