Battle of Cissa

Battle of Cissa
	Part of the Second Punic War
	; Scipio's landing in Iberia
Date	Fall 218 BC
Location	Cissa or Tarraco, present-day Catalonia, Spain41°06′57″N 1°14′59″E / 41.1157°N 1.2496°E
Result	Roman victory
Belligerents
Roman Republic	Carthage
Commanders and leaders
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus	Hanno (POW)
Strength
20,000 – 25,000 8,000 Roman infantry 6,000 heavy infantry; 2,000 skirmishers; ; 14,000 Italian allied infantry; 600 Roman cavalry; 1,600 Italian allied cavalry; unknown number of auxiliary Iberians;	11,000 10,000 infantry; 1,000 cavalry; unknown number of auxiliary Iberians;
Casualties and losses
Unknown	8,000 6,000 killed; 2,000 captured

The Battle of Cissa was part of the Second Punic War. It was fought in the fall of 218 BC, near the town of Tarraco in north-eastern Iberia. A Roman army under Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus defeated an outnumbered Carthaginian army under Hanno, thus gaining control of the territory north of the Ebro River that Hannibal had just subdued a few months prior in the summer of 218 BC. This was the first battle that the Romans had ever fought in Iberia. It allowed the Romans to establish a secure base among friendly Iberian tribes, and due to the eventual success of the Scipio brothers in Spain, Hannibal looked for but never received reinforcements from Spain during the war.