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Trebbia River is flowing northward from the Apennines, not from the Alps.
Polybius reports that "not less than 10.000" infantry saved in Placentia and other, later, had been driven there by Scipio with "the most part of cavalry" (Stories, III,74). So how can Roman start with 26.000 men and have 20.000 casualties? (excuse me for my bad bad bad English)-- 151.37.226.15 14:27, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
The article states that
"No sooner had the cavalrymen shown up in the vicinity of the Roman camp, than Sempronius sent out his cavalry to drive them off, and shortly afterward, recklessly sent his entire army of 36,000 Roman infantry, 4,000 allied cavalry, and 3,000 Gallic auxiliaries, towards the battle. He was impatient to gain what appeared to him to be victory, though unaware of the trap set for him."
And that the Roman strength was 45,000. (Which is backed up by Polybius)
But as stated before, Longus left a base guard of 10,000 at his camp. This means that the figure for Roman infantry that Longus sent in pursuit could have been no greater than 26000. --- The estimation of Hannibal's forces is also problematic. For one, Hannibal had about three dozen elephants, not "three elephants". Also, the article does not take notice of the Gallic forces that had joined Hannibal after his 26,000 man army arrived in Italy (probably about 14,000),∐</math></math></math></math> and the numbers are given in the description of Hannibal's deployment add up to 31,000, not the given 26,000.
Hy, I tried to replace the old brown image with newer one from the US military academy. To my suprise this replacement was reverted with no explanation except "keep both images". Well I can only say that the newer image shows the locations of the troops in a better deatil (can you see the ambushed carthaginian troops in the old image?) and should logically replace the older image. The older image should be deleted in favour of the new. Flamarande 22:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
"The sacred band" referred to earlier infantry units fielded by Carthage - is there any evidence this was ever applied to cavalry? As far as I know, it was Numidian cavalry used to lure the Romans into battle. JW ( talk) 06:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The text of this article reads, "Hannibal began the Second Punic War in 219 B.C. by attacking the Roman-allied city of Saguntum..." I think that's not neutral POV, according to the sources. I'll check and see exactly what they say. Gallador ( talk) 01:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The two maps of the battle currently appearing in this article have a dramatic conflict: the places of the two armies are reversed. Which is accurate? Shouldn't there be an explanation of the disparity, even if it's simply "it appears that Gonius erred in his depiction"? -- Piledhigheranddeeper ( talk) 00:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC) Ah. I see now that this issue was raised two years back. However, there's still no resolution. -- Piledhigheranddeeper ( talk) 00:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
There are several references to Scipio on this page. Does it mean Scipio Africanus, or his father, Publius Cornelius Scipio? Or both? Can someone answer that and provide a link to the subject? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Egthegreat ( talk • contribs) 05:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Hello guys. I'm a genuine Greek and Latin guy. The Greek and Latin guys had all this worked out long ago, you just don't have access to the articles. Harvard allowed Google to put much of its library online so now we have some access. Don't even think about buying articles online, they are way overpriced. It's a genuine racket. But, that is where the information is. I'll do the best I can with sources you can actually get. I must say, you have the usual expectations of non-ancient-historians. You hear about everything almost as soon as it happens and within a year or two can get the whole story, unless it is being suppressed. Polybius and Livy were working from a dozen or so hand-written paper manuscripts, which didn't even last their lifetimes. The general population couldn't read and didn't know a thing about it. As Mark Twain quipped somewhere, the ancient kings had no idea where half their kingdoms lay and couldn't have their borders surveyed. What I am saying, what you read is all you are going to get, my friends. There are no solutions. I mean, there are many, but who knows which is right? When that Vandal back then brought a manuscript from the library of Alexandria into the toilet with him that was the last anyone was ever going to know of many of these battles. If you could pick one book about WWII to survive, which would it be? Whichever one it is it wouldn't be enough. Feel grateful, you have two, Livy and Polybius. Saguntum. Hannibal did too start it. That was the casus belli. He had a dream, he said, to lay waste to Italy. He swore an oath never to make peace with Rome. Sure, bub. The best defense he might offer is that Rome made a treaty with a city they had formerly agreed was to be neutral. We don't read about Hannibal sending any old men to the Roman senate to work things out. Take a look at his career - wherever he went, blood baths. The sequence is this - there is peace. Hannibal levels Saguntum. Rome sends to Carthage offering peace. Carthage refuses to check Hannibal and accepts war. The fact that they were unhappy about Sardinia has nothing to do with it. The attack on Saguntum reopened the war. But, as I say, we are not given any clear motives, only the guesses of Polybius and Livy. Maybe none are right, maybe all are right. Where's the non-NPOV? Are we neglecting evidence? What evidence are we neglecting? Should we be making stuff up here just to be fair to Hannibal? I don't see any non-NPOV. The war starts with a declaration following the attack. I believe in modern times the custom is to identify the attacker as the aggressor. We wouldn't say, the United States started WWII by provoking Japan to attack Hawaii or that Poland started it by tempting the 3rd reich to attack it. If you fellows are interested in research, there are plenty mysteries to illuminate here. Maybe you can find something. Do a paper. Whoever first worked on this article found some solutions by making stuff up. That's not allowed. Better to present the problem, but that takes more work. If you can't put it in, don't meddle with the article. So much for that. I find much of the article is usable so I'm going to back it up with the apparatus. It borders on being corny in places but nothing I could really say, this is bad prose. I hope this will take care of some questions for you. Bonjour. Dave ( talk) 01:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
This article doesn't appear meet the standards required of an encyclopedia entry. Too much of the original source material is dismissed out of hand with little or no explanation and much content that is included is speculation based on unreferenced secondary work. Yes the sources are confused and missing key information but that is the nature of historical sources in this period. You can't just fill in the rest with speculation without making this very clear.
The whole article has a pro-Roman and pro-Longus bias which is hard to justify in the face of the facts. For those not well versed in this area of history it must be confusing to read and appear contradictory. Less content, sticking to the establishable facts would be better - elements of common speculation such as the site of the battle are important but should be clearly identified, referenced and show a comprehensive survey of modern opinion.
-- Dfairweather ( talk) 12:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, I'll have a go in a week or two when I've got enough time to do it all in one go, unless anyone else wants to first of course. -- Dfairweather ( talk) 13:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
The article is very confusing due to its treatment of the conflicting sources regarding the positions and strength of the armies.
As a result, the article is inconsistent and hard to read. There are, in my opinion, two possible solutions:
The lede states that the battle took place "on or around the winter solstice." Appian says this: "The river Trebia separated the hostile armies, which the Romans crossed before daylight on a raw, sleety morning of the spring equinox, wading in the water up to their breasts." - Roman History 7,6. Can someone explain or give a source for the current winter solstice date? Failing that I will go ahead and adjust the lede accordingly. ~ Alcmaeonid ( talk) 19:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
The following sentence seems to be missing a word at the end. "Yet while harassing the Romans, the Carthaginian cavalrymen turned aside to pillage Scipio's abandoned." I can't fix it because I don't know what word belongs there. Tupelo the typo fixer ( talk) 18:27, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Hanberke ( talk) 12:38, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
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Reviewing |
Reviewer: Harrias ( talk · contribs) 08:37, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
I'll take a look at this shortly.
Harrias
talk
08:37, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
|volume
tag, the second states "Volume 7, Part 2, 2nd Edition". I would try to make these two books consistently formatted if possible.Prose review to follow. Harrias talk 07:36, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Reviewed to the end of the Opposing forces section so far. Harrias talk 11:19, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
And... that's a wrap.
Harrias
talk
09:55, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
reference my journey 2001:4455:6ED:A400:F147:A6DC:B598:5070 ( talk) 16:26, 23 December 2023 (UTC)
Battle of the Trebia is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so. | |||||||||||||
This article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on December 23, 2023. | |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
Facts from this article were featured on Wikipedia's Main Page in the " On this day..." column on December 18, 2004, December 18, 2005, December 18, 2006, December 18, 2007, and December 18, 2008. | |||||||||||||
Current status: Featured article |
This
level-5 vital article is rated FA-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Trebbia River is flowing northward from the Apennines, not from the Alps.
