Rome won a decisive victory at the Metaurus in 207 BC1, intercepting and destroying the army of Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal before it could reinforce him in Italy. It is often called the real turning point of the Second Punic War2, the battle that beat Hannibal without beating Hannibal.
For years Hannibal roamed Italy undefeated, waiting for the reinforcements that would let him finish Rome. In 207 BC his brother Hasdrubal crossed the Alps to bring them. Rome intercepted him first, at the river Metaurus, and destroyed his army before the brothers could ever join hands. It is often called the real turning point of the Second Punic War, the battle that beat Hannibal without beating Hannibal.
Hannibal's long wait
After crushing Rome at Cannae in 216 BC, Hannibal could not take the city or force a surrender, and Rome refused open battle while wearing him down. His one hope was reinforcement from Spain. When his brother Hasdrubal finally marched an army over the Alps into Italy in 207 BC, the two Barca brothers were poised to combine and overwhelm Rome at last.
The intercepted message
The campaign turned on intelligence. Roman troops captured Hasdrubal's messengers carrying his plans to Hannibal.3 The consul Gaius Claudius Nero, watching Hannibal in the south, made a daring decision: he slipped away with a picked force and marched hard north3 to join his colleague Livius Salinator, massing against Hasdrubal before Hannibal even knew he had gone.
The battle at the river
The combined Roman armies met Hasdrubal near the river Metaurus. In hard fighting the Romans turned his flank and broke his army4; Hasdrubal, seeing the day was lost, is said to have ridden into the fight to die rather than be captured3. His army was destroyed, and thousands were killed or taken.
The head in the camp
Nero marched back south as fast as he had come3, and had Hasdrubal's severed head thrown before Hannibal's outposts. Seeing it, Hannibal is said to have recognised the fate of Carthage3. He never received his reinforcements, was slowly penned into the south of Italy, and the initiative passed for good to Rome, which would win the war at Zama five years later.
Scipio in Spain
While Hannibal waited in vain in the south of Italy, the war was being decided elsewhere. In Spain the young Publius Cornelius Scipio had taken Carthago Nova in 209 BC5, and in 206 BC he destroyed the remaining Carthaginian armies at Ilipa5, driving Carthage out of the peninsula and cutting off the source of men and silver that had fed Hannibal's war. With Spain lost and Hasdrubal dead, Scipio carried the war to Africa, forcing Carthage to recall Hannibal for the final battle at Zama.
