veteran troops, in perfect order, wheeled inward to right and left, on the flanks of the struggling mass of legionaries. The Roman army was lost beyond a ray of hope, for, at the same instant, Maharbal, having finished the destruction of the cavalry, rode down upon its rear. The cry of victory changed to a cry of terror. Defeat degenerated into mere slaughter. The Carthaginian cavalry divided into small troops and rode into the midst of the Roman soldiers, sabring right and left. Some squadrons galloped around to the flanks and lent a hand to the African phalanx in its butchery. No quarter was given, or indeed asked. The Romans died with their faces to the foe. The bloody work continued till but a handful was left. Livy and Polybius place the killed at from forty to seventy thousand men. Varro had already escaped with a mere squad of horse. Æmilius Paullus died, sword in hand, seeking to stem the tide of disaster. Three proconsuls, two quæstors, twenty-one military tribunes, a number of ex-consuls, prætors, and ædiles, and eighty senators, perished with the army. [Illustration: BATTLE OF CANNÆ B.C. 216, II] Hannibal’s loss had been barely six thousand men, but he had annihilated the splendid army of eighty-seven thousand men--the flower of Rome. It had vanished as if swallowed up in an earthquake. The battle had been won by crisp tactical skill and the most effective use of cavalry,--as fine as that at the Hydaspes. It was, indeed, the gorgeous handling of the cavalry which made the infantry manœuvre possible. Few battles in history are more marked by ability on the one side and crass blundering on the other than the battle of Cannæ. The handling of the cavalry was quite beyond praise. The manner in which the far from reliable Spanish and Gallic foot was advanced in a wedge in _echelon_, and, under the mettlesome attack of the Roman legions, was first held there, and then withdrawn step by step, until it had reached the converse position of a reëntering angle and was then steadied in place by ordering up the light troops into its intervals,--all this being done under the exultant Roman shouts of victory--is a simple _chef d’œuvre_ of battle-tactics, due solely to Hannibal’s magnificent personality; and the advance at the decisive instant of the African infantry, and its wheel right and left upon the flanks of the disordered and overcrowded legionaries, caps the master-stroke. The whole battle, from the Carthaginian standpoint, is a consummate piece of art, having no superior, few equals in the history of war. It is usual for historians to blame Hannibal for not at once marching on Rome after this victory. Let us see what his chances were. We have no hint of what he himself thought, of what his reasons were for not so doing. We must content ourselves with collecting a few guesswork items, and endeavoring to argue as he did.