Question about Cannae

[Richard]

Gregory Daly, according to the Wikipedia page on Cannae says that Hannibal had 5,500 Gaetulian infantry with him in the main infantry force. As the Gaetuli, as I understand it, were Moorish or Berber type troops similar to Numidians, I was trying to figure out what they were doing there, since there is mention of these neither in Polybius or Livy.
I wondered, if the Daly assertion is correct and there were Gaetulian infantry at Cannae, if these were skirmishers like Numidian infantry, then were these in support of the Numidian cavalry on the right wing? If not, is this an error by the author?

On a related note, I see that at the Trebia, the 1,000 picked cavalry and 1,000 picked infantry were picked from the whole army. Also at Cannae, only Livy gives a force total for the Carthaginians of 40,000 foot and 10,000 horse.

[Mark G]

Is he not confusing Gaul and gallatian and making up a word to look clever?

[Jim Webster]

unless he's just using the word to mean libyans?

[Duncan Head]

I don't think Daly says that - have a look here. The wiki writers have got confused somewhere.

Edit: In case you can't see that, Daly says that the only reference to Gaetuli in Hannibal's army is one incident describing a small detachment.

[Patrick Waterson]

Also at Cannae, only Livy gives a force total for the Carthaginians of 40,000 foot and 10,000 horse.

Polybius gives exactly these figures:

"The whole strength of the Carthaginian cavalry was ten thousand, but that of their foot was not more than forty thousand, including the Celts." - Polybius III.114.5

[Richard]

Also at Cannae, only Livy gives a force total for the Carthaginians of 40,000 foot and 10,000 horse.

Polybius gives exactly these figures:

"The whole strength of the Carthaginian cavalry was ten thousand, but that of their foot was not more than forty thousand, including the Celts." - Polybius III.114.5

You're quite right. My eyes missed that sentence - that will teach me to try and research with a bloody cold!

Thanks all for the information. I can get back to teasing out an army list.

[Patrick Waterson]

You're quite right. My eyes missed that sentence - that will teach me to try and research with a bloody cold!

Been there, done that.  Same kind of result ... it is surprising just how much a cold can affect one's processing and judgement.

Best of success with the army list.

[Richard]

Apologies for taking up more of your time and I'm possibly being thick but I'm puzzled by a mismatch of numbers in Polybius. Hannibal has 12,000 African and 8,000 Spanish foot after crossing the Alps before he links up with the Celtic tribes of Cisalpine Gaul and 6,000 cavalry. At the Trebia, he has more than 10,000 cavalry including the Celtic allies, 8,000 javelinmen and slingers and 20,000 foot made up of Africans, Spanish and Celtic infantry.
I presume that the cavalry in the first instance consist of 2,000 Spanish and 4,000 Numidian horse. The light infantry are not mentioned, though these took part in the battles crossing the Alps, so I can probably assume these were present. At the Trebia, Hannibal's line foot are 20,000 including the new Celtic contingents.
I couldn't find the strength of Hannibal's foot at the Trebia in Livy, so unless I've missed it, I wonder if the numbers in Polybius for this particular element are confused?

Thoughts?

56 1 Hannibal having now got all his forces together continued the descent, and in three days' march from the precipice just described reached flat country. 2 He had lost many of his men by the hands of the enemy in the crossing of rivers and on the march in general, and the precipices and difficulties of the Alps had cost him not only many men, but a far greater number of horses and sumpter-animals. 3 The whole march from New Carthage had taken him five months, and he had spent fifteen days in crossing the Alps, and now, when he thus boldly descended into the plain of the Po and the territory of the Insubres, 4 his surviving forces numbered twelve thousand African and eight thousand Iberian foot, and not more than six thousand horse in all, as he himself states in the inscription on the column at Lacinium relating to the number of his forces.

Hannibal, who was waiting for his opportunity, when he saw that the Romans had crossed the river, threw forward as a covering force his pikemen and slingers about eight thousand in number and led out his army. 8 After advancing for about •eight stades he drew up his infantry, about twenty thousand in number, and consisting of Spaniards, Celts, and Africans, in a single line, while he divided his cavalry, numbering, together with the Celtic allies, more than ten thousand, and stationed them on each wing, dividing also his elephants and placing them in front of the wings so that his flanks were doubly protected.

