Battles of Destiny

by Isabel Shepperson

Capua.

And after the great victory at Cannæ Hannibal led his troops into winter quarters at Capua. Here his soldiers, relaxed from the severe discipline of war and wildly delighting in the genial climate of southern Italy, gave themselves up unrestrainedly to luxuries and pleasures. And just here at Capua, in the midst of those luxuries and pleasures, lay potentially the defeat at Zama.

For the Romans, gaining courage from despair, grimly faced the fatal losses of Cannæ, and never were the Roman people more royally Roman than when they voted thanks to the consul, Terrentius Varro the runaway loser of Cannæ,—“because he had not despaired concerning the Republic” (quod de republica non desperasset). Every day spent by Hannibal and his army at Capua trebly weakened his fighting force and cause as it trebly strengthened the fighting force and cause of the Romans. Capua lost Metaurus, Zama, Carthage, and Semitic dominance in Europe. Ave Capua!