How did the pincer movement at the Battle of Cannae work?
Upvote:2
I can answer some of these questions, as I had a hand in writing the present version of the Wikipedia article -- which I admit needs more work.
- The red squares are the Roman camps, as labelled in the other map @TomasBy links to.
- Hannibal put his weaker infantry units in the middle of his line, in order to lure the Roman troops in, so they could be attacked from the sides by his stronger infantry units. (Robert O'Donnell's book, mentioned in the Wikipedia article, explains the battle quite well.)
- The Carthaginian cavalry was far better than the Roman. (The Romans never figured out how to be good hors*m*n, & ended up recruiting from other nationalities for their cavalry.) The Carthaginians defeated the Roman cavalry, & chased the cavalry from the field.
- 216 BC is the correct date. (For some reason, the source of the map -- the US Military Academy -- got the year wrong.) What is in dispute is the actual date of the battle: our primary source states it was 2 August, but the pre-Julian calendar was known to have been only loosely accurate, & one scholar has calculated the actual date to have been 21 June. YMMV.
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