Autumn 217 BC
Geronium and Minucius
Hannibal marches north to Venafrum, then east over the Apennines into Molise, and takes the town of Geronium, near modern Casacalenda, as his winter base. Fabius follows and camps at Larinum. The Carthaginians turn Geronium into a granary, and two thirds of the army goes out to forage while the rest guards the camp.
Samnium and northern Campania, from the Ager Falernus and Casilinum to Geronium and Larinum, in Samuel Butler’s Atlas of Ancient and Classical Geography, 1907Wikimedia Commons, Samuel Butler, Public domain (Butler Italiæ Pars Media (Part South Samnium).jpg)
While Fabius is in Rome, Minucius moves down into the plain, takes a hill near the Carthaginians and attacks their foragers and their camp. With 8,000 fresh Roman troops arriving behind the Carthaginians, he wins the engagement, and Hannibal falls back to Geronium. In Rome Minucius is given a command equal to that of Fabius, and the army is split in two.
Hannibal hides 5,000 infantry and 500 cavalry in the hollows around a low hill between the camps and draws Minucius into a fight for it. When the four legions climb the hill, the hidden troops attack their flanks and rear. Fabius marches out with his legions and saves the army, and Minucius puts himself under his command again.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 3, 100 to 105.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 22, 18 to 30.
- Adrian Goldsworthy, The Fall of Carthage (2006).
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