to turn or, if not, to share the fate of the legions.  These, in order the better to follow up the victory over the advanced infantry of the enemy, had changed their front disposition into a column of attack, which, in the shape of a wedge, penetrated the enemy’s centre.  In this position they were warmly assailed on both sides by the Libyan infantry wheeling inward upon them right and left, and a portion of them were compelled to halt in order to defend themselves against the flank attack; by this means their advance was checked, and the mass of infantry, which was already too closely crowded, now had no longer room to develop itself at all.  Meanwhile Hasdrubal, after having completed the defeat of the wing of Paullus, had collected and arranged his cavalry anew and led them behind the enemy’s centre against the wing of Varro.  His Italian cavalry, already sufficiently occupied with the Numidians, was rapidly scattered before the double attack, and Hasdrubal, leaving the pursuit of the fugitives to the Numidians, arranged his squadrons for the third time, to lead them against the rear of the Roman infantry.  This last charge proved decisive.  Flight was not possible, and quarter was not given.  Never, perhaps, was an army of such size annihilated on the field of battle so completely, and with so little loss to its antagonist, as was the Roman army at Cannae.  Hannibal had lost not quite 6000 men, and two-thirds of that loss fell upon the Celts, who sustained the first shock of the legions.  On the other hand, of the 76,000 Romans who had taken their places in the line of battle 70,000 covered the field, amongst whom were the consul Lucius Paullus, the proconsul Gnaeus Servilius, two-thirds of the staff-officers, and eighty men of senatorial rank.  The consul Gaius Varro was saved solely by his quick resolution and his good steed, reached Venusia, and was not ashamed to survive.  The garrison also of the Roman camp, 10,000 strong, were for the most part made prisoners of war; only a few thousand men, partly of these troops, partly of the line, escaped to Canusium.  Nay, as if in this year an end was to be made with Rome altogether, before its close the legion sent to Gaul fell into an ambush, and was, with its general Lucius Postumius who was nominated as consul for the next year, totally destroyed by the Gauls.

Consequences of the Battle of Cannae
Prevention of Reinforcements from Spain

This unexampled success appeared at length to mature the great political combination, for the sake of which Hannibal had come to Italy.  He had, no doubt, based his plan primarily upon his army; but with accurate knowledge of the power opposed to him he designed that army to be merely the vanguard, in support of which the powers of the west and east were gradually to unite their forces, so as to prepare destruction for the proud city.  That support however, which seemed the most secure, namely the sending of reinforcements