Battle of Herdonia (210 BC) Battle of Herdonia (210 BC) The second battle of Herdonia took place in 210 BC during the Second Punic War. Hannibal, leader of the Carthaginians, who had invaded Italy eight years earlier, encircled and destroyed a Roman army which was operating against his allies in Apulia. The heavy defeat increased the war’s burden on Rome and, piled on previous military disasters (such as Lake Trasimene, Cannae and others), aggravated the relations with her exhausted Italian allies. For Hannibal the battle was a tactical success, but did not halt for long the Roman advance. Within the next three years the Romans
Socii to raise a double-strength army of four legions and four "alae" e.g. at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, where each Consul commanded an army of about 40,000 men. Polybius states that the Romans and their allies could draw on a grand total of 770,000 men fit to bear arms (of which 70,000 met the property requirement for cavalry) in 225 BC, shortly before the start of the Second Punic War. The Romans reportedly asked their allies for an urgent register of all "men fit to bear arms" for a "tumultus Gallicus". Polybius' subtotals, however, are garbled, as he