Statue of Hannibal by Sébastien Slodzt

The Battle of Cannae was a major battle of the Second Punic War, taking place on August 2, 216 BC near the town of Cannae in Apulia in southeast Italy. The Carthaginian army under Hannibal annihilated a numerically superior Roman army under command of the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. Following the Battle of Cannae, Capua and several other Italian city-states defected from the Roman Republic. Although the battle failed to decide the outcome of the war in favour of Carthage, it is today regarded as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history. In terms of the number of lives lost within a single day, Cannae is among the costliest battles in all of recorded human history (Full article...)