ABSTRACT
On the morning of 21 June, 217 BC, the Roman consul C. Flaminius led his unsuspecting army into a well-conceived Carthaginian ambush along the shores of Lake Trasimene in central Italy. 1 A number of sources describe the ensuing disaster in some detail. The most conservative of these sources estimates that 15,000 citizens and Italian allies perished in the engagement, while another 10,000 managed to escape the carnage. 2 News of this defeat understandably created panic in the streets of Rome, 3 but there were other emotions on display as well. The most circumstantial account, that of Livy, is clearly embellished; nevertheless, it convincingly captures the anguish that those who waited for news of the survivors must have experienced:
Over the next few days a crowd consisting mostly of women lingered at the city gates, waiting for members of their families or for word concerning them. They crowded around everyone who came along, questioning them; nor could they be torn away, especially from acquaintances, before they had inquired into everything in turn. Then, as they walked away, the looks on their faces revealed whether the news that each person had received was good or bad, and friends gathered around those returning home to congratulate or console. The joy and grief of the women was particularly striking. It is said that one woman, suddenly confronted at the gate by a son who was uninjured, died in his embrace; another, to whom the death of her son had been falsely reported, was sitting sadly in her home when he walked in the door. At the very first sight of him, she died from her overwhelming happiness. 4
