Disaster and Change in Republican Rome

The catastrophic defeat Hannibal inflicted on Rome at Cannae in 216 BC forced the Republic to drastically change how it would fight the Second Punic War.  A strategy of direct military confrontation had to be abandoned in favour of a war of attrition.  This strategic shift necessitated a series of additional changes in how Rome mobilised, led, and supported its armies.  These changes not only provided the foundation for the Republic’s eventual victory over Hannibal but also for its rapid conquest of the Mediterranean over the following half century.

Nathan Rosenstein is Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at The Ohio State University.  A specialist in Roman Republican history, he is the author or co-editor of several books, including Rome and the Mediterranean, 290-146 B.C.: The Imperial Republic and A Companion to the Roman Republic. He is currently co-editing The Oxford History of the Roman World.

Disaster & Change is a special series of Forum, a podcast produced by SHAPS, the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, Australia.

This podcast was produced by the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the lands on which our University operates – lands of the Kulin peoples, which includes the Wurundjeri, Boonwurrung, Wathaurong, Dja Dja Wurrung and Taungurung peoples, as well as the Yorta Yorta nation. We pay our respects to their Elders, past and present and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty to these lands was never ceded.