"Cannae" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... consul in 234 when he conquered the Corsicans and Sardinians. In 228 he was again consul, and died as augur in 212. He is said, but erroneously, to have been the first Roman who divorced his wife. In 216, just after the battle of Cannae, he made a most remarkable proposal, to fill up the gaps which that battle had made in the numbers of the senate by selecting two members from each of the Latin communities. It was almost the only occasion in the course of Roman history when anything like modern representative government ...
— Cato Maior de Senectute • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... rooms, there was apparently only a feeling of curious indifference at the rival university, for Gray has put it on record that at Cambridge "they had no more sense of danger than if it were the battle of Cannae," and we learn that some grave Dons actually were thinking of driving to Camford to see the Scotch troops march past, "as though they were volunteers out for a sham-fight, or a ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy
... him the successor of General Scott, giving him command of all the United States forces, the North, by midsummer, became profoundly discouraged. Many events contributed to it. The defeat at Ball's Bluff on the Potomac, which Roscoe Conkling likened to the battle of Cannae, because "the very pride and flower of our young men were among its victims,"[812] had been followed by conspicuous incompetence at Manassas and humiliating failure on the Peninsula. Moreover, financial difficulties increased the despondency. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... them. Charlie, lad, they're a' drunk in yon schooner, a' dozened wi' drink. They were a' drunk in the Christ- Anna, at the hinder end. There's nane could droon at sea wantin' the brandy. Hoot awa, what do you ken?' with a sudden blast of anger. 'I tell ye, it cannae be; they droon withoot it. Ha'e,' holding out the bottle, ...
— The Merry Men - and Other Tales and Fables • Robert Louis Stevenson
... history of a great military conqueror, there seems to be often some one great battle which in importance and renown eclipses all the rest. In the case of Hannibal it was the battle of Cannae, in that of Alexander the battle of Arbela. Caesar's great conflict was at Pharsalia, Napoleon's at Waterloo. Marathon was, in some respects, Darius's Waterloo. The place is a beautiful plain, about twelve miles north of the great city of Athens. The ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... executed. This was called decimation (from decimus, the tenth). The others were placed on a diet of barley-bread and made to camp outside the lines, always in danger of surprise from the enemy. The Romans never admitted that their soldiers were conquered or taken prisoners: after the battle of Cannae the 3,000 soldiers who escaped the carnage were sent by the senate to serve in Sicily without pay and without honors until the enemy should be expelled from Italy; the 8,000 left in the camp were taken by Hannibal who offered to return them for a small ransom, but the senate ...
— History Of Ancient Civilization • Charles Seignobos
... winter quarters at Capua, it is possible that Rome might have been destroyed and all subsequent history radically changed. The Romans had no general who could measure up to the genius of Hannibal, but their spirit was unbroken even by the slaughter of Cannae, and their allies remained loyal. Moreover, Carthage, thanks to factional quarrels and personal jealousies, was deaf to all the requests sent by Hannibal for reenforcements when he needed them most. In the end, Scipio, after having driven the Carthaginians ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... merits of the contest. That it was at first a struggle for empire, and afterward for existence on the part of Carthage, that Hannibal was a great and skillful general, that he defeated the Romans at Trebia, Lake Trasimenus, and Cannae, and all but took Rome, represents pretty nearly the sum total of their knowledge. To let them know more about this momentous struggle for the empire of the world Mr. Henty has written this story, which not only gives in graphic style a brilliant description ...
— A World of Girls - The Story of a School • L. T. Meade
... "David," said he—"for I 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 best part of ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... of those intrepid and haughty senators who forgot the dearest ties of nature in the claims of public duty, who looked with disdain on the elephants and on the gold of Pyrrhus, and listened with unaltered composure to the tremendous tidings of Cannae. Like an ancient temple deformed by the barbarous architecture of a later age, his character acquires an interest from the very circumstances which debase it. The original proportions are rendered more striking by the contrast which they present to ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... 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 ...
— Essays in Rebellion • Henry W. Nevinson
... and his unburied corpse disappeared among the embers of a Thracian hut which had been set fire to by the barbarians. That fatal day (August 9, 378) was admitted to be more disastrous for Rome than any which had befallen her since the terrible defeat of Cannae, and from it we may fitly date the beginning of that long process of dissolution, lasting, in a certain sense, more than a thousand years, which we call the ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... name for clart; An' beasts an' brambles bite an' scart; An' what would WE be like, my heart! If bared o' claethin'? - Aweel, I cannae mend your ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 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 ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith |
