Hannibal fully expected Rome to surrender after the Battle of Cannae. He sent the nobleman Carthalo to the city to present them with terms. The Romans wouldn’t let him into the city. Besides that, they allowed a delegation of ten prisoners captured in the battle to present their case for ransom, then passed a resolution that under no circumstances would they ransom any prisoners, and they forbade families from ransoming their own family members.
Any other society of the time would have sued for peace after such a massive military defeat, but surrender was never considered an option in Rome. After the Battle of Alia Rome was occupied by the Gallic Senones under Brennus for months while most of the population fled. Some Romans wanted to bribe the Galls with gold. The Roman leader Marcus Furius Camillus came upon the scene and proclaimed: “It is by iron and not by gold that the Roman state will be redeemed” and went on to defeat the Galls in battle and drive them out.
After the Battle of Cannae, the Romans adopted this same attitude, and the Senate passed a law that forbade even the mention of the word “peace.” They proceeded to recruit youths barely out of the Toga Praetexta, arm ten thousand able bodied slaves on the promise of freedom if they fought well and levied heavily from the thirty-five Latin tribes allied with Rome.
After the Battle of Cannae, the war became one of attrition. The Romans largely avoided direct confrontation with Hannibal on his terms. Gradually they clawed back nearly all of the territory Hannibal had gained after Cannae, punishing the cities of Capua and Tarentum and selling the survivors into slavery. Other communities such as Arpi and Locri agreed to rejoin the Roman fold. By 206 B.C. Hannibal and his army were confined to a small area in Bruttium. The year before, an army brought across the Alps by Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal was destroyed at the Battle of the Metaurus River by the Consuls Marcus Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius Drusus. Nero had the severed head of Hasdrubal thrown into the camp of Hannibal. Hannibal is said to have muttered “Thus we learn the destiny of Carthage.”
Winning a battle, even as massive a battle as Cannae, is not the same as winning a war, and the Romans were not about to come to terms with Hannibal. Even in our own time we see the difficulties that an invading army faces when the populace is determined to resist them. Slava Ukraine!
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