Consequences: Hannibal On The Defensive
As a result of the battle of Canusium, the army of Marcellus was effectively put out of action. Sparing his soldiers, most of whom were wounded, the proconsul retired to Campania, where he was inactive the rest of the summer, allowing Hannibal to traverse southern Italy unchecked. This prompted Marcellus' political enemies in Rome to accuse him of bad generalship and to ask the Senate and People to relieve him of his command. Nevertheless, Marcellus was elected consul once again and was authorized to seek a decisive engagement with Hannibal in the following year.
Still in the summer of 209 BC, while Marcellus was fighting Hannibal in Apulia, the army under the consul Quintus Fulvius Flaccus effected the submission of Lucania. The other consul, Quintus Fabius Maximus, came to Tarentum. Having disentangled himself from Marcellus, Hannibal hurried to rescue the city, but could not reach it in time. He was five miles away when Fabius sacked Tarentum. Faced with these abrupt losses of valuable allies, Hannibal had to retreat to the farthest corner of southeastern Italy, for Bruttium was also under Roman attack and some of its people invited Flaccus to receive their submission. Unopposed by the main Roman forces, the Carthaginian commander managed to intercept and destroy near Caulonia an 8,000 strong detachment, that had attacked the Bruttians from Regium, and thus retained control over the region.
In the following year (208 BC) Hannibal confronted Marcellus once again in Apulia, for the final time. Marcellus was killed in an ambush at Venusia. Following his death, Rome gave up the idea for a decisive encounter with Hannibal. After the battle of the Metaurus in 207 BC, it was Hannibal's turn to relinquish his hopes for regaining the military initiative. These events led to prolongation of the war in Italy until the Romans invaded Carthaginian territory in northern Africa (see the articles about the battle of Crotona and the battle of Utica).
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