Battle of Cannae Battle of Cannae The Battle of Cannae () was a major battle of the Second Punic War that took place on 2 August 216 BC in Apulia, in southeast Italy. The army of Carthage, under Hannibal, surrounded and decisively defeated a larger army of the Roman Republic under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. It is regarded both as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history and as one of the worst defeats in Roman history. Having recovered from their losses at Trebia (218 BC) and Lake Trasimene (217 BC), the Romans decided to engage
Socii to raise a double-strength army of four legions and four "alae" e.g. at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, where each Consul commanded an army of about 40,000 men. Polybius states that the Romans and their allies could draw on a grand total of 770,000 men fit to bear arms (of which 70,000 met the property requirement for cavalry) in 225 BC, shortly before the start of the Second Punic War. The Romans reportedly asked their allies for an urgent register of all "men fit to bear arms" for a "tumultus Gallicus". Polybius' subtotals, however, are garbled, as he