Norman conquest of southern Italy Ofanto near Cannae, the site of Hannibal's victory over the Romans in 216 BC, and the Battle of Cannae was a decisive Byzantine victory; Amatus wrote that only ten Normans survived from a contingent of 250. After the battle, Ranulf Drengot (one of the Norman survivors) was elected leader of their company. Boioannes protected his gains by building a fortress at the Apennine pass, guarding the entrance to the Apulian plain. In 1019 Troia (as the fortress was known) was garrisoned by Boioannes' Norman troops, an indication of Norman willingness to fight on either side. With Norman mercenaries on both
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