Talk:Battle of the Trebia

Untitled
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)


 * Has been corrected. The Romans hat two whole legions i.e. more than 40,000 men. --Proofreader 12:10, 26 February 2006 (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),∐$$  $$ and the numbers are given in the description of Hannibal's deployment add up to 31,000, not the given 26,000.

Why keep the old image?
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 new image includes just the battle field, the old image shows a larger portion of territory, up to Clastidium, which had a significant role in the prelude to the battle. Beside, there is a discordancy between the two map (the positions of Roman and Carthaginian forces are reversed) and until now I didn't manage to investigate which image is exact. GhePeU 12:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

sacred band cavalry?
"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)

Hannibal began the war?
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)

Conflicting maps
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)

Which Scipio?
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)

Answers
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)

Highlight problematic approach - re-write is in order
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)
 * So if you want, and are well aware of WP:Manual of Style procedures (really annoying if having to reformat and reclean an article having a long history of such work), rewrite it at your will! Good luck --&#39;&#39;&#39;Attilios&#39;&#39;&#39; (talk) 12:26, 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)


 * Hello Mr. Fairweather. This article does meet standards of an encyclopedia entry. The previous article did not meet such standards. It's too bad you find this annoying, Attilios. I wonder why you did not find the plagiarism and total neglect of the sources annoying in the previous article. That reminds me, Mr. fairweather - exactly what original sources got neglected? You do understand that interpretive accounts are not original sources? Hmn. Mr. Fairweather, I do agree with you on one point - it could use more secondary sources. I'm only trying to correct the flaws of the previous. I always like to encourage work, as that is the policy. Go ahead, my boy. Dig in. Let us see what you can do. Mr. Fairweather, you say we should stick to the etablishable facts. Let's have some more of those, hey? Make sure you establish them, however. Now, you talk about a comprehensive survey of modern opinion. I'd like to see that. Can you do it? I would interject that YOUR offhand opinion is not a modern survey. I'm getting off this article now. I see your overall opinions as off the mark. This article is far better than the previous, includes better sources and answers some of the problems raised in the discussion. I can't see how you would not see that, so there is a credibility gap here. Maybe you didn't like some of the things I said in correction or didn't like being corrected. Neither does any student. Time will tell. Now, Mr. Attilius, I saw your initial title corrections. Well, mine were OK but in fact I like yours better. However you did end up with two "sources" sections. I would say, do be careful will you? Don't "correct" just to be correcting, do BETTER than me. Now, as I do not like Mr. Fairweather's tone and I do not like Mr. Attilios' seconding of it, I am leaving this article to you for now. Later I will look at it again with fresh eyes and if it is worse I will say so and why. Meanwhile I mean to chide you for your tone but I do not mean to discourage you. Have at it. If I don't see a major redesign I will know you couldn't do it and then I will start expressing the problems in improvement tags. Oh, Mr. Fairweather, I don't know what you mean by "less content" when you seem to be proposing a great deal more content (however we can split off more articles if necessary). Frankly the truth of your words does not match your tone. I see you have no user page. I don't know WHO you are until I see your work. If you are going to stay with us, how about a user page? The flak is no worse than what goes around in universities all the time.Dave (talk) 16:24, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * PS. One more thing, Mr. Fairweather. You claim the article is pro-Longus and pro-Roman. Keep in mind, the main sources are pro-Roman. Livy was very much pro-Roman and so was Polybius. Unfortunately there are no pro-Carthaginian sources to tell us any different. If the battle did not happen that way, you need to show that it did not happen that way, and you need sources to show that bias may have prevented the sources from telling it the way it was. Your own pro-Carthaginian views are not of interest. So, it isn't me or the article you want to address, it is the sources. My opinion, which I expressed above, is not in the article in any way nor do I base any view on it. I stuck to what the sources said. The only "source" I cut out was the novel. Novels are not sources. If you put it in again I will tag it as non-encyclopedic. Now, you tell us you are going to fix this all in a single session. What? Don't you want to do any reading, any lookups, any offline writing? A single session? I don't see how you are going to do that. You need to qualify yourself to work on this article by doing the homework; your offhand opinion is the problem with articles such as this. Exactly how are the sources pro-Roman? I probably should tip you off, it is a big subject and may require a new section if not another article. Even to say, "so-and-so thinks this part of the account reflects Roman bias" is going to take research and space in the article. That is all I wanted to say. So long now.Dave (talk) 19:57, 29 March 2009 (UTC)


 * PPS. Whew. It appears that I am not off the article after all. I am gathering the secondary sources you requested, Mr. Fairweather. Now, with regard to your sudden presence on Wikipedia, either you were on before under another name or you are not familiar with the policies. Your statements lead me to think you had a sudden replacement in mind. I should warn you that you cannot do that. I will regard it as vandalism and will revert it. I am sure Mr. Attilios, a more experienced editor, was not suggesting that you could. You have to give reasons for what you do, so if you want to rewrite you have to state what you are rewriting and why. That gives the rest of us a chance to evaluate it. For myself I am interested in the best article that can be obtained. So if you do something and I see that it is better I will have no objection. I think Mr. Attilios sees that that is so. I see him making unobtrusive changes mainly for the better here and there. Wikipedia is based on successive alteration of what is there, and that is best; otherwise, anyone can just replace any article at any time. Chaos would result. I think once you start a rewrite, if you do, you will not find me unreasonable. Certainly it is not the work of a single session. I am saying all this under the presumption that there is a sincere persona under the name of Fairweather, which is the presumption that Wikipedia recommends and supports. I would only doubt it because your abrupt statements seem so far off the mark, but they may be characteristic of a novice. I find the fact that no one is rushing to carry on the usual juvenile (or hypocritical) confrontations reassuring. Maybe you are researching the topic and encountering the probems.Dave (talk) 12:13, 31 March 2009 (UTC)

left or right
The article is very confusing due to its treatment of the conflicting sources regarding the positions and strength of the armies.


 * The map in the infobox contradicts the map used further below
 * The map quotation states that "This article adopts Mommsen's classic view that the Romans camped on the right bank and crossed to the left." yet numerous sections below permit both possibilities.
 * The prelude again takes a strong view on positions "Tiberius sent an unspecified number of cavalry across the river with 1,000 infantry. They caught the Carthaginians pillaging there and drove them into Hannibal's camp (clearly on the left bank). The Carthaginians acquired reinforcements and sallied out to push the Romans back across the river, where the Romans sent for reinforcements from their camp (proving a right-bank location).", while the battle and aftermath section allow both possibilities.
 * The numbers section goes to great length to explain why both roman armies were likely not merged, yet the battle section totally ignores is and gives numbers for the merged case.

As a result, the article is inconsistent and hard to read. There are, in my opinion, two possible solutions:


 * 1) If one side (on both the issues of location and number) has a clear majority of scholars arguing for it, the entire article should follow this side and present the dissenting side only in a separate section to avoid confusion.
 * 2) If both sides are equally represented, then all sections of the article should present both cases, not only some (while others only take one side). --Xeeron (talk) 14:46, 10 March 2010 (UTC)

Date of the battle
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)

missing word
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)

Duplicate sentences
Hanberke (talk) 12:38, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
 * A cold snap had set in and the precipitation had turned from rain to snow and ice. All the elephants but one (or several in Polybius) died along with "many men and horses".
 * The storm was followed by a cold snap. All the elephants except one, and many of the horses died.
 * Yep. Thanks. Work in progress. I am reluctant to remove old text until I know that I have my new text lined up. Although, checking, they are both old text. Sorted. Cheers. Gog the Mild (talk) 13:27, 2 September 2020 (UTC)

Juan Valdez mercado jr
reference my journey 2001:4455:6ED:A400:F147:A6DC:B598:5070 (talk) 16:26, 23 December 2023 (UTC)