The Senate faced the crisis with characteristic energy.
New forces were raised and intrusted to a dictator, Quintus Fabius Maximus.
He refused to meet Hannibal in a pitched battle, but followed doggedly his
enemy's footsteps, meanwhile drilling his soldiers to become a match for the Carthaginian
veterans. This strategy was little to the taste of the Roman populace, who
nicknamed Fabius Cunctator, "the Laggard." However, it gave
Rome a brief breathing space, until her preparations to crush the invader
should be completed.
BATTLE OF CANNAE, 316 B.C.
After the term of Fabius as dictator had expired, new
consuls were chosen. They commanded the largest army Rome had ever put in the
field. The opposing forces met at Cannae in Apulia. The Carthaginians numbered
less than fifty thousand men; the Romans had more than eighty thousand troops.
Hannibal's sole superiority lay in his cavalry, which was posted on the wings
with the infantry occupying the space between. Hannibal's center was weak and
gave way before the Romans, who fought this time massed in solid columns. The
arrangement was a poor one, for it destroyed the mobility of the legions. The
Roman soldiers, having pierced the enemy's lines, now found themselves exposed
on both flanks to the African infantry and taken in the rear by Hannibal's
splendid cavalry. The battle ended in a hideous butchery. One of the consuls
died fighting bravely to the last; the other escaped from the field and with
the wreck of his army fled to Rome. A Punic commander who survived such a
disaster would have perished on the cross; the Roman commander received the
thanks of the Senate "for not despairing of the republic." [5]