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Polybius/3*.html

Alternative translations here:
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D60 Hannibal Attacks the Taurini

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D72 Preparations for Battle
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D73 The Battle of the Trebia
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0234%3Abook%3D3%3Achapter%3D74 The Romans Retreat to Placentia

[Duncan Head]

Well, if the "surviving forces number(ing) twelve thousand African and eight thousand Iberian foot" include the 8,000 light infantry - meaning he entered Italy with only 12,000 line infantry - then at Trebia he needs 8,000 Gallic infantry to make the numbers work.

Alternatively the "twelve thousand African and eight thousand Iberian foot" are only the line infantry, meaning he enters Italy with 20,000 African and Spanish line infantry and 8,000 lights; in which case Polybios must be confused to the extent that he's dropped the light infantry from the arrival-in-Italy figures, and the number of Gallic infantry out of the Trebia narrative.

Hard to choose.

[Jim Webster]

I always felt that having only 4000 African heavy infantry did seem on the low side

[Patrick Waterson]

Would some of the Spanish have been peltasts?  That would give us, say, 2,000 Balearic slingers, 2,000 peltasts and 4,000 heavy foot in the Spanish contingent together with 4,000 peltasts and 8,000 heavy infantry for the Liby-Phoenicians.  Add in 8,000 Gauls and the numbers seem usable.

Livy at the Trebia mentions this for Hannibal's infantry:

"In front of the standards Hannibal placed the Baliares, light-armed troops numbering about eight thousand, and behind these his heavy infantry, tile strength and flower of his army; the wings he formed of ten thousand horse, and, dividing the elephants, stationed them outside the wings." - Livy XXI.55.2

Livy gives no strength for the Carthaginian heavy infantry and is evidently operating under the misapprehension that all Hannibal's skirmishers were Balearic slingers.  We may incidentally note that in XXI.55.4 he gives 18,000 Romans and 20,000 allies as opposed to Polybius' 16,000 and 20,000.  Polybius is probably correct here.

Regarding Hannibal's overall strength at the time of the Trebia, Livy has this to say:

"The strength of Hannibal's forces on his entering Italy is a point on which historians are by no means agreed. Those who put the figures highest give him a hundred thousand foot and twenty thousand horse; the lowest estimate is twenty thousand foot and six thousand horse. [3] Lucius Cincius Alimentus, who says that he was taken prisoner by Hannibal, would be our weightiest authority, did he not confuse the reckoning by adding in Gauls and Ligurians: including these, he says that Hannibal brought eighty thousand foot and ten thousand horse —but [4] it is more probable, and certain historians so hold, that these people joined his standard in Italy; he says, moreover, that he had learned from Hannibal's own lips that after crossing the Rhone he lost thirty-six thousand men and a vast number of horses and other animals." - Livy XXI.38.2-4

Livy is of course taking the full spectrum of writing from Polybius to partisan Roman propagandists whose accounts are not worth the paper on which they were written.  Alimentus' figures seem close to Polybius' "ninety thousand infantry and about twelve thousand cavalry" (Polybius III.35.1) with which Hannibal began his campaign.

[Richard]

Would some of the Spanish have been peltasts?  That would give us, say, 2,000 Balearic slingers, 2,000 peltasts and 4,000 heavy foot in the Spanish contingent together with 4,000 peltasts and 8,000 heavy infantry for the Liby-Phoenicians.  Add in 8,000 Gauls and the numbers seem usable.

That's possible, though Polybius never refers to Spanish longchophoroi (pikemen in the old translations - h/t to DH). It doesn't mean they're not Spanish but it could equally mean these troops were African. For me, a difficulty comes from taking the various actions into account. The longchophoroi and slingers seem to be brigaded together, with longchophoroi occasionally operating detached.

