Battle of Beneventum (214 BC)

Battle of Beneventum
Part of the Second Punic War
Map of Campanian operations in 214 BC
Date 214 BC Location Beneventum; modern Benevento Result Roman victory
Belligerents
Roman Republic	Carthage
Commanders and leaders
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus	Hanno
Strength
18,000 infantry and cavalry	17,000 infantry, 1,200 cavalry
Casualties and losses
4,000 killed	16,500 killed

The Battle of Beneventum was fought in 214 BC near modern Benevento during the Second Punic War. Roman legions under Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus defeated Hanno's Carthaginian forces, denying Hannibal reinforcements. Livy gives a brief description of the battle, which was part of the Roman campaign to subdue the southern Italian city-states that had joined Hannibal after the Battle of Cannae.

Hannibal, while preparing to assault the city of Nola in Campania, was waiting for his lieutenant Hanno to bring his 1,200 Numidian horsemen along with 17,000 Bruttians and Lucanians up the Via Appia from Bruttium. Hanno had been ordered down there on a previous occasion to stir up the southern cities of Magna Graecia against Rome and to recruit fresh soldiers, which he had done. Hannibal ordered his lieutenant to come to him to reinforce him, and he specifically advised him to march to Campania by way of Beneventum. There were however, alternative routes that Hanno could have taken.

The consul Fabius had ordered Gracchus, a praetor, to march from Lucercia, where he had been wintering, on to Beneventum. Fabius' son, the Q. Fabius Maximus who became consul the following year, was in command of a separate force, and was ordered to take possession of Lucercia. Fabius ordered Gracchus to Beneventum with the idea of cooping up Hannibal in Campania, he had failed to do this previously in 215 BC, and perhaps with the scheme in mind of preventing reinforcements from reaching him. However, it should be noted that there is no evidence that Fabius had any idea that reinforcements were on their way.

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