You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly. You should upgrade or use an alternative browser.
alternatehistory.com
Romani Contra Orientem: Rome Turns East
Rome's Greatest Defeat
Canne, Apulia
Roman Republic
August 2nd, 216
Publius Scipio slashed desperately at the men around him as the sun began to set. All around him, no around the entire legion, were those damned Carthaginians. That cursed legate...he couldn't remember his name in the heat of battle...had doomed them all in a futile attack on the Carthaginian center. Now they were surrounded and being butchered like pigs, a disgrace. "There is no time to shame him now, he is probably dead anyway." Scipio thought. He brought his sword down on the man in front of him. He raised his shield to the air to block and Scipio kicked him in response, putting him on the ground. Scipio lunged forward and stabbed the man in the throat. Scipio couldn't watch him die, he had more enemies to fell. He turned to see the once overpowering 4:1 odds had been lowered by two more men, Lar Horatius Sarrius and Titus Vipstanus Vulso he remembered. They turned to Scipio and motioned for him to follow them and Scipio nodded in response. Before they could move one more step two more men came out of the crowd and cut them down in the typical barbarity of the Carthaginian army.
Scipio took another battle stance as the men turned their attention to him. He would not go down without a fight, it was victory or death. The two men charged but Scipio didn't move an inch. When the first man got close Scipio made his move and smacked him with his large shield. The man staggered back as Scipio attempted to plunge his sword into his lightly defended body. The other man took his chance and swung his sword, cutting Scipio's army almost completely off. The pain was held back by the sheer adrenalin he had coursing through his veins (a fair bit of which was now beginning to pool on the ground near him). As his blood began to flow freely Scipio, in a last burst of rage, charged at his attackers. He did not get far before the bloodloss got to him and he fell to the ground.
In his last moments of consciousness he saw the two men run toward him and give him a once over before moving on, leaving him to die a painful death. Just as they dived back into battle the pain of having a almost severed arm crashed against Scipio like a wave. The 19 year old boy began to scream and cry, desperately yelling at his comrades "Please! Kill me now! This pain is one I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy!" but none obliged. One man, in his haste to escape the slaughter, tripped over Scipio and was killed by his pursuer. The man turned to Scipio and watched as he slowly slipped into the waiting embrace of death, his uniform stained and soaked with his own bodily fluids.{1}
****
After The Battle of Cannae Rome was in complete disarray. To quote Livy, the greatest source of the battle:
"Never when the city was in safety was there so great a panic and confusion within the walls of Rome. I shall therefore shrink from the task, and not attempt to relate what in describing I must make less than the reality. The consul and his army having been lost at the Trasimenus the year before, it was not one wound upon another which was announced, but a multiplied disaster, the loss of two consular armies, together with the two consuls: and that now there was neither any Roman camp, nor general nor soldiery: that Apulia and Samnium, and now almost the whole of Italy, were in the possession of Hannibal. No other nation surely would not have been overwhelmed by such an accumulation of misfortune."
Mysteriously Hannibal, after effectively exterminating the largest and probably only army Rome had in Italy decided against marching on Rome. When told about this Maharbal, Hannibal's cavalry commander famously said "So the god's haven't given everything to one man; you know how to win a victory, Hannibal but you don't know how to use one". Nevertheless Hannibal terrorized Southern Italy for another 13 years. He sent multiple peace offers to Rome. Puzzling for him though Rome refused every one of them, it was total victory or total defeat. Rome would go on to beat Carthage and utterly destroy Carthage in Africa. Hannibal was called back much to his frustration to fight Rome in Africa before Carthage eventually surrendered. The Second Punic War was a definite turning point for Rome as it allowed for them to assert control over the Mediterranean. Their new Consul Publius Aelius Paetus, while his generals insisted he allow them to destroy the remnant Carthaginian Kingdoms in Hispaniola, turned his attention East to the untold riches of the Orient.
{1}Daly, Gregory. Cannae: The Experience of Battle in the Second Punic War, Routledge, 2002 (OTL book, ITTL Entry)