Marcus Atilius Regulus (consul 227 BC) army of 80,000 Romans and allies was amassed together to smash the Carthaginian army under Hannibal. The historian Polybius records that both he and Servilius died fighting bravely at the Battle of Cannae. However, there was a Marcus Atilius Regulus who was Praetor Urbanus (and later also Peregrinus), but it is thought that this person is actually a textual mis-reading of the name Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. It is unlikely that the aged, former consul would become a Praetor again three years after Cannae. His younger brother Gaius was killed fighting the Gauls at the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC,
Battle of Utica (203 BC) and the reconquest of the parts of Sicily that had been temporarily lost after the battle of Cannae, the Romans secured a base for a naval assault on Carthage. They made use of that by carrying out a number of raids on African soil in 208, 207 and 205 BC. Since 206 BC, when Scipio Africanus finally expelled the Carthaginians from Iberia (see the battle of Ilipa), he was preoccupied with the idea that Africa should be the next target. To this end, he concluded an alliance with Syphax – one of the most powerful Numidian rulers at the time