Battle of Cannae the grandfather of Scipio Aemilianus, the patron of Polybius (one of the main sources of this history). In the spring of 216 BC Hannibal took the initiative and seized the large supply depot at Cannae, in the Apulian plain, placing himself between the Romans and their crucial source of supply. As Polybius noted, the capture of Cannae "caused great commotion in the Roman army; for it was not only the loss of the place and the stores in it that distressed them, but the fact that it commanded the surrounding district". The consuls, resolving to confront Hannibal, marched southward in
History of Macedonia (ancient kingdom) of the Italian peninsula. In 216 BC, Philip V sent a hundred light warships into the Adriatic Sea to attack Illyria, a motion that did not go unnoticed by Rome when Scerdilaidas of the Ardiaean Kingdom appealed to the Romans for aid. Rome responded by sending ten heavy quinqueremes from Roman Sicily to patrol the Illyrian coasts, causing Philip V to reverse course and order his fleet to retreat, averting open conflict for the time being. In 215 BC, at the height of the Second Punic War with the Carthaginian Empire, Roman authorities intercepted a ship off the Calabrian coast