Polybius reports that "not less than 10.000" infantry saved in Placentia and other, later, had been driven there by Scipio with "the most part of cavalry" (Stories, III,74). So how can Roman start with 26.000 men and have 20.000 casualties? (excuse me for my bad bad bad English)-- 151.37.226.15 14:27, 15 July 2005 (UTC)
The article states that
"No sooner had the cavalrymen shown up in the vicinity of the Roman camp, than Sempronius sent out his cavalry to drive them off, and shortly afterward, recklessly sent his entire army of 36,000 Roman infantry, 4,000 allied cavalry, and 3,000 Gallic auxiliaries, towards the battle. He was impatient to gain what appeared to him to be victory, though unaware of the trap set for him."
And that the Roman strength was 45,000. (Which is backed up by Polybius)
But as stated before, Longus left a base guard of 10,000 at his camp. This means that the figure for Roman infantry that Longus sent in pursuit could have been no greater than 26000. --- The estimation of Hannibal's forces is also problematic. For one, Hannibal had about three dozen elephants, not "three elephants". Also, the article does not take notice of the Gallic forces that had joined Hannibal after his 26,000 man army arrived in Italy (probably about 14,000),∐</math></math></math></math> and the numbers are given in the description of Hannibal's deployment add up to 31,000, not the given 26,000.
Hy, I tried to replace the old brown image with newer one from the US military academy. To my suprise this replacement was reverted with no explanation except "keep both images". Well I can only say that the newer image shows the locations of the troops in a better deatil (can you see the ambushed carthaginian troops in the old image?) and should logically replace the older image. The older image should be deleted in favour of the new. Flamarande 22:07, 31 May 2006 (UTC)
"The sacred band" referred to earlier infantry units fielded by Carthage - is there any evidence this was ever applied to cavalry? As far as I know, it was Numidian cavalry used to lure the Romans into battle. JW ( talk) 06:57, 3 March 2008 (UTC)
The text of this article reads, "Hannibal began the Second Punic War in 219 B.C. by attacking the Roman-allied city of Saguntum..." I think that's not neutral POV, according to the sources. I'll check and see exactly what they say. Gallador ( talk) 01:32, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The two maps of the battle currently appearing in this article have a dramatic conflict: the places of the two armies are reversed. Which is accurate? Shouldn't there be an explanation of the disparity, even if it's simply "it appears that Gonius erred in his depiction"? -- Piledhigheranddeeper ( talk) 00:27, 18 December 2008 (UTC) Ah. I see now that this issue was raised two years back. However, there's still no resolution. -- Piledhigheranddeeper ( talk) 00:28, 18 December 2008 (UTC)
There are several references to Scipio on this page. Does it mean Scipio Africanus, or his father, Publius Cornelius Scipio? Or both? Can someone answer that and provide a link to the subject? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Egthegreat ( talk • contribs) 05:50, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
Hello guys. I'm a genuine Greek and Latin guy. The Greek and Latin guys had all this worked out long ago, you just don't have access to the articles. Harvard allowed Google to put much of its library online so now we have some access. Don't even think about buying articles online, they are way overpriced. It's a genuine racket. But, that is where the information is. I'll do the best I can with sources you can actually get. I must say, you have the usual expectations of non-ancient-historians. You hear about everything almost as soon as it happens and within a year or two can get the whole story, unless it is being suppressed. Polybius and Livy were working from a dozen or so hand-written paper manuscripts, which didn't even last their lifetimes. The general population couldn't read and didn't know a thing about it. As Mark Twain quipped somewhere, the ancient kings had no idea where half their kingdoms lay and couldn't have their borders surveyed. What I am saying, what you read is all you are going to get, my friends. There are no solutions. I mean, there are many, but who knows which is right? When that Vandal back then brought a manuscript from the library of Alexandria into the toilet with him that was the last anyone was ever going to know of many of these battles. If you could pick one book about WWII to survive, which would it be? Whichever one it is it wouldn't be enough. Feel grateful, you have two, Livy and Polybius. Saguntum. Hannibal did too start it. That was the casus belli. He had a dream, he said, to lay waste to Italy. He swore an oath never to