Battle of Lake Trasimeno

Scheme based on a source from the Department of History, United States Military Academy

date	June 24, 217 BC Chr.
place	Lake Trasimeno
output	Carthaginian victory

Parties to the conflict
Roman Empire	Carthage
Commander
Gaius Flaminius †	Hannibal
Troop strength
40,000 men (36,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry)	30,000 men (22,000 infantry and 8,000 cavalry)
losses
15,000 dead and 15,000 prisoners (10,000 survivors who withdrew to Rome)	around 1500 dead

At the battle of Lake Trasimeno in the spring of 217 BC Chr. During the Second Punic War struck Carthaginian general Hannibal two Roman armies devastating. Its details have been passed down through the writings of the ancient Roman historian Titus Livius and the Greek historian Polybius . Sources from a Carthaginian point of view are not known.

The historical framework

The Punic Wars were power struggles for supremacy in the western Mediterranean . The opponents were the Punic Empire with its capital Carthage, as well as the Roman Empire , which was only just being established at the beginning of these wars and primarily represented an alliance system between the city of Rome and surrounding tribes.

The First Punic War ended in 241 BC. With the defeat of the Carthaginians in the battle of the Aegatic Islands . Carthage thus lost its possessions in Sicily . As a result, Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia became Roman provinces . Despite his defeat, Carthage was able to expand its dominance on the Iberian Peninsula and began in April 218 BC. From there his campaign against the Romans. The occasion was that Carthage rejected the request of the Romans to extradite Hannibal for an alleged breach of contract and Rome declared war on Carthage.

The events before the battle

The train through the Iberian Peninsula and the crossing of the Alps

Hannibal chose the land route for his attack on Rome; Carthaginian scouts had previously explored the areas through which the Carthaginian army would pass and negotiated with the Gauls for the free passage of the Punic army. Some Celtic tribes had even pledged support in the fight against Rome. Crossing the Alps also seemed possible to the scouts.

Location of Lake Trasimeno (red circle)

With an army consisting of 50,000 men, 9,000 horsemen and 37 war elephants , Hannibal crossed the Pyrenees , then moved to the Rhone , crossed what is now southern France and probably reached in late October 218 BC. The Alps, which he crossed in 15 days. The historian Nigel Bagnall estimates that after crossing the Alps, Hannibal's army still consisted of 34,000 men. The downsizing of the army is not only due to losses due to various minor disputes with Roman-friendly tribes and the strenuous crossing of the Alps; a number of Carthaginian soldiers were also sent back to the Iberian Peninsula because their military service was ending. Some deserted, other soldiers were posted along the route. ( Lit .: Bagnall, p. 223 f.)

Hannibal's advance was known to the Romans. Since Hannibal had to wait until winter was over to cross the Apennines , the Romans had enough time to position themselves with two armies near the cities of Ariminium (today: Rimini ) and Arretium (today: Arezzo ). The aim of this list was to put Hannibal's armed force there and to grapple with both armies. The two armies were led by the two consuls of that year, Gnaeus Servilius Geminus and Gaius Flaminius .

The first brief battle between Carthaginian and Roman troops took place in November 218 BC. Came at the river Ticinus . The second military confrontation took place in December 218 BC. Took place on the river Trebia . Here Hannibal scored his first great victory against the Romans, in which numerous Roman soldiers were killed. Even if there are no Carthaginian reports about the Battle of Lake Trasimeno, there are certainly about the Battle of Trebia. But they only make sense when you compare them to Roman bulletins.

After this victory, Hannibal used his Numidian cavalry to win the last Roman bastions in the Po Valley and with Victumulae conquered a Roman trading post near Placentia. Livy reports of cruel looting by Hannibal's troops. Since the latter had until then consistently tried to win Roman allies on his side with a policy of leniency, today's historians consider it possible that this was an exaggeration or even an invention of the Roman historian. The onset of winter delayed Hannibal's further troop movements.

Crossing the Apennines

Hannibal was informed of the deployment of the two Roman armies through scouts. To avoid the dangerous situation, he surprised the Roman strategists once again: He crossed the Apennines in early 217 BC. At the first sign of spring, well before the passes were safe, he did not take the usual route where the Roman consul Flaminius was waiting for him with his troops, but a route via Faesulae (today Fiesole ). After crossing the pass, the flood-bearing rivers and the spring floods weakened his armed forces due to the snowmelt, and he lost a large number of soldiers and - except for one - all elephants. The Roman historian Livius and the Greek historian Polybius have reported the painful march of Hannibal's troops through the marshes of the Arno with almost identical wording, although Livius' description of the Carthaginian army does not objectively represent:

Although another, longer but more comfortable route was shown to him, [Hannibal] took the closer route through the swamps, where the river Arno had overflowed its banks more than usual during those days. The Spaniards and Africans - these were the entire core force of his veteran army - he ordered to take the lead ... The Gauls should follow so that they formed the center of the army and the riders should be the last to pull. After that, Mago and his Numidians were supposed to complete the train without luggage and especially to hold the Gauls together when they got tired of the long, arduous journey or wanted to stop. Because this people is soft against such hardships. [...] Most of all, she wiped out the staying awake that she had endured for four days and three nights. Since everything covered the masses of water and there was nothing to be found where they could stretch their tired bodies on dry ground, they piled luggage on top of each other in the water and lay down on it.

