The War With Hannibal: The History of Rome From Its Foundation by Livy

Author:Livy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Ancient, Rome, Europe, General, Literary Collections, Ancient & Classical
Publisher: Penguin UK
Published: 2004-09-30T05:03:31+00:00

BOOK XXVII

1. This, then, was the state of affairs in Spain. Meanwhile in Italy the consul Marcellus, after Salapia had been betrayed into his hands, stormed and captured from the Samnites the towns of Marmoreae and Meles. Some 3,000 of Hannibal’s troops, left there on garrison duty, were caught and destroyed; the plunder, of which there was a considerable amount, was turned over to the soldiers. In addition to other material 240,000 measures of wheat were found in these places and 110,000 of barley. However, the satisfaction caused by this success was more than outweighed by a defeat which occurred a few days later near the town of Herdonea. The proconsul Gnaeus Fulvius was encamped near by, hoping to recover the town, which had gone over to Carthage after Cannae. The position he held was not a naturally strong one and was inadequately defended; and his characteristic negligence was increased by hopes of success based on the report that the people of the town had begun to weaken in their support of Carthage when news reached them of Hannibal’s departure into Bruttium after the loss of Salapia. Secret messengers from Herdonea reported all this to Hannibal, with the result that he was anxious to keep control of the allied town and at the same time hopeful of catching the enemy there off his guard. So he set out with a force marching light, and such was his speed of movement that he was on the spot before anyone even knew he was coming; and, to cause the greater alarm and confusion, he approached the town in battle order. His Roman antagonist, though inferior in skill and strength, was his equal in audacity; hurriedly leading his men from their quarters, he offered battle. The fifth legion and the left ala went into action with great determination, but Hannibal was ready for them. Once the struggle between the opposing infantry forces had become the centre of effort and attention, he ordered his cavalry round the flanks, partly for an assault on the Roman camp, partly to cause confusion in the Roman infantry by an attack on their rear. At the same time he made contemptuous play with the Roman commander’s name: he had defeated the praetor Gnaeus Fulvius two years before in this part of the country, and now, he declared, he would beat his namesake too – the same name, the same result. And he was not wrong; for though in the hand-to-hand infantry struggle the Romans, despite heavy losses, had yet managed to keep their standards in place and their ranks unbroken, the sudden cavalry charge in their rear brought a shocking change. This, together with the enemy’s battle-cry heard simultaneously from the camp, first broke the sixth legion, which in the second line had been the first to suffer from the Numidians’ attack, and then the fifth too and the troops in the van. Some tried to save themselves by flight, others were killed where they stood, including Fulvius himself and eleven military tribunes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.