Modern scholarship · modern scholarship

The Fall of Carthage, The Punic Wars 265–146 BC

Adrian Goldsworthy

Composition

2003 CE

Language: english

A military history of the three Punic Wars from the perspective of an established specialist in Roman warfare. Goldsworthy is meticulous on battlefield tactics, the structure and logistics of armies on both sides, and the operational decisions that shaped each campaign. Less interested in the wider Carthaginian world than Miles or MacDonald, this is consciously a war book, but for any claim about how a battle was fought, or how an army was constituted, Goldsworthy is among the first modern works to consult. Particularly strong on Cannae, the recovery of Roman manpower after Cannae, and the Iberian campaign that brought Scipio to prominence.

Claims citing this source

Roman losses at Cannae were among the highest of any single day in the history of warfare, perhaps 50,000–70,000 dead and 10,000 captured. Carthaginian losses were under 10,000.
Hannibal's deliberate tactical design at Cannae was a double envelopment: a forward crescent of weaker Iberian and Gallic infantry that gave ground under Roman pressure, while veteran African heavy infantry on the wings held position and then wheeled inward against the Roman flanks, with the cavalry, victorious on both wings, completing the encirclement from the rear.
Maharbal urged Hannibal to march directly on Rome immediately after Cannae and, when Hannibal refused, replied "you know how to win a victory, Hannibal, but you do not know how to use one."
Cannae transformed Roman strategic and tactical thinking in the long run, driving the return to Fabian avoidance of decisive engagement, the systematic destruction of the Roman senatorial-tribunate command pool, and the eventual Scipionic reforms that produced the more flexible manipular practice on display at Zama.
At Cannae the Roman force outnumbered Hannibal's army roughly two-to-one in infantry but was inferior in cavalry, approximately 80,000 Roman infantry and 6,000 cavalry against 40,000 Carthaginian infantry and 10,000 cavalry.