But the surprise was a success: the two Roman armies, which were not yet ready for action, could not prevent the advance and had to hurry after the Carthaginian armed forces, which were marching through to Rome.

The way through Etruria

Battle of Lake Trasimeno (Gallery of Maps, Vatican Museums , Rome )

Etruria , the land between the Arno and the Tiber , was an important ally of Rome at the time. It also served as a buffer zone against invaders from the north. While marching through Etruria, Hannibal retained his initial policy of leniency towards allies of the Romans; however, with the arrival of Arretium, the approach of the Punic troops changed. There was looting and devastation of fields and farms. This can be traced back to both a reaction to demands for spoils of war by Punic troops and Hannibal's conscious policy to make it more difficult to supply the Roman troops and to provoke Flaminius to attack. In fact, the Roman troops under the direction of the consul Flaminius Hannibal continued to pursue troops without waiting for a troop reinforcement by the part of the Roman army that was under the direction of the consul Servilius. Hannibal's previous troop movements also suggested that he was on a direct advance towards Rome. This, too, had to force Flaminius and his troops to surrender to Hannibal's army as quickly as possible.

By contrast, the city of Cortona , a little north of Lake Trasimeno (today's Lake Trasimeno ) , remained unaffected by the looting and devastation by Hannibal's troops . For the Romans, this city therefore offered itself as a supply station. It cannot be ruled out that Hannibal took this into account in his approach.

Thanks to the intensive use of scouts, Hannibal was very well informed about all troop movements of his opponents and the terrain in front of him. He used a heavily wooded ridge that separated Lake Trasimeno from the Tiber, leaving only a narrow strip of shore free for an army to pass through, to prepare for an ambush: Hannibal and his army hid along the northeastern bank over a width of about ten kilometers these woods. The army of the consul Gaius Flaminius, who followed him, set up camp for the night on the northern bank of the lake, as this was the only sensible way to get supplies to Cortona without scouts searching the area for enemy troops. The consul believed Hannibal to be far ahead of him, advancing directly on Rome.

The battle

Hannibal's trap

The site of the Battle of Tuoro

Early in the morning the Romans broke up the camp and set out for the Tiber. Both Livy and Polybius - the main sources of the battle - claim that unusually thick fog lay over the lake and that it was impossible for officers to keep an eye on the marching force. However, this may just be an attribution of Roman historiography to excuse the disaster of the coming hours.

In any case, the narrow bank area forced the Roman soldiers to walk one behind the other; as a result, the troops spread over a very long distance. In the woods above the Roman troops, Hannibal's people waited until all the Romans were on the march along the lake shore. Then they closed the entrance and exit.

Hannibal's troops rushed from the heights on the astonished Romans. This happened simultaneously along the entire length of the trap. The Roman officers, who, according to Livy and Polybius, could not see what was going on through the fog, gave the order to be ready to fight too late: the troops were prepared for a day of marching and did not have their weapons at hand.

The Roman noticed by the roar that rose on all sides before he could clearly see that he was surrounded, and the battle began in front and in the flanks earlier than that the line of battle was properly set up or the weapons armed for battle and the Swords could be drawn. ... Meanwhile, because of the noise and turmoil, neither advice nor orders could be heard, and the [Romans] not only did not recognize their standards, ranks and their positions, but their courage was hardly sufficient to take up arms and prepare for battle and some were overwhelmed more under their burden than under their protection. And in such a thick fog, the ears served better than the eyes. After the groans of the wounded, after the sound of bodies or weapons hit, and after the confusion of wild and fearful screams, the face and eyes turned around.

Joseph-Noël Sylvestre's depiction of the death of Flaminius on the battlefield (1882)

Many Romans were killed without resistance in the first few minutes of the battle. Other soldiers who had survived the first onslaught fled into the lake. Polybios writes about them:

Those who were caught between the bank and the slope died in a shameful and miserable way; Forced by the rush into the lake, some tried in nameless fear to swim despite armor and sank and drowned; a larger number fled as far as they could into the lake and only stopped when their heads were sticking out of the water. And when the [Carthaginian] cavalry followed the [Roman soldiers] into the lake and they had certain death in mind, they raised their hands, offered their task and begged for mercy for every possible reason and were ultimately killed or by the enemy in some cases asked their comrades for the mercy of the fatal blow or inflicted it on themselves.

An advance guard of 6,000 Roman soldiers was only able to escape in the front area of the trap. After they were no longer needed in the battle on the lakeshore, the Carthaginian cavalry under Captain Maharbal , who had previously formed the barrier at the exit of the trap, followed the escaped people and took them prisoner after a short time.

When Consul Servilius, who was in command of the other Roman army, heard that Consul Flaminius was involved in a skirmish - he was apparently unsure of the magnitude of the attack - he sent 4,000 horsemen from his own army to support his counterpart. These riders were intercepted by Captain Marhabal and his cavalry and also defeated. 2000 Roman horsemen died, the remaining 2000 horsemen were captured.

The losses

15,000 of the 25,000 soldiers in Consul Flaminius' army died; 6,000 were captured and 4,000 were scattered while trying to escape. This wiped out the army of Consul Flaminius, who himself was one of the dead. The army of the consul Servilius lost its most powerful unit, the entire cavalry with 4,000 men, and was severely weakened in terms of personnel and tactics.

Political Consequences

Hannibal's goals after the battle

Hannibal tried to use the won battle not only militarily but also politically. Since he was acting in the realm of the allies of Rome, he tried to win them over to his side. This happened when Hannibal released the prisoners from countries that belonged to Rome's allies without demanding ransom. Indeed, Rome began to fear such apostate allies. In the further course of the campaign it became clear that Hannibal himself prevented Rome's allies from overflowing. On his further campaigns he continued to destroy the fields and farms in order to cut off supplies for his opponents. Since this concerned the fields of Rome's allies, they were of course not particularly well-disposed towards him. Hannibal did not voluntarily open its gates to a single city in the affected areas of Umbria and Etruria .

Rome's reaction to defeat

In Rome, at the first news of this defeat in the forum, there was a crowd amid tremendous horror and confusion. Elegant women wandered the streets and asked who they met, about the sudden bad news and about the fate of the army. [...] And although they did not hear anything specific from [Praetor Marcus Pomponius], they brought home - one filled with rumors from the other - that the consul had been slain with a large part of the troops, and that there were only a few left, who were either scattered all over Etruria on the run or were captured by the enemy.

In view of the heavy defeat Rome suffered on Lake Trasimeno, the Roman Senate declared that the republic was in a state of emergency . One consul was dead, the other unavailable; half of the Roman army was destroyed and the enemy threatened the city of Rome. Strong leadership seemed necessary. Rome appointed a sole ruler for the duration of the state crisis. This office, which from time immemorial was intended for special emergencies, was called " Dictator ". The popular assembly appointed Quintus Fabius Maximus to this office, a man who calmly and dutifully fulfilled this task (he later became known as Quintus Fabius Maximus Cunctator , with a positive addition, Cunctator = "the weighing one"). As a first measure, Fabius had the Sibylline Books consulted, vowed sacrifices to gods for the success of Rome, ordered a supplication and also took precautionary measures for an attack by Hannibal on the immediate area of Rome by evacuating unfortified cities , demolishing bridges and burning down areas as a precaution. However, Hannibal's attack did not materialize. Hannibal continued to march through Italy with his troops. The next great battle did not occur until Cannae in 216 BC. Chr.

In historical retrospect, Fabius is judged positively across the board. He gave the office the necessary dignity and strength and at the end of the state crisis voluntarily returned it to the hands of the Senate - an idealist who used his abundance of power but did not abuse it. This office owed its good reputation to his level-headed, responsible behavior; nevertheless, about 130 years later, in the person of the dictator Sulla, it contributed to the fall of the res publica ( republic ).

The cause of the fall of the Roman army, however, was attributed solely to the behavior of Flaminius. Two centuries later, Livius judged that he had been high-spirited and lost his fear of the laws and the dignity of the Senate and the gods, who in his History of the Punic War also describes how Flaminius overlooks all signs of the approaching misfortune in his zeal for war. Neither the Roman standard, which cannot be removed from the ground ( superstition ) when the Roman army sets out, nor the collapse of Flaminius' riding horse would have prevented the Roman general from his plan. The military leaders who were subordinate to him, on the other hand, did not agree with Flaminius' approach and moreover correctly interpreted the signs of the gods.

This negative image is largely due to the one-sided assessment by the class of his political enemies. Flaminius, who had already pursued a consciously “plebeian” policy as a tribune of the people , stood in opposition to the Roman nobility and the senate that it dominated . Particularly his settlement policy with the "Ackergesetz" ( lex agraria ) from 232 BC. BC, which promoted a distribution of the land annexed by the Senones in Ager Gallicus to the plebeians, had kindled the hatred of the nobility. In the year 220 BC With the construction of the consular road Via Flaminia , which connects Rome to the present day as state road 3 with Fano and Rimini , Flaminius highlighted and promoted this long-term project. With his death, this policy of distributing wealth in favor of the poorer population, which was independent of the Senate, was deprived of its foundation, which, 70 years after the Lex Hortensia, marked the final end of the class struggles . The Roman people moved closer together in the face of the threat from the Carthaginians and Flaminius' opponents took the opportunity to settle accounts with the unloved consul in order not only to blame him for the Gaulish War because of his settlement policy. They also made him the sole culprit for the defeat by Hannibal and were thus able to distract from their own failure in the Senate of not having fought Hannibal early on.

Archaeological evidence

During archaeological excavations on the north shore of Lake Trasimeno (now Lake Trasimeno near the city of Perugia in the Umbria region), mass graves with weapons were found that date back to the 3rd century BC. To be dated. Cremation graves were also found, as we know them from the battlefield of Cannae, where the next devastating defeat of the Romans took place a year later.

The course of today's lake shore no longer corresponds to the course of the shore more than 2200 years ago. In particular, the creation of a canal in the 15th century significantly lowered the water level of the lake. However, for a distance of around three kilometers, the riverside path is still directly bordered by hills.

swell

Titus Livius: The Punic War. (Original title: Ab urbe condita ). Translated and edited by Hans Armin Gärtner. Alfred Kröner Verlag, Stuttgart 1968, DNB 457444991 . (Livy describes the events surrounding the Battle of Lake Trasimeno in his 22nd book. Excerpts from chapters 2, 3, 5, 6 and 7 are quoted)

literature

Arnold J. Toynbee : Hannibal's Legacy. The Hannibalic war's effect on Roman Life. 2 vols. London 1965.
The big Ploetz. 32nd edition. Zweiausendeins, Frankfurt 1998, p. 227.
Golo Mann, Alfred Heuss (ed.): Propylaea world history. Volume 4: Rome and the Roman World. Propylaea Verlag, Frankfurt 1963, p. 123f.
Nigel Bagnall: Rome and Carthage - The battle for the Mediterranean. Siedler, Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-88680-489-5 . (cited is p. 223f)
Herbert Heftner : The Rise of Rome. Pustet, Regensburg 1997, ISBN 3-7917-1563-1 . (there also further literature)
Alfred Klotz : Appian's representation of the Second Punic War . Schöningh, Paderborn 1936, DNB 363997725 .
Friedrich Reuss: The battle on Lake Trasimeno. In: Klio . 6 (1906), pp. 226-237.
Emil Sadée: The spring campaign of 217 and the battle of Lake Trasimeno. In: Klio. 9, 1909, pp. 48-68.
Karl-Heinz Schwarte: The outbreak of the Second Punic War. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1983, ISBN 3-515-03655-5 .
Georg Staude: Investigations into the Second Punic War. Univ. Diss. Jena, Halle 1911.

Web links

Commons : Battle of Lake Trasimeno - Collection of images, videos and audio files

The Greek historian Polybius on this battle in English translation
Lake Trasimeno (English) - Presentation of the locations on Livius.org

Remarks

↑ Polybios : Historien 3, 79; Livy : From urbe condita 22, 2.
^ Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 2, 2–8.
^ Battle report : Polybios: Historien 3, 82–84; Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 4-7.
^ Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 4, 7-22, 5, 4.
↑ Polybios: Historien 3, 84.
↑ Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 7, 6-9.
^ Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 9–11; Plutarch: Fabius 4.
↑ Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 3, 11 ff .; Plutarch : Fabius 3, 1; Cicero : De divinatione 1, 77 f. (after the Roman annalist Lucius Coelius Antipater ).
↑ Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg: Roman studies . 1st edition. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-598-77844-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).

43.202611340833 12.117855696667Coordinates: 43 ° 12 '9.4 " N , 12 ° 7' 4.3" E

This version was added to the list of excellent articles on December 17th, 2004 .

[1] Polybios : Historien 3, 79; Livy : From urbe condita 22, 2.

[2] Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 2, 2–8.

[3] Battle report : Polybios: Historien 3, 82–84; Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 4-7.

[4] Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 4, 7-22, 5, 4.

[5] Polybios: Historien 3, 84.

[6] Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 7, 6-9.

[7] Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 9–11; Plutarch: Fabius 4.

[8] Livy: Ab urbe condita 22, 3, 11 ff .; Plutarch : Fabius 3, 1; Cicero : De divinatione 1, 77 f. (after the Roman annalist Lucius Coelius Antipater ).

[9] Jürgen von Ungern-Sternberg: Roman studies . 1st edition. De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin 2006, ISBN 978-3-598-77844-5 ( limited preview in Google book search).