make peace with Rome. Sure, bub. The best defense he might offer is that Rome made a treaty with a city they had formerly agreed was to be neutral. We don't read about Hannibal sending any old men to the Roman senate to work things out. Take a look at his career - wherever he went, blood baths. The sequence is this - there is peace. Hannibal levels Saguntum. Rome sends to Carthage offering peace. Carthage refuses to check Hannibal and accepts war. The fact that they were unhappy about Sardinia has nothing to do with it. The attack on Saguntum reopened the war. But, as I say, we are not given any clear motives, only the guesses of Polybius and Livy. Maybe none are right, maybe all are right. Where's the non-NPOV? Are we neglecting evidence? What evidence are we neglecting? Should we be making stuff up here just to be fair to Hannibal? I don't see any non-NPOV. The war starts with a declaration following the attack. I believe in modern times the custom is to identify the attacker as the aggressor. We wouldn't say, the United States started WWII by provoking Japan to attack Hawaii or that Poland started it by tempting the 3rd reich to attack it. If you fellows are interested in research, there are plenty mysteries to illuminate here. Maybe you can find something. Do a paper. Whoever first worked on this article found some solutions by making stuff up. That's not allowed. Better to present the problem, but that takes more work. If you can't put it in, don't meddle with the article. So much for that. I find much of the article is usable so I'm going to back it up with the apparatus. It borders on being corny in places but nothing I could really say, this is bad prose. I hope this will take care of some questions for you. Bonjour. Dave ( talk) 01:59, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
This article doesn't appear meet the standards required of an encyclopedia entry. Too much of the original source material is dismissed out of hand with little or no explanation and much content that is included is speculation based on unreferenced secondary work. Yes the sources are confused and missing key information but that is the nature of historical sources in this period. You can't just fill in the rest with speculation without making this very clear.
The whole article has a pro-Roman and pro-Longus bias which is hard to justify in the face of the facts. For those not well versed in this area of history it must be confusing to read and appear contradictory. Less content, sticking to the establishable facts would be better - elements of common speculation such as the site of the battle are important but should be clearly identified, referenced and show a comprehensive survey of modern opinion.
-- Dfairweather ( talk) 12:03, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
OK, I'll have a go in a week or two when I've got enough time to do it all in one go, unless anyone else wants to first of course. -- Dfairweather ( talk) 13:18, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
The article is very confusing due to its treatment of the conflicting sources regarding the positions and strength of the armies.
As a result, the article is inconsistent and hard to read. There are, in my opinion, two possible solutions:
The lede states that the battle took place "on or around the winter solstice." Appian says this: "The river Trebia separated the hostile armies, which the Romans crossed before daylight on a raw, sleety morning of the spring equinox, wading in the water up to their breasts." - Roman History 7,6. Can someone explain or give a source for the current winter solstice date? Failing that I will go ahead and adjust the lede accordingly. ~ Alcmaeonid ( talk) 19:24, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
The following sentence seems to be missing a word at the end. "Yet while harassing the Romans, the Carthaginian cavalrymen turned aside to pillage Scipio's abandoned." I can't fix it because I don't know what word belongs there. Tupelo the typo fixer ( talk) 18:27, 12 January 2015 (UTC)
Hanberke ( talk) 12:38, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
GA toolbox |
---|
Reviewing |
Reviewer: Harrias ( talk · contribs) 08:37, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
I'll take a look at this shortly.
Harrias
talk
08:37, 14 September 2020 (UTC)
|volume
tag, the second states "Volume 7, Part 2, 2nd Edition". I would try to make these two books consistently formatted if possible.Prose review to follow. Harrias talk 07:36, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
Reviewed to the end of the Opposing forces section so far. Harrias talk 11:19, 15 September 2020 (UTC)
And... that's a wrap.
Harrias
talk
09:55, 16 September 2020 (UTC)
reference my journey 2001:4455:6ED:A400:F147:A6DC:B598:5070 ( talk) 16:26, 23 December 2023 (UTC)