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[1]
[2] the very outset of the battle, nevertheless repeatedly opposed himself to Hannibal,
2
with his men in close formation, and at several points restored the
[3] fight. He was guarded by Roman cavalry, who finally let their horses go, as the consul was growing too weak even to control his horse. At this Hannibal, being told by someone that the consul had ordered his troopers to dismount, is said to have exclaimed:
How much better if he had handed them over to me in
[5] victorious. They were beaten, but chose rather to die where they stood than to run away; and the victors, angry that their victory was thus delayed, cut them down, when they could not rout them. But they routed them at last, when only a few were left, exhausted with fighting and with
[6] wounds. The survivors were now all dispersed, and those who could attempted to regain their horses and escape.
[7] Gnaeus Lentulus, a tribune of the soldiers, as he rode by on his horse, caught sight of the consul sitting on a stone and covered with
[8] blood.
Lucius Aemilius,
he cried,
on whom the gods ought to look
4
down in mercy, as the only man without guilt in this day's disaster, take this horse, while you have still a little strength remaining and I can attend you and raise you up and guard
[9]
you. Make not this battle calamitous by a consul's death; even without that there are tears and grief enough.
To this the consul answered,
All honour, Cornelius, to your
[10]
manhood! But waste not in unavailing pity the little time you have to escape the enemy. Go, and tell the senators in public session to fortify the City of Rome and garrison it strongly before the victorious enemy draws near: in private say to Quintus Fabius that Lucius Aemilius has lived till this hour and now dies remembering his
[11]
precepts. As for me, let me breathe my last in the midst of my slaughtered soldiers, lest either for a second time I be brought to trial after being consul,
5
or else stand forth the accuser of my colleague, blaming another in defence of my own
[12]
innocence.
While they were speaking, there came up with them first a crowd of fleeing Romans, and then the enemy, who overwhelmed the consul, without knowing who he was, beneath a rain of [13] missiles. Lentulus, thanks to his horse, escaped in the confusion. The rout was now everywhere complete. Seven thousand men escaped into the smaller camp, ten thousand into the larger, and about two thousand into the village of Cannae
[14] itself. These last were immediately cut off by Carthalo and his cavalry, for the village was not fortified. The other consul, whether by accident or by design, had not joined any throng of fugitives,
6
but fled to Venusia with some fifty
[15] horsemen.
It is said that forty-five thousand five hundred foot and two thousand seven hundred horse were slain, in an almost equal proportion of citizens and
[16] allies.
7
In the number were the quaestors of both consuls, Lucius Atilius and Lucius Furius Bibaculus, and twenty-nine military tribunes,
8
some of consular rank, some of praetorian or aedilician —amongst others are mentioned Gnaeus Servilius Geminus and Marcus Minucius, who had been master of the horse in the preceding years and consul several years before
9
[17] —and besides these, eighty senators or men who had held offices which would have given them the right to be elected to the senate,
10
but had volunteered to serve as soldiers in the
[18] legions. The prisoners taken in this battle are said to have numbered three thousand foot-soldiers and fifteen hundred horsemen.
Ab urbe condita. Titus Livius (Livy). Benjamin Oliver Foster, Ph.D. (Editor), Frank Gardener Moore (Editor), Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. (Editor), Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D. (Editor). Medford, MA. .
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Funding provided by The National Endowment for the Humanities.