The Forgotten Battle of Silva Litana, Autumn 216 BCThe year 216 BC was certainly a bad year for Roma

The Forgotten Battle of Silva Litana, Autumn 216 BCThe year 216 BC was certainly a bad year for Roman civilization and perhaps the worst year of the Roman Republic’s history. Two years into the Second Punic War Hannibal Barca and his Carthaginian Army had crossed the Alps and marched deep into Italy. In the summer of 216 BC the Roman’s assembled the largest Roman army in their history up to that point in order to stop Hannibal once and for all. The two armies met on August 2nd near Cannae in southern Italy. Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Carthaginians managed to surround and annihilate the Roman Army, leaving only 15,000 survivors. The Battle of Cannae would go down in history as Hannibal’s greatest victory, and one of Rome’s worst defeats. In the aftermath another embarrassing and devastating defeat would occur which today is little known, being overshadowed by the horrors of Cannae. Yet the massacre at Silva Litana was in many ways just as devastating and the tactics used would rival the best of Hannibal in terms of ingenuity and brilliance.Merely a few months after the Battle of Cannae, the Roman Consul Lucius Postumius Albinus raised an army of 25,000 men in order to retaliate against the Boii, a Gaulic/Celtic tribe living in Cisalpine Gaul (Northern Italy) who had allied with and given support to Hannibal. The route took the army through a heavily wooded forest called Litana. Unfortunately for the Romans, the Boii had predicted this rout and had readied a clever ambush.  The only way through the forest was a single small road. Along the road the Boii had cut the trees so that they would remain standing if unsupported, but could be easily pushed over. Once the Roman army had march deep withing the forest, the Boii sprang from their hiding places and began pushing dozens of trees onto the Romans. The large trees easily crushed men, horses, and wagons, leading to panic and chaos among the Romans. The Roman army broke formation and scattered in terror allowing the Boii to easily pick off scattered groups of soldiers. The Boii took no prisoners, executing all who surrendered. Out of the 25,000 Romans who marched into the forest, only 10 are said to have escaped.The disaster at Silva Litana only added more bad news for Rome, sending the city into a panic. In desperation the Romans resorted to human sacrifice to appease the gods while recruiting criminals and slaves in order to rebuild the Roman Army. Fortunately for Rome, this was a time in history when the Roman military machine could take a lot of punishment but still keep fighting. After the disasters at Cannae and Litana the Romans changed strategy, preferring to avoid direct battle with Hannibal but instead opening up new fronts in the war to spread out Carthaginian resources. Instead of trying to defeat the Carthaginians with a few decisive battles, the Roman’s settled on slowly grinding down the enemy through attrition. Hannibal would never conquer Italy or Rome, and while the Romans could afford to lose tens of thousands of men, the Carthaginians could not. While the Romans had the resources to play the long game, the Carthaginians did not. The rest is history. When waging war with the Romans a few generations earlier the Greek King Pyrrus of Epirus remarked, “One more such glorious victory and we are all undone.”  -- source link

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