Hannibal chose not to march on Rome after the victory at Trasimene.
The initiative now rested with Hannibal, and the Romans had temporarily lost the ability to defend their Italian socii allies until a new army could be raised. The Roman army retreated back to Ariminum after this debacle, and was busy checking the Gallic raids taking place near the Po valley. This force also had lost most of its reconnaissance capabilities as its cavalry of 4,000 men had been destroyed in an ambush by Hannibal's lieutenant Maharbal possibly near Assisi, immediately after the battle of Lake Trasimene.
The second Roman consular army in Northern Italy, under Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, was on the other, eastern, side of the Apennine Mountains, near Ariminum, and it was in no position to hinder Hannibal from marching south. The Carthaginian victory in the Battle of Lake Trasimene had removed the Roman consular army which had prevented the Carthaginians from marching on Rome. Despite the protests of his staff officers, Fabius, who was camped near the pass with his main forces, refused to attack the Carthaginian army and it escaped the trap unscathed. He now occupied all the river crossings and mountain passes leading out of the valley, thus blocking the Carthaginians inside.Īfter stripping the area of grain, cattle, and other supplies, Hannibal displayed brilliant tactics to provoke the Roman guard to leave one of the passes. Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, who had been elected Roman dictator and commander of the Roman field forces after the disastrous defeat at Lake Trasimene, had dogged Hannibal and stuck to a strategy to fight only under favourable conditions. The Carthaginians ultimately moved into the district of Falernum, a fertile river valley surrounded by mountains. After winning the Battle of Lake Trasimene in Italy in 217 BC, the army commanded by Hannibal marched south and reached Campania. The Battle of Ager Falernus was a skirmish during the Second Punic War between the armies of Rome and Carthage.
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