. Rome : its rise and fall ; a text-book for high schools and colleges. ro, a man wholly without experience in military affairs, that pre-cipitated the battle. When his day for command came — for accordingto an absurd custom each consul held the supreme command on alter-nate days — he imprudently, and against the earnest protest of his col-league, began the battle on ill-chosen ground. The yearly change oftheir chief magistrates was a source of weakness and loss to the Romansin time of war. The popular vote frequently failed to secure experi-enced generals. Demagogues often controlled the elec
. Rome : its rise and fall ; a text-book for high schools and colleges. ro, a man wholly without experience in military affairs, that pre-cipitated the battle. When his day for command came — for accordingto an absurd custom each consul held the supreme command on alter-nate days — he imprudently, and against the earnest protest of his col-league, began the battle on ill-chosen ground. The yearly change oftheir chief magistrates was a source of weakness and loss to the Romansin time of war. The popular vote frequently failed to secure experi-enced generals. Demagogues often controlled the election, as at Athensin the times of Cleon and Alcibiades. 170 ROME AS A REPUBLIC. not more than half that number, at Cannae, in Apulia. Itwas the largest army the Romans had ever gathered on anybattlefield. But it had been collected only to meet themost overwhelming defeat that ever befell the forces ofthe republic. Through the skilful manoeuvres of Hannibal,the Romans were completely surrounded, and huddledtogether in a helpless mass upon the field; then they were. PLAN OF THE BATTLE OF CAKN^E AFTER STRACHAN-DAVIDSON. GREATER ROMAN CAMP PANNIBALSP rOMan CARTHA< heavy g/nmn c*^ Sp4N/S/4 and AFRICAN *X?&& ALLIES AFRICAN cut down by the Numidian From forty to seventythousand are said to have been slain ;9 a few thousandwere taken prisoners; only the merest handful escaped,including the consul Varro. The slaughter was so greatthat, according to Livy, when Mago, a brother of Hannibal,carried the news of the victory to Carthage, he, in confirma- 8 The Romans were weak in cavalry ; they had only 6000, the Car-thaginians 10,000. 9 Polybius, iii. 117, places the killed at 70,000 and the prisoners at10,000; Livy, xxii. 49, puts the number of the slain at 42,700. THE SECOND PUNIC WAR. \J\ tion of the intelligence, poured out on the floor of thesenate-house nearly a peck of gold rings taken from thefingers of the Roman 112. Events after the Battle of Cannae. —
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