This article concerns the period 219 BC – 210 BC.
Year 216 BC was a year of the pre-Julian Roman calendar. At the time it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Varro and Paullus. The denomination 216 BC for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for naming years.
Marcus Claudius Marcellus, five times elected as consul of the Roman Republic, was an important Roman military leader during the Gallic War of 225 BC and the Second Punic War. Marcellus gained the most prestigious award a Roman general could earn, the spolia opima, for killing the Gallic military leader and king Viridomarus in single combat in 222 BC at the Battle of Clastidium. Furthermore, he is noted for having conquered the fortified city of Syracuse in a protracted siege during which Archimedes, the famous mathematician, scientist, and inventor, was killed, despite Marcellus ordering the soldiers under his command not to harm him. Marcus Claudius Marcellus died in battle in 208 BC, leaving behind a legacy of military conquests and a reinvigorated Roman legend of the spolia opima.
The Battle of Cannae was a key engagement of the Second Punic War between the Roman Republic and Carthage, fought on 2 August 216 BC near the ancient village of Cannae in Apulia, southeast Italy. The Carthaginians and their allies, led by Hannibal, surrounded and practically annihilated a larger Roman and Italian army under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. It is regarded as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history and one of the worst defeats in Roman history, and it cemented Hannibal Barca's reputation as one of antiquity's greatest tacticians.
Titus Quinctius Flamininus was a Roman politician and general instrumental in the Roman conquest of Greece.
Appius Claudius Pulcher was a Roman general and politician of the 3rd century BC, active in the Second Punic War.
Gaius Claudius Nero was a Roman general active during the Second Punic War against the invading Carthaginian force, led by Hannibal Barca. During a military career that began as legate in 214 BC, he was praetor in 212 BC, propraetor in 211 BC during the siege of Capua, before being sent to Spain that same year. He became consul in 207 BC.
The Battles of Kroton in 204 and 203 BC were, as well as the raid in Cisalpine Gaul, the last larger scale engagements between the Romans and the Carthaginians in Italy during the Second Punic War. After Hannibal’s retreat to Bruttium due to the Metaurus debacle, the Romans continuously tried to block his forces from gaining access to the Ionian Sea and cut his eventual escape to Carthage by capturing Kroton, the last port which had remained in his hands after years of fighting.
The first Battle of Herdonia was fought in 212 BC during the Second Punic War between Hannibal's Carthaginian army and Roman forces led by Praetor Gnaeus Fulvius Flaccus, brother of the consul. The Roman army was destroyed, leaving Apulia free of Romans for the year.
The second battle of Herdonia took place in 210 BC during the Second Punic War. Hannibal, leader of the Carthaginians, who had invaded Italy eight years earlier, encircled and destroyed a Roman army which was operating against his allies in Apulia. The heavy defeat increased the war's burden on Rome and, piled on previous military disasters, aggravated the relations with her exhausted Italian allies. For Hannibal the battle was a tactical success, but did not halt for long the Roman advance. Within the next three years the Romans reconquered most of the territories and cities lost at the beginning of the war and pushed the Carthaginian general to the southwestern end of the Apennine peninsula. The battle was the last Carthaginian victory of the war; all battles which followed were either inconclusive or Roman victories.
The Battle of the Silarus was fought in 212 BC between Hannibal's army and a Roman force led by centurion Marcus Centenius Penula. The Carthaginians were victorious, destroying the entire Roman army and killing 15,000 Roman soldiers in the process.
The Battle of Canusium also known as the Battle of Asculum was a three-day engagement between the forces of Rome and Carthage. It took place in Apulia during the spring of 209 BC, the tenth year of the Second Punic War. A larger Roman offensive, of which it was a part, aimed to subjugate and to punish cities and tribes that had abandoned the alliance with Rome after the Battle of Cannae, and to narrow the base of the Carthaginian leader, Hannibal, in southern Italy.
The gens Arennia was a plebeian family at Rome during the period of the Punic Wars. It is known chiefly from two individuals, probably brothers, who held the office of tribune of the plebs in 210 BC, during the War with Hannibal.
Ofilius Calavius Ovi f. was a Campanian nobleman during the Second Samnite War. Following the disaster of the Caudine Forks, where both Roman consuls were obliged to surrender their army and pass under the yoke, opinions in Campania were divided as to whether the defeat would forever halt the progress of Roman arms down the Italian peninsula.
Pacuvius Calavius was the chief magistrate of Capua during the Second Punic War. In the aftermath of the Battle of Lake Trasimene, he prevented the people of Capua from surrendering the city to Hannibal. When the Capuans finally capitulated, he dissuaded his son from a rash attempt on the life of the Carthaginian general.
Publius Manlius Vulso was a member of the Roman patrician gens Manlia. In 210 BC he was praetor of Sardinia.
This section of the timeline of Hispania concerns Spanish and Portuguese history events from the Carthaginian conquests to before the barbarian invasions.
Quintus Fabius Maximus was a consul of the Roman Republic in 213 BC. He was the son of Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the famous dictator who invented Fabian strategy, and served with his father during the Second Punic War.
Sextus Julius Caesar was a Roman praetor in 208 BC, during the Second Punic War. He is thought to be the ancestor of all of the later Julii Caesares who appear in history, such as Roman dictator Julius Caesar and emperor Augustus.
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