YouTube video: the hills around Cannae

[Justin Swanton]

I made this video using Google Earth and VSDC video editor. It shows the line of hills at Cannae that run NE to SW. Following Goldsworthy, the Roman army anchored its left flank here, near the town of Cannae itself. As you can see the hills are steep (the width to height ratio in the video is 1:1) and if they were covered with trees and undergrowth as they are today they would have effectively interdicted cavalry.

This is for an article on Cannae to appear in 334, entitled "Roman Military Acumen at Cannae". Varro's plan was in fact good and would have worked against a lesser general than Hannibal (a lesser general would probably have refused battle). But Hannibal being what he was...

[Imperial Dave]

are there no ends to your talents? nice work

[Chuck the Grey]

Thank you Justin, I'm looking forward to your article on the battle. I am reminded of the comment that for a battle like Cannae you need both a Hannibal and a Varro. I've often thought that Varro was a scapegoat for a mutually agreed upon battleplan being a new man and all.

[Justin Swanton]

Thanks Chuck - and Dave.

My take is that the Roman deployment played well to Roman strengths whilst mitigating their weaknesses. I think the battleplan was Paullus' (he was the one who put a second smaller camp on the south side of the Aufidius, hence securing the battlefield) and that Varro went along with it because all he wanted was a battle and was quite happy to leave the planning to his more experienced colleague. The Roman position anchored both flanks and allowed the cavalry as well as the infantry to deploy deep - it was a sledgehammer that any lesser general would have hesitated to confront

Working through Polybius' Greek has been interesting. For example, the bit where he talks about the maniples being "compacted together". Standard translation:

The Roman horse he stationed on the right wing along the river, and their foot next them in the same line, placing the maniples, however, closer together than usual, and making the depth of each maniple several times greater than its front. - Histories: 3.113

This has generated a lot of ink - commentators speculating that the Roman infantry were jammed together in a pike plalanx-like close order, or that the spacing necessary for maniples to execute line relief was removed, making line relief impossible. What the translation misses however is a word: πρόσθεν   prosthen - 'in front'. Transliterating the Greek word-for-word:

τοὺς μὲν οὖν τῶν Ῥωμαίων ἱππεῖς παρ᾽ αὐτὸν τὸν ποταμὸν ἐπὶ τοῦ δεξιοῦ κέρατος κατέστησε, τοὺς δὲ πεζοὺς συνεχεῖς τούτοις ἐπὶ τῆς αὐτῆς εὐθείας ἐξέτεινε, πυκνοτέρας ἢ πρόσθεν τὰς σημείας καθιστάνων, καὶ ποιῶν πολλαπλάσιον τὸ βάθος ἐν ταῖς σπείραις τοῦ μετώπου The Roman cavalry next to the river on the right wing he positioned, the infantry next to them in a straight line, close-packed in front [πρόσθεν] the maniples next to each other, and making many times greater the depth of the maniples than the width.

How are the maniples 'close-packed in front'? Taking this phrase in conjunction with the second half of the sentence, Polybius clearly means that the frontage of each maniple was reduced, resulting in more maniples being deployed side-by-side for the same overall width than was the case with maniples configured normally. This compression of width goes with a corresponding extension of depth as he describes in the latter half of the sentence. The troops themselves keep their normal spacing (necessary if they are able to fight) and the spacing for line relief remains intact (this raises the question of where that spacing was, but that's for another time).

[RichT]

What the translation misses however is a word: πρόσθεν   prosthen - 'in front'.

No, prosthen is right there in the Shuckburgh translation you quote, and also in the Loeb (Paton) translation:

Shuckburgh: "He stationed the Roman cavalry close to the river on the right wing and the foot next to them in the same line, placing the maniples closer together than was formerly the usage and making the depth of each many times exceed its front." 

Paton: "The Roman horse he stationed on the right wing along the river, and their foot next them in the same line, placing the maniples, however, closer together than usual, and making the depth of each maniple several times greater than its front."

Take a look at LSJ - prosthen can be used of space ('in front', 'before') and of time ('before', 'earlier'). In this case after πυκνοτέρας with ἢ ('than' - see LSJ, used with comparative), it means 'closer than before'.

Your overall conclusion - that the maniples were narrower and deeper than usual - is uncontroversial. Since nobody knows what file spacing Romans had, or what spacing between maniples (if any), speculation on that front seems less fruitful (especially if based on a mistranslation).

[Justin Swanton]

Thanks Richard. I should have paid more attention to that ἢ. (I did the post at work during an interrupted lunch break if that's any use as an excuse)

Rereading the passage - correctly - it seems that Polybius is still referring to the reduced width of the maniples, enabling more to be packed side-by-side in the same frontage than maniples deployed normally. His description of the maniples being many times deeper than wide suggests he was talking about their shape, not how close together the individual men were in them. Roman soldiers did not fight like phalangites hence would not use close order files, and I doubt they would sacrifice their line relief mechanism by closing up the spacing necessary for it.

[RichT]

No worries, and while you could be right about the formation, unfortunately Polybius doesn't really help - just "deploying the maniples more closely than before" - in a Hellenistic context puknoteras would definitely be taken to mean the men are closer together, but for Romans, with gaps between maniples (for those like me who believe they had gaps between maniples) it's not so certain. The word puknoteras does however suggest a greater closeness not just that, individually, maniples are narrower.

One thing I hadn't previously noticed in this passage is that 'maniples' in the translations translates two different words in Polybius:

"deploying the semeias more closely than before, and making much greater the depth than the frontage of the speirai"

Now Polybius does seem to use semeia and speira interchangeably for 'maniple' but it's striking to see them both used in the same sentence. Polybius may have meant semeia's literal meaning in this case, the standards:

"deploying the standards more closely than before, and making much greater the depth than the frontage of the maniples"

This would tend to favour your interpretation - the maniples are 'closer' in that they are narrower so the standards are closer together, but the relative spacing, whether between files or between maniples, or both, was unaffected.

Or maybe Polybius was just using different words for better style.

[Justin Swanton]

Here's another WIP video which I haven't yet finalised - the voiceover quality is not good since I made the mistake of using my headphones mic. I'd like the opinion of anyone interested: do you think it good enough to post? I now have a proper desktop mic but redoing the sound is a real pain.

[Imperial Dave]

I'll let you know Justin. Great bit of footage at the beginning btw