Battle of the Metaurus (207 BC): Hasdrubal's Defeat in Italy

The Battle of the Metaurus was fought in 207 BC by the river Metaurus (Metauro) in central Italy, near the Adriatic coast. Two Roman consular armies, united after a daring secret march by Gaius Claudius Nero, destroyed the relief army that Hasdrubal Barca had brought from Spain to join his brother Hannibal. Hasdrubal died in the battle, and with him went Hannibal’s last real hope of winning the war in Italy.

Background

By 208 BC the Second Punic War had turned against Carthage in Italy. Rome had recovered Capua and Tarentum, and Hannibal, though still undefeated in battle, was increasingly confined to the south. His army could not grow without reinforcements.

In Spain, Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal had been defeated by the young Publius Cornelius Scipio at Baecula in 208 BC, but he slipped away with much of his army and marched north. Following Hannibal’s route of ten years earlier, he crossed the Pyrenees and, in the spring of 207 BC, the Alps, apparently more easily and quickly than his brother. He recruited Gauls and Ligurians in northern Italy and briefly besieged the Roman colony of Placentia.

Rome faced the danger it had most feared: two Carthaginian armies in Italy at once. The consuls for 207 BC were Marcus Livius Salinator, who was sent north to face Hasdrubal, and Gaius Claudius Nero, who watched Hannibal in the south.

The captured letter and Nero’s march

Hasdrubal sent six horsemen, four Gauls and two Numidians, with a letter for Hannibal proposing that the brothers meet in Umbria. According to Livy, the riders crossed most of Italy but were captured by Roman foragers near Tarentum and brought to Nero.

Nero took an extraordinary decision on his own authority. Leaving most of his army in camp to keep Hannibal unaware, he set off north with about 6,000 picked infantry and 1,000 cavalry. Supplies and volunteers were waiting along the route, and his men marched night and day, covering several hundred kilometres in about a week. He entered Livius’s camp near Sena Gallica (Senigallia) at night so that the enemy would not realise that a second army had arrived.

The battle

Hasdrubal nevertheless noticed signs of reinforcement. Livy says he saw worn shields and lean horses in the Roman ranks and heard the trumpet signal sounded twice in the camp, the sign that two consuls were present. He decided to withdraw by night, but his guides slipped away and his army lost its way along the winding banks of the Metaurus, looking for a ford. The Romans caught up with him.

Hasdrubal drew up his army with his best troops, the Iberians, on his right, facing Livius, and the Ligurians in the centre. His Gauls held his left on high, broken ground, and he placed his ten elephants in front. The fighting between the Iberians and Livius’s legions was fierce, and the elephants caused confusion on both sides.

On the Roman right, Nero found that the ground in front of him made an attack on the Gauls impossible. He took part of his force, marched it behind the Roman line and fell on the flank and rear of Hasdrubal’s Iberians. This move broke the Carthaginian army. Seeing that the battle was lost, Hasdrubal rode into the Roman ranks and was killed fighting.

Casualties and aftermath

Polybius gives about 10,000 Carthaginians and Gauls killed and about 2,000 Romans. Livy’s figures, 56,000 enemy dead and 5,400 captured, are much higher and are generally thought to be exaggerated.

Nero hurried back south, by Livy’s account in even less time than the march north. He then had Hasdrubal’s head thrown in front of Hannibal’s outposts and sent two African prisoners to tell Hannibal what had happened. Livy writes that Hannibal, seeing his brother’s head, said that he recognised the fate of Carthage. He withdrew into Bruttium, the toe of Italy, where he remained for the next four years.

In Rome, where news of the victory caused enormous relief, the two consuls were awarded a joint celebration: Livius rode in a triumphal chariot while Nero, whose army had stayed in the south, rode beside him on horseback.

Legacy

The Metaurus was the decisive battle of the war in Italy. Hannibal could no longer expect reinforcements by land, and Carthage’s attention shifted to the defence of Spain and Africa, where Scipio would soon carry the war (see Battle of Ilipa). The poet Horace later celebrated the Metaurus in an ode honouring the Claudius Nero family, and in 1851 Edward Creasy included it in his influential book “The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World”.

Nero’s march is still admired as a model of using interior lines: moving forces rapidly between two fronts to concentrate against one enemy while the other is held in check.

Timeline

• 208 BC: Scipio defeats Hasdrubal at Baecula; Hasdrubal marches north.
• 207 BC, spring: Hasdrubal crosses the Alps into northern Italy.
• 207 BC, early summer: Hasdrubal’s messengers are captured near Tarentum.
• 207 BC, summer: Nero marches north and joins Livius near Sena Gallica.
• 207 BC, summer: Battle of the Metaurus; Hasdrubal is killed.
• 207 BC, summer: Nero returns south and Hannibal withdraws into Bruttium.

Why it matters

The Metaurus ended Carthage’s best chance of reinforcing Hannibal in Italy. From then on, Rome could take the initiative, and within five years the war would be decided in Africa.