00:00Welcome to my channel Shadows of History. What is the bloodiest battle in Roman history?
00:05Well, it depends on what we mean by bloodiest. Battle with highest total losses.
00:12Battle of Verceli. In 113 BC a large Germanic-Celtic coalition begins poking around Rome.
00:19They crush a Roman army and send the Romans into a panic. This army is 200,000 men strong.
00:25How can Rome compete? Into this steps Marius, uncle of Caesar. Marius was the most well-known
00:33general of his age and he set about reforming the Roman military with rapid speed, creating the more
00:38traditional Roman legions we all know and love. As this massive army began to move for Italy Marius
00:44responded with his reformed legions. What followed was a massive all-out clash where Roman discipline
00:50held back a far larger army. The turning point came when a commander named Sulla Counter charged
00:55the Celtic cavalry and sent them fleeing into their own lines. In all Plutarch reports 100,000 were
01:01killed, Livy reports 160,000, and Orosius reports 140,000 were killed. Battle with highest Roman
01:09casualties. Cannae. Hannibal had invaded Italy and Rome responded by raising the largest army in its
01:16history, some 90,000 men strong. The Romans used this army to attack Hannibal, driving their strong
01:22heavy infantry forward in an effort to break Hannibal's lines. Hannibal had cleverly made his
01:27flanks strong and so as his centre bowed inwards his flanks did not. This created a big U-shape
01:34and the Romans found themselves being pressed from all sides. Then Hannibal's cavalry came around the
01:39rear and surrounded the entire Roman army. They then pressed in and killed perhaps 50,000 Romans.
01:45Oh wait let's.
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