Hannibal, leader of the Carthaginians, who had invaded Italy eight years earlier, encircled and destroyed a Roman army which was operating against his allies in Apulia.

The heavy defeat increased the war's burden on Rome and, piled on previous military disasters (such as Lake Trasimene, Cannae, and others), aggravated the relations with her exhausted Italian allies.

Within the next three years the Romans reconquered most of the territories and cities lost at the beginning of the war and pushed the Carthaginian general to the southwestern end of the Apennine peninsula.

This victory brought him a host of new allies from Campania, Samnium, Apulia, Lucania, Bruttium, and Magna Graecia, who revolted from Rome enticed by his narrative of Roman oppression.

It was the site of a general engagement between Hannibal and the Romans already in 212 BC (see the first battle of Herdonia), because despite the severe defeats on the battlefield, Rome still managed to preserve intact the core of its system of alliances in Italy and continued to mount a slow but steady counter-offensive.

The siege of Capua, which had begun years before, ended in 211 BC with the fall of the largest city that had taken the side of Hannibal after Cannae.

[7] Meanwhile, Hannibal returned to northern Apulia with forced marches and managed to catch Centumalus off-guard when the latter was besieging Herdonia.

Judging that in the long run he could not retain Herdonia, the Carthaginian general decided to resettle its population in Metapontum and Thurii to the south and destroy the city itself.

Amidst great want of additional manpower and financial resources twelve out of thirty colonies refused to send any more levies and money to Rome.