place
Cannensis pugna
also: Battle of Cannae, Battle of Cannae of wickedness
Cannae, the village in Apulia where Hannibal annihilated the Roman army of the consuls Aemilius Paullus and Terentius Varro in 216 BC, in the most catastrophic Roman defeat of the Second Punic War. Cicero invokes it as the standing paradigm of military disaster (Verr. 2.5.28; Pro Rosc. Am. 89; Tusc. 1.89).
Reading notes
- On Duties §3.47 the disaster at Cannae
Rome's catastrophic defeat by Hannibal in 216 BC, in which tens of thousands fell. Cicero praises the Senate's refusal to sue for peace afterward as the triumph of honour over apparent advantage.
- Against Verres, Second Hearing, Book V §28 Battle of Cannae of wickedness
Cannensis pugna nequitiae: Cicero's wry coinage --- the proverbial Roman defeat at Cannae 216 BC, applied to the wreckage at Verres's banquets, men carried out as if dead, others lying without sense.