Context

Thirteen years after Caesar's murder, the Roman world had two masters: Octavian in Italy and the west, and Mark Antony in the east, allied with Cleopatra of Egypt. In 32 BC Rome voted for war, carefully, against Cleopatra rather than against a fellow Roman.

On paper Antony had the bigger force: five hundred fighting ships and a hundred thousand infantry, by Plutarch's count, against Octavian's two hundred and fifty ships and eighty thousand. It did not help. Through the spring and summer of 31 BC, Octavian's admiral Marcus Agrippa took Methone, Leucas, Patrae and Corinth and hunted the merchant ships that fed Antony's camp. The camp, on flat ground beside the sanctuary of Apollo, sickened all summer. Rowers died or deserted. Kings changed sides.

Canidius, commanding the legions, urged Antony to fight on land, where his men were unbeaten. Cleopatra argued for the ships, and for a way home to Egypt. She won. Antony burned the ships he could not man and packed the rest with twenty thousand soldiers and two thousand archers. Then he gave one more order. Galleys fought under oars and left their sails ashore, so the only reason to carry sails into a battle was to run. When his captains wanted to leave theirs behind, Antony made them load them, saying that not one fleeing enemy should be allowed to escape. Plutarch adds that Antony had no good hopes himself.

Action

On the morning of September 2nd, Antony's line rowed out of the strait and stopped. Octavian's fleet held its line about a mile out and waited. For hours nothing happened.

Around midday a breeze rose from the sea, and Antony's impatient left wing began to move. Octavian, commanding his own right, had his ships back water to draw the giants out of the narrows. On the other flank Agrippa stretched his wing to get around the end of Antony's line, and Publicola, holding Antony's right, had to follow him. A gap opened between that wing and the center.

The fighting was slow and ugly. Plutarch says it was less a sea battle than the storming of a walled town, with three or four of Octavian's ships swarming each of Antony's. It was still undecided when sails went up at the rear of Antony's line. Here is Plutarch on what happened next:

Aftermath

Few of his men knew he had gone. The fleet fought on until late in the afternoon and gave up only after a rising sea battered it. Ashore, nineteen undefeated legions and twelve thousand cavalry refused to believe the story. They held together for seven days and ignored every message Octavian sent them. Then their general, Canidius, slipped away by night, and the army went over to the winner.

Context

The Battle of Cannae takes place near the beginning of the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage. Both rival powers had been vying for Mediterranean dominance for years. After losing the First Punic War to Rome, Carthage went on the offensive and gained the early upper hand. These early victories were mostly due to the brilliance and audacity of Carthage's most storied general (and Rome's most feared enemy), Hannibal. After famously crossing the Alps with his war elephants in 218 BC, Hannibal was busy beating Roman armies, torching the Italian countryside, and causing widespread panic across the burgeoning Roman Republic. The restless Romans were not used to having a foreign army rampaging through their peninsula and they decided to draw the line at Cannae. Rome assembled the largest army in the history of the Republic with 8 legions boasting 80,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry. Hannibal was outnumbered fielding 40,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry. However, Hannibal used Roman hubris and Roman aggressiveness to his advantage.

Action

On August 2nd, Roman leadership bunched their infantry and decided to smash through the front and middle of the Carthaginian lines, utilizing their numerical superiority. The clash was immense. Unfortunately for the Roman legions, Hannibal predicted this and was ready with a unique formation to absorb this frontal blow. The Carthaginians kept their best soldiers waiting on the flanks as the Roman infantry hammered through the center creating a crescent formation. Recklessly, the Romans pressed. Simultaneously, Hannibal's cavalry defeated the outnumbered Roman cavalry. Suddenly, the fresh Carthaginian soldiers smashed in the Roman flanks and Hannibal's newly freed up cavalry encircled the Roman legions from the rear. What happened next is hard to fathom.

With roughly 50,000 Romans encircled, the Carthaginians slowly sliced, gashed, and hacked their way through the mass of humanity. The next few hours must have been some of the worst in the history of warfare. Here is an excerpt from Livy on the following day: