From an award-winning historian of ancient Rome, the definitive history of Rome’s most devastating defeat.

“Goldsworthy is the preeminent military historian of Rome.” —History Today 

In Cannae, celebrated historian Adrian Goldsworthy offers a concise and enthralling account of one of history’s bloodiest, and most famous, battles. On August 2, 216 BC, across a narrow plain near the Souther Italian town of Cannae, a massive Roman army met the heterogeneous forces of Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who had spectacularly crossed the Alps into Italy two years earlier. Despite outnumbering their opponents almost two to one, the Romans were crushed. The scale of the losses at Cannae—50,000 Roman men killed—was unrivaled until the industrialized slaughter of the First World War. Although the Romans eventually recovered and Carthage lost the war, the Battle of Cannae became Romans’ point of reference for all later military catastrophes. Ever since, military commanders confronting a superior force have attempted, and usually failed, to reproduce Hannibal’s tactics and their overwhelming success.

A gripping read for historians, strategists, and anyone curious about warfare in antiquity and Rome’s rise to power, Cannae is the definitive history of Rome’s most devastating defeat.