Battle of Lake Trasimene
Hannibal destroyed a Roman army beside Lake Trasimene on 21 June 217 BC in the largest successful ambush in military history. He had beaten the Romans at the Trebia the previous December and had then done something nobody expected: rather than take the obvious road south, he crossed the Arno marshes in spring flood, marching four days and three nights through water with the men sleeping on baggage and dead pack animals. He lost a large part of his remaining elephants and the sight of one eye to an infection. Coming out of the marshes into Etruria, he then marched past the consul Gaius Flaminius and began burning the countryside in front of him, which is a deliberate provocation of a commander who was politically committed to aggression. Flaminius followed without scouting. The ground was a defile between steep hills and the northern shore of the lake. Hannibal put his heavy infantry on the hill at the far end, in plain view, and his cavalry and light troops in the hills along the whole length of the road, hidden by morning mist off the water. The Roman column marched in and was attacked simultaneously along its entire length. There was no room to form a line and no way out except into the lake. Around 15,000 died, including Flaminius, in perhaps three hours, and a similar number were captured. Rome appointed Fabius Maximus dictator, whose strategy of refusing battle gave the language the word Fabian. Cannae followed a year later.
- Category: Military