Another difficulty lies with the numbers of skirmishers present at Hannibal's Italian victories. Where specified, Polybius states 8,000 slingers and longchophoroi. This does fit with the numbers above but doesn't take into account losses taken at the Trebia and Trasimene by the Africans line-foot, whereas the Spanish line-foot might only have taken significant losses at Trasimene. But Trasimene is a battle with which I having problems with the old translations online, so I've just ordered the 2010 Oxford new translation.
If we take Cannae, the total infantry do not number much above 40,000, of which we have numbers for 8,000 light infantry, leaving 32,000 infantry.

Another problem with this breakdown of troop numbers is that to reach 32,000 line-foot at Cannae, we need 20,000 Celtic foot to be serving under Hannibal. And this assumes that African and Spanish line-infantry losses will have been replaced or been insignificant, though this is allowed for by Polybius' statement that the chief loss of both battles thus far had been borne by Celts, which in turn would imply that the Africans had been forced back at the Trebia and Trasimene and not broken (thus taking heavy losses in being pursued).

Given that Polybius took his figures from one of Hannibal's statements, I wonder if the Africans had taken heavy losses at both battles and, for reasons of prestige, did not admit to this,  giving the responsibility of the localised defeat at the Trebia to the Gauls and simply minimising the breakout at Trebia. This is an argument from silence and speculation but it would explain the oddness of the statement of strength in Polybius III.54.4. Again, I'm speculating but with the African forces being the probable elite of Hannibal's army and the instrument of victory at Cannae, could Hannibal have been protecting the reputation of politically sensitive troops?

If the listed starting forces in Italy only include line-infantry and horse, leaving out the skirmishers, and assuming that there were 12,000 Africans at the start and 8,000 Spanish (given losses at Trebia and Trasimene), then we could have 8,000 African, 8,000 Spanish and 16,000 Celtic foot by Cannae. This would fit Patrick's thesis about Cannae that half the foot were Celtic and the remainder African and Spanish.
So, assuming that the strengths of the line-infantry at Cannae was 8,000 Africans, 8,000 Spanish and 16,000 Celts, could we also use PW's theory about Hannibal's imitation-legions? Two groups of 4,000 Africans on either side would fit and 40 koortis of Celts and 20 of Spanish would actually work for interleaving the speirai at a ratio of two Celtic to one Spanish but with a second line of each supporting the first, so the line would be forty koortis wide. Apologies, can't think of the plural for "cohort" in Greek.

[Mark G]

Given also Hannibal and Polybius spoke Greek, I would expect peltast to be a word they used with a specific meaning.

I therefore doubt Spanish classify as peltasts, unless the acted and equipped as a Greek expected peltasts to act and equip

[Jim Webster]

Given also Hannibal and Polybius spoke Greek, I would expect peltast to be a word they used with a specific meaning.

I therefore doubt Spanish classify as peltasts, unless the acted and equipped as a Greek expected peltasts to act and equip

or carried a shield that Polybius felt happy describing as a pelta,

[Patrick Waterson]

Would some of the Spanish have been peltasts?  That would give us, say, 2,000 Balearic slingers, 2,000 peltasts and 4,000 heavy foot in the Spanish contingent together with 4,000 peltasts and 8,000 heavy infantry for the Liby-Phoenicians.  Add in 8,000 Gauls and the numbers seem usable.

That's possible, though Polybius never refers to Spanish longchophoroi (pikemen in the old translations - h/t to DH). It doesn't mean they're not Spanish but it could equally mean these troops were African. For me, a difficulty comes from taking the various actions into account. The longchophoroi and slingers seem to be brigaded together, with longchophoroi occasionally operating detached.

Equally, Polybius does not specify the longchophoroi as Liby-Phoenician.  Since they would all have been regularised troops in paid Carthaginian service, I am happy to assume that Spanish caetrati serving with Hannibal had been upgraded to longchophoroi and employed the long-range dual-use logkhe/lonchoi, equivalent to the later Roman lanca, rather than the ordinary akontion or standard throwing-javelin or for that matter the grosphos (as Polybius terms it) used by Roman velites.

