About the only things the Romans could salvage from Cannae were Scipio Africanus and perhaps ten thousand disgraced survivors, and one day they would avenge themselves and Rome by drawing the Carthaginian away and then defeating him nearly as badly as he had defeated them. So the battle proved to be much more than a human tragedy and a tactical debacle it was the strategic basis of fifteen more years of Hannibal, what must have seemed at times like perpetual Hannibal. But the victory at Cannae would allow him to sink his claws deep into Italian soil, and then he would prove far harder to uproot. Lacking a secure base, Hannibal probably could have been attrited out of existence. Of course they were wrong, and Fabius Maximus had been right. They had merely to supersize it and leave nothing to chance.

Meanwhile, Romans still had good reason to believe in their military system-after all, its fundamentals would provide security for nearly another half millennium. The string of previous defeats could be convincingly attributed to impulsive commanders, impiety, bad weather, bad luck, bad timing … The excuses were endless. Just one Roman triumph, a single day’s victorious fighting, would put an end to the invasion. On the other hand, if the Punic force were to lose even one significant battle, it was too far from any secure base to survive. Arguably, there was a fundamental Hannibal problem: if you didn’t beat him, you couldn’t get rid of him. Viewed from the comfortable perspective of subsequent events, the reasoning that led to Cannae is easy to dismiss. Everything points to a corporate decision to stage a great battle and obliterate the invader once and for all. But the central objective, the overwhelming priority, was to directly confront Hannibal and crush him beneath the weight of Rome’s key advantage, military manpower. Postumius Albinus was given two legions and dispatched north to break the rebellion in Cisalpine Gaul and seal off any further support from that quarter. Nor was Hannibal’s Gallic connection overlooked.

Both Scipios had been given the proconsular imperium to tear up Barca land and rob Hannibal of his base. More on target, in late 217, Publius Scipio, now recovered from his wound, had joined his brother Cnaeus and his two legions in Spain with eight thousand fresh troops and a small fleet. Marcellus, the reliable and hyperbelligerent spolia opima winner, was sent to keep an eye on Sicily, the fleet there having been augmented for a potential invasion of Africa. The strategy seemed sound pressure would be applied in all the appropriate directions. The winds of change echoed along the Tiber as the year 216 began, and though a skeptic might have heard the winds howling disaster, most Romans seemed confident they were blowing toward a quick and decisive victory.

Celtic kings rage of war hastati