Gnaeus Servilius Geminus fleet overseeing coastal defense and battles against Sardinia, Corsica and the North African coast. In November, Geminus resumed command of Roman land forces and, having been elected proconsul in early 216, became involved in skirmishes with approaching Carthaginian forces under Hannibal from March until May, before he was killed while in command of the center of the Roman line during the Battle of Cannae on August 2, 216 BC. Gnaeus Servilius Geminus Gnaeus Servilius Geminus (died August 2, 216 BC) was a Roman consul, serving as both general and admiral of Roman forces, during the Second Punic War. The son
Religion in ancient Rome Venus was brought from Sicily and installed in a temple on the Capitoline hill. The disasters of the early part of Rome's second Punic War were attributed, in Livy's account, to a growth of superstitious cults, errors in augury and the neglect of Rome's traditional gods, whose anger was expressed directly in Rome's defeat at Cannae (216 BC). The Sibilline books were consulted. They recommended a general vowing of the "ver sacrum" and in the following year, the burial of two Greeks and two Gauls; not the first or the last of its kind, according to Livy. The introduction of