Marcus Junius Silanus

Marcus Junius Silanus was one of the most successful Roman commanders in the Spanish theatre of the Second Punic War. He is best remembered for his defeat of Hanno and Mago in Celtiberia in 207 BC. Early career A member of the celebrated plebeian gens Junia, Silanus first appears in history in 216 BC, when he was appointed Prefect over the Roman garrison at Neapolis, one of the cities of Magna Graecia that had requested protection from the Carthaginian general Hannibal. He was praetor in 212, and assigned the province of Etruria, where he remained as propraetor the following year. During this time, he purchased and despatched grain for the Roman army besieging Capua. In Spain In 210 BC, Silanus' imperium was prorogued for a second time, and he accompanied the proconsul Scipio Africanus to Hispania, where he remained for the duration of the Iberian campaign. On their arrival that autumn, Silanus succeeded to the command of Gaius Claudius Nero, who had been sent to Spain as propraetor the preceding year. When Scipio took his army to conquer Carthago Nova in 209, Silanus remained in command of the forces south of the Iberus, holding the region the following year. In 207, at Scipio's direction, he attacked a large army that had been gathered by the Carthaginian commanders Hanno and Mago in Celtiberia, utterly defeating them with his much smaller force.