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March 6 - March 24, 2019
Hannibal was heard to say that he had twice missed capturing Rome—once because he had lacked the will, the other because he had lacked the opportunity.
Yet the differences between Marcellus and Fabius should not be exaggerated; for the time being both continued to operate within the context of the overall plan—Fabius acting as Rome’s shield and Marcellus as its sword.
By first manipulating the formal rituals by which battles were begun, and then through precise and daring maneuvering, Scipio had overcome a significant numerical disadvantage and had put his force in a position to crush their adversaries.
politics in Rome were always personal and that ambition in the service of the state was still, and very nakedly so, ambition—a corrosive force that would one day tear apart the republic.
Scipio understood that when it came to Masinissa, numbers meant nothing; he was a veritable “army of one.”
Arguably the Carthaginians were never very good at war, only persistent, and this could help account for their lack of planning.
Other commanders might have been depressed; Scipio took to scheming.
‘I am being recalled by men who, in forbidding the sending of reinforcements and money, were long ago trying to drag me back. The conqueror of Hannibal is therefore not the Roman people … but the Carthaginian council of elders…. And over this inglorious return of mine it will not be Publius Scipio who wildly exults, so much as Hanno, who, unable to do so by any other means, has ruined our family by the downfall of Carthage.’”
In any age, countries that fight a lot of wars are well advised to take good care of their veterans.
“Let us now put an end to the great anxiety of the Romans, who have thought it too long and hard a task to wait for the death of a hated old man.”
So passed Hannibal into history and legend; nobody was better at winning battles, but not wars, which is what counts.
In fact, fire-fighting based on volleying and methodical reloading, a model that was destined to dominate European warfare for most of the next two centuries, was not well suited to produce Cannae-like results, since it was based more on attrition than impetuousness, more on cautious deployment than on decisive tactical maneuvering.
William Lodewijk, who in 1607 advised Maurice, as he prepared for a new campaign, not to seek a Cannae, but avoid falling prey to one!11
The modern military image of Cannae as what one modern critic12 termed “a Platonic ideal of victory”
Yet the Germans were not alone in responding to Cannae’s siren song. While the British were more cautious, American commanders were offensive-minded and therefore open to Hannibalic feats of arms.
“There is an old saw to the effect that: ‘To have a Cannae you must have a Varro’ … in order to win a great victory you must have a dumb enemy commander.
But as long as men dream of killing other groups of men in very large numbers, we can rest assured, Cannae will not be forgotten.
