Cannae

Site of the most-studied battle of antiquity, fought on 2 August 216 BCE between Hannibal and the Roman consuls Aemilius Paullus and Terentius Varro. Cannae itself was a ruined hilltop settlement on the south bank of the Aufidus river (modern Ofanto) in Apulia, northern Italy; in the third century BCE it served as a Roman supply depot, the seizure of which by Hannibal in the spring of 216 BCE drew the Roman field army south into Apulia and produced the engagement. The battlefield itself lay on the open plain north or south of the settlement, depending on which ancient source one follows: Polybius (3.110) places the Roman camp on the same bank as Cannae; Livy (22.43-44) locates it on the opposite bank. Modern reconstructions favor the south bank but with substantial uncertainty about the specific dispositions.