'Brigaded together' may be a misleading way of looking at things: the longkhophoroi and slingers formed a skirmish screen of some substance (they could cover 2,000 yards four deep, or eight deep if in open order) and at the Trebia Hannibal seems to have given them clear orders about what to do when they finished skirmishing: having pulled back through the heavy infantry, they split and headed for the wings, where the slingers helped to cow the Roman (and allied) cavalry while the longkhophoroi arranged themselves to shower the allied infantry flanks with javelins - assisted by the Numidians.  They do not appear to have closed to melee (despite some translations*); this was left to the elephants and heavy troops.

*It depends what one makes of prospiptontes, 'falling upon' or 'attacking'.  The usual mode of attack for longkhophoroi and Numidians was to trot up, hurl javelins, trot away.  They may have closed to melee as the allied wings collapsed, but until then their expected modus operandi would be to deliver a constant rain of misiles.

Another difficulty lies with the numbers of skirmishers present at Hannibal's Italian victories. Where specified, Polybius states 8,000 slingers and longchophoroi. This does fit with the numbers above but doesn't take into account losses taken at the Trebia and Trasimene by the Africans line-foot, whereas the Spanish line-foot might only have taken significant losses at Trasimene. But Trasimene is a battle with which I having problems with the old translations online, so I've just ordered the 2010 Oxford new translation.
If we take Cannae, the total infantry do not number much above 40,000, of which we have numbers for 8,000 light infantry, leaving 32,000 infantry.

Polybius specifies 8,000 skirmishers prior to the Trebia, so this figure is obviously prior to any losses at the Trebia and Trasimene.  At the Trebia, the Romans, inadvertently assisted by Mago's couple of thousand rear-enders (who need to be deducted from overall figures when lining up the armies), push through the Gauls and a 'meros' of Liby-Phoenicians and escape off the field with 10,000 men.  It is unclear what size a 'meros' would be, but if roughly equivalent to a Spartan 'mora' it might be a 512-man unit, which is not a vast proportion of the original assumed 8,000 Libyan veterans.  It is, however, enough to highlight to Hannibal that his Libyans' equipment and training is not up to the task of coping with Romans.

At Trasimene, the Roman van of 6,000 (just over a legion in strength, but probably an allied ala reinforced with extraordinarii) similarly breaks through the Libyans tasked with intercepting the Roman van.  Hannibal's losses in these two battles need not amount to more than a few hundred Libyans, perhaps taking an overall figure of '8,000+' to '8,000-'.  His main losses were, as Polybius notes, taken by the Gauls, which suited just about everybody.

Another problem with this breakdown of troop numbers is that to reach 32,000 line-foot at Cannae, we need 20,000 Celtic foot to be serving under Hannibal. And this assumes that African and Spanish line-infantry losses will have been replaced or been insignificant, though this is allowed for by Polybius' statement that the chief loss of both battles thus far had been borne by Celts, which in turn would imply that the Africans had been forced back at the Trebia and Trasimene and not broken (thus taking heavy losses in being pursued).

What seems to have happened at the Trebia and Trasimene is that the escaping Romans steamrollered/shouldered aside a 'meros' or so of Libyans, there being no question of pursuit.  The majority of casualties would probably have been wounded, many of whom would have recovered - the point of the armour of the day was to guard the 'instant kill' areas, the head and torso, while accepting that the peripheral areas would sooner or later collect wounds.  One gets the impression that a frontal opponent would as a rule be bled to unconsciousness by several minor wounds rather than killed outright with a single stroke - see Polybius II.33 on the Roman battle against the Insubres.

My reading is that in each case the Romans cut their way through their immediate opposition and then funnelled through the gap and kept going.  After the excitement died down, the Carthaginians went over the battlefield and picked out those on their side who were still living, many of whom would have returned to service within a few months.  Carthaginian heavy infantry casualties would thus have been modest, but the inability of the Libyans to stand up to Romans frontally would still be clear, giving Hannibal a powerful incentive towards reconfiguring his Libyans as imitation legions.

