"Cannae" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... age, and counsels, he might a little abate the fire of his colleague, and might not only know how to fight, but know when to fight, that is to say, when to avoid fighting; and the want of this lost them many a victory, and the great battle of Cannae in particular, in which 80,000 Romans were killed in ...
— The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) • Daniel Defoe
... Cannae, when Rome had no other treasures but the virtues of her citizens, the women sacrificed both their jewels and their gold. A new decree ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... in spite of their feeling against him, but they decreed that Minucius should conduct the war, having equal powers with the dictator, a thing never before done in Rome, but which occurred shortly afterwards, after the disaster at Cannae, when Marcus Junius was dictator in the camp, and, as many members of the Senate had perished in the battle, they chose another dictator, Fabius Buteo. However, he, after enrolling the new senators, on the same day dismissed his lictors, got rid of the crowd which escorted him, and mixed ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Pedro." So they brought fresh spears, and down went De Vaqueiras on his back, his horse upon him. To be plain, not Hector raging over the field with shouts for Achilles, nor flamboyant Achilles spying after Hector, nor Hannibal at Cannae, Roland in the woody pass of Roncesvalles, nor the admired Lancelot, nor Tristram dreadful in the Cornish isle—not one of these heroes was more gloriously mighty than Count Richard. Like the war-horse ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... battalions which broke over the French frontier under Wellington perhaps the most formidable fighting force known in the history of war. To quote Napier once more: "What Alexander's Macedonians were at Arbela, Hannibal's Africans at Cannae, Caesar's Romans at Pharsalia, Napoleon's Guards at Austerlitz, such were Wellington's British soldiers at ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... drink Punic punch; or a "cabinet de lecture," or club, where the Times or the Globe gave the latest telegram from Italy; as how Hannibal obtained a glorious victory over the Roman troops at Thrasymene, or that the commissariat was bad; then, perhaps, old grumblers decried the dissipation at Cannae, and the expense of the war; and ancient merchants on 'Change complained of the rising importance of the Roman navy, whose ships had just captured the large Phoenician brigantine Argo, from Sidon, laden with a valuable freight, otto of roses, ...
— Notes in North Africa - Being a Guide to the Sportsman and Tourist in Algeria and Tunisia • W. G. Windham
... days of social peace and political order. The prospect before France at the violent close of Girondin supremacy was as formidable as any nation has ever yet had to confront in the history of the world. Rome was not more critically placed when the defeat of Varro on the plain of Cannae had broken up her alliances and ruined her army. The brave patriots of the Netherlands had no gloomier outlook at that dolorous moment when the Prince of Orange had left them, and Alva had been appointed to bring them back by rapine, conflagration, and murder, ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 1 of 3) - Essay 1: Robespierre • John Morley
... the meantime, though they had not been altogether at peace, yet they had not, during this period, been engaged in any war of very great consequence; and their military discipline, it is generally said, was a good deal relaxed. The Roman armies which Annibal encountered at Trebi, Thrasymenus, and Cannae, were militia opposed to a standing army. This circumstance, it is probable, contributed more than any other to determine the ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... the Mausoleum of Augustus with this mediaeval battle of Cannae is easily explained. The mausoleum had been selected by the Colonnas for their stronghold in the Campus Martius, and it was for their interest to keep it in good repair. As happens in cases of crushing defeats, when the succumbing party must find an excuse and an opportunity ...
— Pagan and Christian Rome • Rodolfo Lanciani
... cannae bring to mind the name of your landed estate, and so will make so bold as to call you David—that door, being open, is the ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... number of brave and distinguished officers perished in the battle of Hadrianople, which equalled in the actual loss, and far surpassed in the fatal consequences, the misfortune which Rome had formerly sustained in the fields of Cannae. Two master-generals of the cavalry and infantry, two great officers of the palace, and thirty-five tribunes, were found among the slain; and the death of Sebastian might satisfy the world, that he was the victim, as well as the author, of the public calamity. Above ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... day 'gainst Carthage war proclaim, (For Rome's destruction hath been long her aim) Nor shall I cease till I her ruin see, Which triumph may the gods design for thee; That Scipio may revenge his grandsire's ghost, Whose life at Cannae with great honour lost Is on record; nor had he wearied been With age, if he an hundred years had seen; 150 He had not used excursions, spears, or darts, But counsel, order, and such aged arts, Which, if ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... wary eye detected a deer; here, a proud chief, his crest surmounted by an eagle's feather, haranguing the warriors of his tribe with far more dignity and grace than Alexander displayed in giving audience to the Scythian ambassadors, or Hannibal in his address to his army before the battle of Cannae. It was a novel scene to M. Verdier, and he enjoyed it with all the zest of a profound and philosophic ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... of the western world—were almost altogether due to the strength lying in his admirable Numidian cavalry. The Romans were already good soldiers, their footmen more trustworthy than those which the Carthagenian general could set against them; but with his horsemen, as at Cannae, he could wrap in the Roman line and reduce the most valiant legions to the confused ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... stupid Prusias the other, and knew that Carthage was falling to ruin while he alone might have saved her if only she had allowed him, would he have rejoiced to hear that someone else was succeeding better than himself—had traversed the Alps with a bigger army, had won a second Cannae, and even at Zama snatched a decisive victory? Hannibal might have rejoiced. He was a very ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... Friday, the girls ran out on the campus to see what had become of their markers of the evening before. They were gone. The water had come over them and moved up in the campus until it touched the cannae-beds. ...
— Hester's Counterpart - A Story of Boarding School Life • Jean K. Baird
... surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was just, and that Carthage should be dealt with on terms of peace? What would have been thought, if, after the battle of Cannae, a senator had denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasure, every appeal to the old ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... conjoined. Then what soldier is comparable to the Roman in the throwing up of works? who better calculated to endure fatigue? Alexander, if overcome in one battle, would have been overcome in war. The Roman, whom Claudium, whom Cannae, did not crush, what line of battle could crush? In truth, even should events have been favourable to him at first, he would have often wished for the Persians, the Indians, and the effeminate tribes of Asia, as opponents; and would have acknowledged, that his wars had been waged with ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... Spaniards were not likely to submit their necks readily to the yoke. They rose several times in great masses, and contended for years on equal terms with the legions. Some of their number exhibited the talents of statesmen and soldiers, at the head of armies more numerous than both those which fought at Cannae. One of them showed himself to be a born soldier, and caused the greatest terror to be felt at Rome that had been known there since that day on which Hannibal rode up to the Colline Gate, and cast his javelin defiantly into that city which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... June 216 B.C. that Hannibal gained his last great battle in Italy. He had remained for many months near the river Ofanto, which runs into the Adriatic, but in the beginning of summer he threw himself into the town of Cannae, used by the Romans as a storehouse ...
— The Red Book of Heroes • Leonora Blanche Lang
... pampered him with presents of luxury, which he did not suffer to stand neglected. The death of great men is not always proportioned to the lustre of their lives. Hannibal, says Juvenal, did not perish by the javelin or the sword; the slaughters of Cannae were revenged by a ring. The death of Pope was imputed, by some of his friends, to a silver saucepan, in which it was his delight to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. in Nine Volumes - Volume the Eighth: The Lives of the Poets, Volume II • Samuel Johnson |
