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Message:: [QUOTE="DonnaML, post: 7164727, member: 110350"]Adrian Goldsworthy, a highly-regarded historian who wrote a book about Cannae that might be interesting to read  (<a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H7RYFVM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H7RYFVM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07H7RYFVM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1</a>) -- he's the author of several very good historical novels about Roman Britain that I've read -- apparently "equate[d] the death toll at Cannae to 'the massed slaughter of the British Army on the first day of the Somme offensive in 1916'" (from the Wikipedia article on Cannae). I believe that was around 20,000 dead, and another 40,000 wounded.  See the same Wikipedia article (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae#Roman" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae#Roman" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae#Roman</a>) for a detailed discussion of the various casualty estimates for Cannae. It seems that modern historians generally reject Polybius's figures, and that Livy's figures are seen as a ceiling on the actual deaths: "CasualtiesRomanPolybius writes that of the Roman and allied infantry, 70,000 were killed, 10,000 captured, and "perhaps" 3,000 survived. He also reports that of the 6,000 Roman and allied cavalry, only 370 survived.[75] Livy wrote, "Forty-five thousand and five hundred foot, two thousand seven hundred horse, there being an equal number of citizens and allies, are said to have been slain."[76] He also reports that 3,000 Roman and allied infantry and 1,500 Roman and allied cavalry were taken prisoner by the Carthaginians.[76] Another 2,000 Roman fugitives were rounded up at the unfortified village of Cannae by Carthaginian cavalry commanded by Carthalo, 7,000 fell prisoner in the smaller Roman camp and 5,800 in the larger.[76] Although Livy does not cite his source by name, it is likely to have been Quintus Fabius Pictor, a Roman historian who fought in and wrote on the Second Punic War. It is Pictor whom Livy names when reporting the casualties at the Battle of Trebia.[77] In addition to the consul Paullus, Livy goes on to record that among the dead were 2 quaestors, 29 of the 48 military tribunes (some of consular rank, including the consul of the previous year, Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, and the former Magister equitum, Marcus Minucius Rufus), and 80 "senators or men who had held offices which would have given them the right to be elected to the Senate".[76] Later Roman and Greco-Roman historians largely follow Livy's figures. Appian gave 50,000 killed and "a great many" taken prisoner.[78] Plutarch agreed, "50,000 Romans fell in that battle... 4,000 were taken alive".[79] Quintilian: "60,000 men were slain by Hannibal at Cannae".[80] Eutropius: "20 officers of consular and praetorian rank, 30 senators, and 300 others of noble descent, were taken or slain, as well as 40,000-foot-soldiers, and 3,500 horse".[81] Some modern historians, while rejecting Polybius's figure as flawed, are willing to accept Livy's figure.[82] Other historians have come up with far lower estimates. In 1891, Cantalupi proposed Roman losses of 10,500 to 16,000.[83] Samuels in 1990 also regarded Livy's figure as far too high, on the grounds that the cavalry would have been inadequate to prevent the Roman infantry escaping to the rear. He doubts that Hannibal even wanted a high death toll, as much of the army consisted of Italians whom Hannibal hoped to win as allies.[84] CarthaginianLivy recorded Hannibal's losses at "about 8,000 of his bravest men."[85] Polybius reports 5,700 dead: 4,000 Gauls, 1,500 Spanish and Africans, and 200 cavalry.[75]." This book also looks like it might be worthwhile for anyone with an interest in Roman Republican warfare: Rome at WarFarms, Families, and Death in the Middle RepublicBy Nathan Stewart Rosenstein · 2004 See <a href="https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5883/how-severe-were-the-casualties-in-ancient-medieval-battles" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5883/how-severe-were-the-casualties-in-ancient-medieval-battles" rel="nofollow">https://history.stackexchange.com/questions/5883/how-severe-were-the-casualties-in-ancient-medieval-battles</a>: "In <a href="http://books.google.com/books?id=CGgwN9ZLaPYC&q=rate#v=snippet&q=rate&f=false" target="_blank" class="externalLink ProxyLink" data-proxy-href="http://books.google.com/books?id=CGgwN9ZLaPYC&q=rate#v=snippet&q=rate&f=false" rel="nofollow">Rome at War</a>, Nathan Rosenstein provides a very careful study of mortality rates in the Republican Army from 200-168 B.C. The overall mortality rate strictly attributable to combat is estimated to be 2.6 percent of soldiers per year (125). Overall mortality is estimated at 4.75 to 5.45 percent of soldiers per year, with non-combat mortality amounting to 1.9 to 2.6 percent of soldiers per year. However, because 1.5 percent of conscripts would have died from disease even if they had remained civilians, the "excess mortality attributable to warfare" was 3.25 to 3.95 percent of all soldiers annually (136). However, these figures include legions that were in the field but did not engage in major battles. The average mortality rate for legions in combat was around 5.6 percent (124). And defeats were around 4 times as costly as victories: victories saw mortality rates of around 4.2 percent of participants, while defeats saw mortality rates around 16 percent (118). In general, Rosenstein finds that mortality rates due to both combat and disease were lower in the Roman legions than in 19th century mass warfare (125-126). Incidentally, Rosenstein warns against relying on estimates taken from accounts of one or two battles. There is heavy selection bias going into chronicles. He notes that "figures fall broadly into two clusters--those that are very high and many (like the eighty who died at Pydna) that are strikingly low" (23)." I don't know how to put this, because it's a completely repulsive topic, but I actually wonder how, short of a nuclear bomb, it's even physically feasible to kill 90,000 people in a single day. Perhaps I'm naive, but I say that because even the slaughter at the Somme -- with machine guns directed against mass infantry, not swords and spears -- didn't result in anything close to that number of deaths in one day.  And it's hard to imagine anything much worse. The bombing of Hamburg in July 1943 and subsequent firestorm killed some 37,000 civilians and wounded about 190,000. (Whether or not one believes the Hamburg bombing was justified, the casualties were actually quite a bit greater than those at Dresden, for which Goebbels, seeing a propaganda opportunity, greatly exaggerated the actual confirmed death toll of 22,000-25,000, which was high enough as it was.) And, perhaps more relevantly, even using machine guns against unarmed civilians, the highest number of Jews that the Nazis ever managed to slaughter in a single two-day period was the approximately 35,000 men, women, and children they murdered at the end of September, 1941 in the ravine at Babi Yar outside Kiev.  90,000 dead in one day at Cannae? 20,000 higher than even Polybius's estimate, and more than twice Livy's estimate? It would take a detailed explanation from a modern (not an ancient) historian supporting that number for me to accept it.[/QUOTE]

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