That at least is the theory.  What if it is wrong, and Hannibal's Libyans took, say, 500 irrecoverable losses at the Trebia and another 1,000 at Trasimene?  That would make a significant hole in the original 8,000: how could that be filled, as no fresh troops from Carthage would arrive until 215 BC?  One answer is that having penetrated to southern Italy, Hannibal could have been collecting recruits from among the Roman allies: he had from the first allowed Rome's allies to be released without ransom, explaining that he had come to liberate them from Rome, and one might expect individuals to begin flocking to his standards.  Such individuals, familiar with the Roman way of war, would incidentally have been of great value for training Libyan troops in Roman methods prior to Cannae.

Given that Polybius took his figures from one of Hannibal's statements, I wonder if the Africans had taken heavy losses at both battles and, for reasons of prestige, did not admit to this,  giving the responsibility of the localised defeat at the Trebia to the Gauls and simply minimising the breakout at Trebia. This is an argument from silence and speculation but it would explain the oddness of the statement of strength in Polybius III.54.4. Again, I'm speculating but with the African forces being the probable elite of Hannibal's army and the instrument of victory at Cannae, could Hannibal have been protecting the reputation of politically sensitive troops?

Methinks probably not, as they were not a highly-regarded part of Carthaginian society: this kind of speculation also creates OB complications by the time of Cannae.  Occam's razor and all that.   BTW III.54.4 is about losing animals on the way down from the Alps: presumably you mean III.56.4?

If the listed starting forces in Italy only include line-infantry and horse, leaving out the skirmishers, and assuming that there were 12,000 Africans at the start and 8,000 Spanish (given losses at Trebia and Trasimene), then we could have 8,000 African, 8,000 Spanish and 16,000 Celtic foot by Cannae. This would fit Patrick's thesis about Cannae that half the foot were Celtic and the remainder African and Spanish.
So, assuming that the strengths of the line-infantry at Cannae was 8,000 Africans, 8,000 Spanish and 16,000 Celts, could we also use PW's theory about Hannibal's imitation-legions? Two groups of 4,000 Africans on either side would fit and 40 koortis of Celts and 20 of Spanish would actually work for interleaving the speirai at a ratio of two Celtic to one Spanish but with a second line of each supporting the first, so the line would be forty koortis wide. Apologies, can't think of the plural for "cohort" in Greek.

No problem, it is not a Greek word and lexicons cannot think of it either.

I had assumed - rightly or wrongly - that at Cannae Hannibal would interleave 4,000 Spanish heavy foot with 4,000 Gauls five deep in his first line, leaving 16,000 Gauls ten deep for the heavier second line which would have been intended to stop the Romans, not just delay them.  Th Balearic slingers and Spanish longkhophoroi would have continued their customary role as skirmishers, as would the assumed 4,000 Libyan longkhophoroi - and would have needed to, considering how many velites they would have been up against in the initial skirmishing stages.

The Romans appear to have deployed their infantry in double depth, so their eight legions and eight alae would have occupied the same frontage (c.1,600 yards) as a double-consular army of 4 legions and 4 alae.  This is consistent with Appian's assertion that the Roman cavalry had to 'extend their line of battle to a dangerous thinness' (Hannibalic War 4/21) as the cavalry would have had to cover the remaining c.1,400 yards of frontage (split between two wings).  4,000 Gauls interleaved with 4,000 Spaniards (Polybius says nothing about the respective speirai being of different sizes) could cover the same frontage five deep, allowing them to resist for a while but also ensuring they would start to fold after that while.  It also allowed the Libyans to be drawn up outside the main battle line - 'auton' or 'free' as Polybius puts it - and able to pitch in when opportunity offered.  He also had another deployment trick to make sure the opportunity would occur.

The bowed front line served a definite purpose: it encouraged the Roman allies on the wings to press forward beyond the first contact at the centre, bringing their flanks out of reach of friendly cavalry cover and allowing the Libyans in their nice borrowed Roman kit to slip round behind them and get to work without fear of interference from Roman cavalry and without needing to wait until the Roman cavalry had been driven off.  I conclude that Hannibal was quite a clever fellow.