Roman army of the mid-Republic placed unprecedented strains on Roman manpower, not least on the Order of Knights and the First Class of commoners which provided the cavalry. During Hannibal's apocalyptic march through Italy (218–216 BC), thousands of Roman cavalrymen were killed in the field. The losses were especially serious for the equestrian order, which also provided the army's senior officers. Livy relates how, after Cannae, gold rings (a badge of knightly rank), recovered from the corpses of Roman knights formed a pile one "modius" (about 9 litres) large. In the succeeding years 214–203 BC, the Romans kept at least 21 legions in the field
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