BLOOD IN THE DUST: CANNAE, HANNIBAL’S MASTERPIECE

On the morning of August 2, 216 B.C.,  the largest Roman army ever assembled during the Second Punic War prepared for a decisive battle on the dusty plain of Cannae in southeastern Italy. The battle that followed would rock Rome to its core! 

In the summer of 216 BC  the Second Punic War had raged for three years. Rome faced an enemy who had destroyed two Roman armies on Italian soil in as many years, wounding one Consul of Rome and killing another. This deadly foe was Hannibal Barca, chief general and leading statesman of the Carthaginian Empire. Thus far for the Romans the struggle had been a catalog of unmitigated disaster.

That year the Roman Senate took the extraordinary step of raising a massive army of eight Roman legions, and an equal number of Italian allied legions; an extraordinary step. But these were extraordinary times.

The…