The Battle of Cannae

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The Battle of Cannae

• Historic Battles

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The Battle of Cannae 216 B.C.
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The Battle of Cannae 2 August, 216 B.C-
Location- the Apulian plain near to the River
Aufidus in the vicinity of the village of Cannae.
The battlefield is located midway between Bari
and Foggia on Italy's east coast. The Roman army
was led by Consul Terentius Varro who had
approximately 74,000 heavily armed men, and
about 6000 cavalry while Hannibal had about
40000 infantry and about 8000 cavalry
We have the following information on the quality
of the respective sets of troops. The heavy
infantry in both armies were considered to be
equally matched. The light infantry on each side
while equally matched were considered to be
poor. Hannibals cavalry were considered to be
very good while the Roman cavalry were thought to
be a lot poorer in quality.
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There is a theory which says that the rate at
which the size of one group changes is directly
proportional to the size of the opposing
group. Consider two opposing groups of sizes
n and m where we assume that n is greater
than m. Then and
where c1 and c2 are constants.
On multiplying both sides of the first equation
by 2c2n and both sides of the second equation by
2c1m we obtain
which integrates to give c2n2 c1m2 constant
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This can be rewritten as
where c is a constant.
The ratio will give a measure of the
relative strengths of the two groups for if c1
lt c2 then group n is the superior group in
battle, and if c1gtc2 then group m is the
superior. If c1 c2 then the two groups (or the
sum of the individual units which make up the
groups) could be considered to be of equal
strengths. If at some stage of a battle n N
and m M, say,
then we can calculate the constant c.
We have and so
.
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Using this equation we can find the number of
survivors S in a battle. Letting n S when
m 0 , the number of survivors S is given by S
int ( N2 M2 1/2) where int is the
integer part of the number if we consider whole
survivors only.
You are going to select values for the ratio
and fight the battle of Cannae. Use your own
tactics, take control of Hannibals army and
win the battle. To help you choose the ratio,
the table shows the number of survivors for
different values of , if 50 of
Hannibals cavalty went into battle against
40 of Varros cavalry.
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Remember that Hannibals cavalry were much
superior to those of the enemy so for a cavalry
battle you might take the ratio at about 0.5
while for an infantry battle the ratio might be
about 1.
The mathematical scene is now set. You have
information on the armies and you are now ready
to choose the ratio you think appropriate, adopt
your tactics, and fight the Battle of Cannae.
You are to take the role of Hannibal and defeat
the Romans. Some tactics to consider - you
could send in your cavalry to battle in a
straight head on fight on the left
A similar cavalry battle could take place on the
right (remember the better quality of your
cavalry)
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With the Romans vulnerable from an attack in the
rear, you could then turn your surviving cavalry
against the rear of the Roman army. Think of the
chaos this could cause! For the infantry battle
you could split your own force and try to split
up the much larger Roman army and fight separate
battles hoping that your smaller force on the
right can hold the Roman line while your larger
force on the left defeats the smaller opposition
on the left of the battlefield.
There are many, many possibilities which you can
try so experiment and see how you get on in
battle. Can you with the much smaller
Carthaginian army, defeat the Romans at Cannae?
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The actual battle of Cannae - So what happened
in the actual battle of Cannae? The deployment of
the troops was as follows. The Romans deployed
in the usual way with heavy infantry in the
centre and cavalry on the wings. The Romans had
a lot of depth in their infantry while the width
matched that of Hannibals infantry. Hannibal
put his weakest infantry in the centre with his
best quality infantry on the outside of them.
The cavalry occupied the flanks with the
majority of them on the left of the
battlefield. When battle commenced, Hannibals
cavalry were so superior that they easily drove
the Roman cavalry off the field on both flanks
and then proceeded to attack the Roman centre
and back causing it to halt its progress.
Hannibals cavalry and infantry flanked and
boxed them in at the sides, encircling them.
The trapped Romans were hemmed in and completely
slaughtered. Almost 60000 Romans died that day.
Hannibal lost 5700 men in battle. Varro escaped
and died about 200 B.C. As for Hannibal, he took
his own life some 34 years later to avoid
falling into the hands of his enemies. Hannibal
killed himself by taking poison. He died at
Nicomedia in Bithynia, B.C. 183, about 33 years
after the battle of Cannae.