In 216 BC, during the Second Punic War, the Roman Republic fought the Battle of Cannae against the forces of the Carthaginian general Hannibal. It was an utter and total defeat for Rome; its army of more than 86,000 soldiers was slaughtered, captured, or dispersed. The number of people killed in a single day at Cannae remains among the highest in the history of warfare, even two thousand years later. Cannae was just the latest of a string of defeats that had cost the Roman Republic something like a fifth of all its military-age males. And, in short order, Rome, then centered on the Italian Peninsula, raised yet another army and fought on. By 201 BC, Rome was triumphant over Carthage, stripping it of its empire. Half a century later, Rome would fight the Third Punic War, this time annihilating Carthage entirely. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae 1/