challenge Hannibal's army in open battle, but sufficient to force him to concentrate his forces and to hamper his movements. For 12 years after Cannae the war surged around southern Italy as cities went over to the Carthaginians or were taken by subterfuge and the Romans recaptured them by siege or by suborning pro-Roman factions. Hannibal repeatedly defeated Roman armies, in 209BC both consuls were killed in a cavalry skirmish. But wherever his main army was not active the Romans threatened Carthaginian-supporting towns or sought battle with Carthaginian or Carthaginian-allied detachments; frequently with success. By 207BC Hannibal had been confined to the extreme south of Italy and many of the cities and territories which had joined the Carthaginian cause had returned to their Roman allegiance. Greece, Sardinia and Sicily During 216BC the Macedonian king, Philip V, pledged his support to Hannibal, initiating the First Macedonian War against Rome in 215BC. In 211BC Rome contained this threat by allying with the Aetolian League, a coalition of Greek city states which was already at war against Macedonia. In 205BC this war ended with a negotiated peace. A rebellion in support of the Carthaginians broke out on Sardinia in 213BC, but it was quickly put down by the Romans. Up to 215BC Sicily remained firmly in Roman hands, blocking the ready seaborne reinforcement and resupply of Hannibal from Carthage. Hiero II, the tyrant of Syracuse for the previous forty-five years and a staunch Roman ally, died in that year and his successor Hieronymus was discontented with his situation. Hannibal negotiated a treaty whereby Syracuse defected to Carthage, in exchange for making the whole of Sicily a Syracusan possession. The Syracusan army proved no match for a Roman army led by Claudius Marcellus and by spring 213BC Syracuse was besieged. The siege was marked by the ingenuity of Archimedes in inventing war machines to counteract the traditional siege warfare methods of the Romans. A large Carthaginian army led by Himilco was sent to relieve the city in 213BC. It captured several Roman-garrisoned towns on Sicily; many Roman garrisons were either expelled or massacred by Carthaginian partisans. In spring 212BC the Romans stormed Syracuse in a surprise night assault and captured several districts of the city. Meanwhile, the Carthaginian army was crippled by plague. After the Carthaginians failed to resupply the city, Syracuse fell that autumn; Archimedes was killed by a Roman soldier. Carthage sent