According to Polybius, in the first major engagement between the Carthaginians and Romans in 218 B.C. at the river Trebia the two consuls with their combined forces had an army of 16,000 legionaries and 20,000 allied infantry. The great disadvantage under which the Romans laboured-at any rate in the early phases of the war-was that the consuls were changed every year and, when the two were together, they commanded the combined force in rotation. Such a 'democratic' Republican procedure was almost certain to come to grief when matched against the military intelligence, command and will-power of one man-particularly when that man was a genius of warfare.
( Ernle Dusgate Selby Bradford )
[ Hannibal ]
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