Survivors of Cannae

Here is something I found rather interesting. Of 3/4 of the Romans who survived the disaster at Cannae (plus the next week when Carthaginian cav moped up some stragglers), they were in a few units that had a few things in common.

This 3/4 had been involved in a lot of fighting over the years. This includes 2 pitched battles against Gaulis revolts, the Tattle of Trebia, and the general low grade fighting that went during Fabius's dictatorship.

The Romans lost Cannae due to being enveloped. But the melee infantry's job was simply to stab their way forward. This means the survivors at Cannae actually did what their general wanted them to do. If the cavalry did their "task" like the infantry, Cannae would be a Roman victory. Of course, the Carthaginian cavalry outnumbered the Roman counterpart, had better officers, the Roman cavalry made some mistakes, and so on.

So of the survivors of Cannae, most of them were infantry that did their task given by their commander. 3/4 of the survivors not only did that, but were veterans of many battles (probably the 65th to the 90th percentile in terms of their most experienced... so these guys aren't the most battle hardened of the Romans, but they are high up).

Yet these legions were disgraced and sent to Sicily under Marcellus (who had to sent some green troops to the mainland and effectively lost 3,000 net soldiers).

Italians, Sicilians, Roman civilians, Roman Senators with no military experience, and most Roman rank and file considered that Syracuse was an invincible bastion that could not be penetrated without an inside job, or losing 3 men for every defender who fights (not dies, fights). When Syracuse fell, a bunch of the Sicilians felt "shit, the losers at Cannae were under a leader so effective he took the invincible fortress. What if Rome can send their better troops to fight us?"

The Romans largely considered the survivors of Cannae to be losers. They were given to whatever task had the least importance that didn't involve long distance sea transport.

And the disgraced men at Cannae didn't get their honor back until Zama. But why were these men considered the Romans' weakest troops until the end of the war? There are three flaws I see with this. One is that most of the Roman troops left after the Battles of Ticinus, Trebia, Lake Tresimenae, Cannae, and Tarentum were green raw levy. The other problem is that I think the men at Cannae did fairly well in absolute terms given their situation. The third is that their campaign history has nothing beside "Cannae" which says "loser"
 
@Alex Zetsu
The entire Roman army was effectively given "not one step back" orders that made capture and surrender a dishonor of the most severe nature, thought to be incompabibitle with future good military service and bravery.
 
@Alex Zetsu
The entire Roman army was effectively given "not one step back" orders that made capture and surrender a dishonor of the most severe nature, thought to be incompabibitle with future good military service and bravery.

They didn't surrender. I agree capture and surrender is a dishonor of the most severe nature. They first fought through some of the surrounding soldiers (I guess the Carthagians got sloppy after 3 hours of slaughter). Most of the men at Cannae were killed, there were few prisoners and even fewer Roman prisoners. Almost all prisoners were allies. Then after getting through some gaps, they hoofed it all the way to a friendly camp (actually a walled fort/city hydrid which had more soldiers and larger walls for its population than a walled city) seven days away (presumably without any food). They had run away to live to fight another day. And they did fight many other days. Scipo said himself that if he had at Zama 3N new troops instead of the N survivors of Cannae in position where he flanked Hannibal, there was a good chance the Romans would lose formation, start getting killed, force Scipio to break contact with Numidia, and turn tail to Sicily.
 
Here I was under the impression that the survivors were Cavalry that manage to escape being enveloped.
 
Here I was under the impression that the survivors were Cavalry that manage to escape being enveloped.

There were some cavalry that managed to escape. Less survivors though. Hannibal made a priority to kill them since the whole gig was up if his own cavalry didn't get to move. The romans had two wings of cavalry and one side mistakenly thought they heard a "dismount" order when the enemy was roughly 100 meters away regrouping. The Carthaginians were like "what? That looks stupid. OK, CHARGE!" The other wing held out longer before being enveloped, then some broke off.
 
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