The Battles of Kroton in 204 and 203 BC were, as well as the raid in Cisalpine Gaul, the last larger scale engagements between the Romans and the Carthaginians in Italy during the Second Punic War.

After Hannibal’s retreat to Bruttium due to the Metaurus debacle, the Romans continuously tried to block his forces from gaining access to the Ionian Sea and cut his eventual escape to Carthage by capturing Kroton, the last port which had remained in his hands after years of fighting.

Publius Cornelius Scipio had taken advantage of Hasdrubal's departure and broke the Carthaginian power on the Iberian peninsula as a result of the battle at Ilipa.

Following the battle of the Metaurus river, Hannibal decided to concentrate all his remaining forces and supporters in Bruttium, "the remotest corner of Italy".

[1] He relinquished his other possessions in Lucania and Magna Graecia apparently because they lost their strategical importance and he deemed them indefensible against Rome's superior forces.

A mainly mountainous region almost entirely surrounded by the sea, Bruttium provided Hannibal with a perfect base to check the Roman advance and force the Senate to keep a large standing army against him.

According to the military historian Hans Delbrück, the strategic goal behind these tactics was to induce Rome to an acceptable peace treaty in return for relinquishing the Punic base in Italy.

[6] Scipio's point was that only by this invasion would he induce Carthage to recall Hannibal[7] and Mago, who had set up another Carthaginian stronghold in Italy by landing in Liguria.

This did not come, for a large convoy of 100 ships with soldiers, money, and supplies was driven off its course by high winds, intercepted and routed by the Roman fleet at Sardinia.

Hannibal moved quickly to expel the enemy "and the Romans would not have held out had not the population, embittered by the tyranny and rapacity of the Carthaginians, taken their side.

"[4] Pressed by the loss of the strategic port, Hannibal set his base "at Croton, which he found to be well situated for his operations and where he established his magazines and his headquarters against the other towns".

The disease was so serious that Crassus could not return to Rome for conducting the elections of the next consuls and recommended to the Senate to disband one of the armies in Bruttium, so as to preserve the soldiers’ lives.

This time, Hannibal could not stand his ground against an army doubled in size and was forced to retreat to Croton at the cost of 4,000 dead and 300 prisoners, if one believes Livy.