Battle of Lake Trasimene

Battle of Lake Trasimene
Part of the Second Punic War
Ducarius Beheads Flaminius at the Battle of Lake Trasimene (1882) by Joseph-Noël Sylvestre
Date 21 June 217 BC Location The north shore of Lake Trasimene, Italy 43°11′51″N 12°05′06″E / 43.19750°N 12.08500°E / 43.19750; 12.08500 Result Carthaginian victory
Belligerents
Carthage	Rome
Commanders and leaders
Hannibal	Gaius Flaminius †
Strength
More than 50,000	25,000
Casualties and losses
1,500 or 2,500 killed Many wounded	25,000 killed or captured

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Site of the battle within modern day Italy

The Battle of Lake Trasimene was fought when a Carthaginian force under Hannibal Barca ambushed a Roman army commanded by Gaius Flaminius on 21 June 217 BC, during the Second Punic War. The battle took place on the north shore of Lake Trasimene, to the south of Cortona, and resulted in a heavy defeat for the Romans.

War had broken out between Rome and Carthage early in 218 BC. Hannibal, ruler of the Carthaginian territories in south-east Iberia, marched an army through Gaul, crossed the Alps and arrived in Cisalpine Gaul (northern Italy) later that year. The Romans rushed reinforcements north from Sicily but were badly defeated at the Battle of the Trebia.

The following spring, the Romans positioned an army on each side of the Apennine Mountains, but were surprised when a Carthaginian army more than 50,000 strong crossed the range by a difficult but unguarded route. The Carthaginians moved south into Etruria, plundering, razing the villages and killing all men encountered. Flaminius, in charge of the nearest Roman army, set off in pursuit. Hannibal arranged an ambush on the north shore of Lake Trasimene and trapped the Romans. With the Carthaginians attacking unexpectedly from the flank and the rear, possibly in poor visibility, there was no chance for the Romans to form even a rudimentary fighting line and they were defeated after three hours of hard fighting. The trap failed to enclose the 6,000 Romans at the front of the column, who escaped; later in the day they were surrounded by pursuing Carthaginians and surrendered. Thus nearly all 25,000 Romans in Flaminius's army were killed or captured. This destruction of an entire army as a result of an ambush by another army is widely considered a unique occurrence. Several days later the Carthaginians wiped out the entire cavalry force of the second Roman army, who were not yet aware of the earlier disaster.

The Carthaginians then marched towards southern Italy in the hope of winning over some of the ethnic Greek and Italic city-states there. News of the defeat caused a panic in Rome and led to the election of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus as dictator. Impatient with his Fabian strategy of avoiding major battles, the next year the Romans elected Lucius Paullus and Gaius Varro as consuls. These more aggressive commanders engaged Hannibal at the Battle of Cannae in 216  BC, resulting in a third and even worse disaster for Rome; it was followed by thirteen more years of war.