Battle of Metaurus

Battle of the Metaurus

Date	207 BC
Location	Metaurus River, Marche, Italy
Result	Decisive Roman victory

Belligerents

Carthage

Roman Republic

Commanders and leaders

Hasdrubal Barca †

Marcus Livius Salinator,
Gaius Claudius Nero,
Porcius Licinus

Strength

~30,000:

(25,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry) and 15 war elephants

~47,000:

(8 Roman legions plus Nero's reinforcements of 7,000)

Casualties and losses

10,000 killed
10,000 captured
(according to Polybius)

2,000 killed
(according to Polybius)

~30,000:

~47,000:

The Battle of the Metaurus was a pivotal battle in the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, fought in 207 BC near the Metauro River in Italy. The battle holds a chapter in the classic The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World (1851) by Sir Edward Shepherd Creasy. The Carthaginians were led by Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal Barca, who was to have brought siege equipment and reinforcements for Hannibal. The Roman armies were led by the consuls Marcus Livius, who was later nicknamed the Salinator, and Gaius Claudius Nero.

Claudius Nero had just fought Hannibal in Grumentum, some hundreds of kilometers south of the Metaurus river, and reached Marcus Livius with a forced march which went unnoticed by both Hannibal and Hasdrubal, so that the Carthaginians suddenly found themselves outnumbered.

Hasdrubal's campaign to come to his brother's aid in Italy had gone remarkably well up to that point. After adeptly escaping Publius Scipio in Hispania and making his way into Gaul in the winter of 208, Hasdrubal waited until the spring of 207 to make his way through the Alps and into Northern Italy. Hasdrubal made much faster progress than his brother had during his crossing, partly due to the constructions left behind by Hannibal's army a decade earlier, but also due to the removal of the Gallic threat that had plagued Hannibal during that expedition. The Gauls now feared and respected the Carthaginians, and not only was Hasdrubal allowed to pass through the Alps unmolested, his ranks were swelled by many enthusiastic Gauls. Hasdrubal, in the same fashion as his brother, succeeded in bringing his war elephants, raised and trained in Hispania, over the Alps.

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Wikipedia