In the Second Punic War, the great Carthaginian general Hannibal invaded Italy and scored great victories at Lake Trasimene and Cannae before his eventual defeat at the hands of Rome's Scipio Africanus in 202 B.C. left Rome in control of the western Mediterranean and much of Spain.
After three bad losses worse was to follow for Rome in August 216 BCE when Hannibal, moving into southern Italy, won a great victory against a much larger opposing army (80,000 men) at Cannae in Apulia (modern Puglia) in the heel of the Italian peninsula.
