The Battle of Cannae was the third victory of the Carthaginians against the Romans, during the Second Punic War [ca. 216 BC]. The Battle of Cannae would prove to be the battle that made Hannibal famous and nearly brought the entire Roman Empire to its knees. For the Carthaginians the battle brought a great victory and support to their interracial army. For the Romans it brought symbolic importance and lessons learned, as well as the need for military strategic adaptation. Hannibal, a great general at the age of 26, vowed in his youth to look upon the Romans with utter contempt and to destroy them in their highest ranks. The Romans on the other hand taunted Hannibal over and over again by sending in their lesser soldiers. When the Battle of Cannae arrived, Hannibal knew he was facing a long-awaited encounter with the best legions of the Roman army. Hannibal's success at the Battle of Cannae can only be attributed to his strategic warfare tactics. The Battle of Cannae was slow in coming for two or three days, before the Romans finally made their first move. As soon as he saw the Romans Starting to move on that sultry day, Hannibal sent his lightly armed troops, the slingers and pikemen, across the river. He knew who was in command of the Roman army and he knew, even before the bulk of the opposing troops began to flow towards the river, that he had finally brought the bulk of the Roman arms into battle. Since Lake Trasimeno [24 June 217 BC] he had been waiting for this moment... [Leonard Cottrell 1960p. 112] As is clearly visible, the first thing Hannibal did was to let the opposing army make the first move, then he proceeded with his light armored troops across the river. This ena...... middle of paper ...... of Hannibal led his army to final victory even when they were outnumbered two to one. There is no exact number of men who died that day, however it was one of the bloodiest battles ever, losing more men than those killed in the Royal Air Force during the First and Second World Wars. Later on Varro a Roman general admitted that,…It would be a strange or rather impossible thing, that after having met your enemies on equal terms in so many separate skirmishes and in most cases being victorious, now when you meet them with your combined forces and outnumber them by more than two to one, you should be beaten. As stated previously, while some attribute the Carthaginians' success to time and geography, it is obvious that it was Hannibal's strategic maneuvers and tactics that led to the defeat of the Romans at the Battle of Cannae.