In 207 B.C., Hannibal had been in Italy for 11 years. It had been 9 years since his stunning victory at Cannae. In that battle, he destroyed a Roman army of 80,000 men, but he was not able to get Rome to concede that the war was lost. Since then, his army had roamed the peninsula undefeated. He still dreamed of bringing Rome to its knees. If only he could get some reinforcements. Finally, his brother Hasdrubal followed orders from the Carthaginian government to go to the aid of his brother. Hasdrubal left Spain after being defeated by Scipio Africanus in the Battle of Baecula. He followed the same route as his brother and actually crossed the Alps faster and with less problems than his brother. His elephants suffered greatly, but he managed to bring 10 into Italy. The Romans were aware that he was coming and planned to send an army to block the pass. Claudius Nero (an ancestor of the infamous emperor) was elected and assigned to occupy Hannibal in the south. His colleague was Marcus Livius Salinator. AWKWARD! Salinator had been consul once before and had defeated the Illyrians. However, after that triumph, he had been impeached and exiled for speculation and corrupt distribution of the spoils. Nero had been one of his accusers. When Salinator was told he had been chosen to meet Hasdrubal, his initial response was “Oh yeah, now you think I am worthy of command?! Didn’t you humiliate me before? Why should I pull your acorns out of the fire?” Good questions, but he ended up doing the patriotic thing and took the job. As far as reconciling with Nero, that was a big “Hades no!”
Hasdrubal crossed the Alps much quicker than the Romans (and his brother) expected. Salinator was not able to block the pass before the Carthaginian army arrived in the Po River Valley. Hasdrubal needed to let his brother know he had arrived, so he sent messengers. In a stroke of bad luck that changed history, the message was intercepted and brought to Nero. Nero naturally was suspicious that it was planted by the wily Hannibal, but he decided that everything pointed to the message being legit. He then made a very risky decision. He would take part of his army to join his bitter enemy Salinator. Part of the risk was the defying of Senate policy because he was assigned to Hannibal and was not supposed to leave. But more risky was if Hannibal found out, he could have attacked Nero’s now smaller army while its general was away. Nero’s march was done in secret. He took 6,000 infantry and 1,000 cavalry. (These men were probably not hand-picked like Livy wrote because unit cohesion would have been critical.) It took a while to get to Salinator, but he did pick up some retired veterans along the way.
Nero’s force arrived at Salinator’s camp after dark. He had his men bed down with Salinator’s men so it would not look like he had been reinforced. However, the next morning, Hasdrubal was able to piece together some clues that led him to believe part or all of Nero’s army was now facing him. Did this mean his brother had been defeated? Hasdrubal stayed in camp and avoided the battle Nero wanted that day. During the night, Hasdrubal withdrew northward. He planned to recross the Metaurus River. According to Livy, he was misled by his guides, but that seems unlikely since the well-trodden path would have been easy to follow. Unfortunately, the river was swollen and impossible to cross, despite a frantic and futile search for a ford. With his back to the river and a reinforced Roman army chasing him, Hasdrubal’s Gauls lost faith and many went home. The ones that stayed were drunk. Hasdrubal could not avoid battle, but he determined to do his best. His army of 30,000 was outnumbered by 37,000 legionaries.
The battle took place on May 10, 207 B.C. Hasdrubal put his unreliable Gauls on his left wing on a wooded hill. His center was his Ligurians with the elephants in front. He would lead his Spaniards and Africans on the right. The other two forces simply needed to hold while he won the battle by defeating the Roman left and swung in on the flank of the Roman center. It was a pretty good plan because he was a pretty good general. The Romans had Nero on the right facing the Gauls, the center was commanded by a praetor named Porcius, and Salinator commanded the left wing.
The battle opened with Nero assaulting the hill, but finding the terrain too rough to evict the Gauls. In the center, the Ligurians were led by the elephants in a charge. Although the Roman legionaries were no longer afraid of elephants, the fierce attack did put the Romans on their heels. Some of the elephants went rogue and had to be killed by their mahouts by hammering a chisel into their foreheads. On the Carthaginian right, Hasdrubal’s veterans were locked in a bitter struggle with Salinator. The Carthaginians had the momentum. They just might win this battle and be able to link up with Hannibal. The future of Rome hung in the balance. It was at this point that Nero made a breathtaking decision. Seeing that he was in a stalemate with the Gauls, he decided to go help his Salinator. (One must wonder if Nero had extra motivation on this day. He had commanded the Roman army in Spain earlier in his career. At one point he had Hasdrubal’s army trapped in a valley. Hasdrubal offered to negotiate his surrender and Nero dreamed that he would win a bloodless victory and cover himself with the glory of winning the war in Hispania. Hasdrubal drew out the talks over several days and each night more of his army snuck out of the valley until one day Nero was left holding an empty bag. It was very embarrassing.) Nero took four cohorts and marched them behind the Roman army all the way to the left flank. He then charged Hasdrubal’s force. Taken by surprise, Hasdrubal’s flank was caved in and soon was in a panicky retreat. Hasdrubal roamed the battlefield trying to get his men to make a stand, but it was fruitless. Seeing the handwriting on the wall, Hasdrubal decided to die with honor and charged the Romans. His army collapsed
Meanwhile, Hannibal waited in the south, still unaware that Nero had left the Roman camp. One day, a Roman horseman rode up to Hannibal’s camp and hurled an object that rolled up to Hannibal’s feet. It had been ten years, but he recognized his brother’s face on the severed head. He also recognized that the Roman victory at the Metaurus ended any hope of him winning the war in Italy.
- “The Day the World Trembled” by Lee Levin in Military History, June, 2002, pp. 58-65
- https://imperiumromanum.pl/en/battles/battle-of-metaurus-river/
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