I received some criticism on my Game of Thrones article–Battle of the Bastards is Straight from Medieval Chronicles. In particular, some folks are shocked by the lack of any mention of Cannae (216 BC), the ancient battle where Carthaginian general Hannibal Barca enveloped a numerically-superior Roman army and destroyed it.
SPOILER WARNING
Despite the notion of an encirclement, the battles of Cannae and the Bastards hardly bare any resemblance. In fact, equating them does a disservice to Cannae and the brilliance of Hannibal.
First, let’s look at the most pointed criticism.
How does that article fail to mention that the battle that truly inspired the choreography was The Battle of Cannae.
They originally intended to base it on Agincourt, but switched to the much older battle led by Hannibal. The director has straight up said this in interviews, so it is kind of a glaring oversight to write an article like that and skip it.
Yes, the episode creators did cite Cannae as inspiration and numerous articles have recounted the story of the ancient battle. However, what they ultimately created was the furthest thing from Cannae as we know it from ancient histories.
Here are 4 key differences.
1.) The parity of the armies
Hannibal’s army was much smaller than the Roman army he was enveloping whereas Ramsay’s was 3 or 4 times the size of Snow’s army. Where’s the tactical brilliance in that?
2.) Tactical maneuvers
Hannibal lured the Romans to pushing into his lines so he could bend back and flank them on either side before attacking them with cavalry in the rear. Conversely, Ramsay’s army seemingly disengaged from heavy fighting, marched around Snow’s army in a very coordinated fashion, and pinned them against a wall of bodies. There was no trick, no tactical maneuver.
3.) Military units
The coordinated, deliberate forward movement of Ramsay’s shield-wall was nothing like Hannibal’s assortment of Spanish, Gallic, Numidian, and Libyan soldiers, all with different functions for the battle. Once Hannibal surrounded the Romans, all of his fighting units–cavalry, light and heavy infantry, slingers, archers–attacked the mass of men. Part of the brilliance of Hannibal was that he was able to coordinate an envelopment of a larger army with men from various tribes and cities, speaking different languages and using different fighting styles.
4.) The encircling army lost
More importantly, Snow’s smaller encircled army was not destroyed whereas Hannibal destroyed the larger encircled Roman army.
So if we’re just talking about encircling an army in whatever fashion, then sure, you have something resembling Cannae.
However, you then lose what Alfred von Schlieffen saw as the attractive ingredients to Hannibal’s victory at Cannae. To him, “a battle of complete extermination had been fought, most wonderfully through the fact that in spite of all theories, it had been won by a numerical inferiority.” Despite these theories, “the weaker Hannibal had, however, acted concentrically, though in an unseemly way, and turned not only both wings, but even the rear of the enemy.”
When it comes down to it, the only similarity between Cannae and the Battle of the Bastards was that there was some sort of encirclement. With that being the case, the creators could have just as easily cited Thermopylae (480 BC), Walaja (633), or Fraustadt (1706) for inspiration. Otherwise, every time an army is surrounded, we’ll all have to start referencing Cannae when there is so much more to that ancient battle.
Editor’s Note: If you’re interested in learning more about Hannibal, then I highly recommend Eve MacDonald’s Hannibal: A Hellenistic Life (2015). If you want to learn more about the Battle of Cannae and Hannibal’s tactics, then you cannot go wrong with J.F. Lazenby’s Hannibal’s War: A Military History of the Second Punic War.