The Battle of the Upper Baetis was a double battle, comprising the battles of Castulo and Ilorca, fought in 211 BC during the Second Punic War between a Carthaginian force led by Hasdrubal Barca (Hannibal's brother) and a Roman force led by Publius Cornelius Scipio and his brother Gnaeus. The immediate result was a Carthaginian victory in which both Roman brothers were killed. Before this defeat, the brothers had spent seven years (218–211 BC) campaigning against the Carthaginians in Hispania, thus limiting the resources available to Hannibal, who was simultaneously fighting the Romans in Italy. Background After the defeat of Hasdrubal Barca in the Battle of Dertosa in the spring of 215 BC, the Romans had secured their bases north of the Ebro. They then proceeded to win over some Iberian tribes in the region. Both the Romans and Carthaginians faced and put down Iberian tribal revolts. The Scipios received no reinforcement from Italy, where Hannibal had the Romans hard pressed. Due to a lack of support from Rome, the Scipios mounted no decisive operations against the Carthaginians in 214–213 BC. In 215 BC, the brothers had complained about the lack of Roman supplies and finance for their army. The Roman Senate responded by sending private companies to supply their forces. Two of these merchants, Pomponius and Postumius, turned out to be criminals who cheated the Scipios of their money. In 214 BC, Rome suffered a financial crisis as a result of the strains of war, increasing the Scipios' funding troubles. Despite the lack of any reinforcement or renewed funding, the Scipios went over to the offensive in 212 BC, re-capturing Saguntum, which had been lost to Hannibal in 219 BC. Meanwhile, Hasdrubal had been reinforced by two armies, led respectively by his younger brother, Mago Barca, and Hasdrubal Gisco. According to Livy, the Romans fought multiple battles against the Carthaginians south of the Ebro from 215–214 BC, at Iliturgi, Munda, and Orongi. Livy's chronology is confused and contradicted by Polybius, who explicitly states that the Scipio brothers did not venture south of the Ebro until 212 BC. As a result, most historians consider these engagements to be ahistorical. The Scipios had persuaded Syphax, a Numidian king, to open hostilities against Carthage with an army that had been trained by Statorius, a Roman centurion, in 213 or 212 BC. On the whole, the situation in Iberia was stable enough for