The Battle of Cissa was part of the Second Punic War. It was fought in the fall of 218 BC, near the Celtic 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. Strategic situation Hannibal's overland invasion of Italy was a highly risky venture, failure of which might have cost Carthage the war sooner, but he was forced to choose this strategy given the strategic limitations the Carthaginian empire faced in 218 BC, and this strategy had a better chance of succeeding than a seaborne invasion. Although sailing to Italy might have been faster and free from the hazards of a land march, at sea the entire fleet might be lost in a storm, and Roman naval dominance increased the risk to Hannibal's large armada, as it risked suffering crippling losses from Roman naval attacks despite Carthaginian warship escorts. Fleets normally sailed along the coast and beached at night or after every 2–3 days for victuals, yet Carthage had no bases on the coast between the Balearic Islands and Italy, which were dominated by Roman ally Massalia and her colonies and wild Ligurians, and Rome also controlled Sardinia, Corsica and Sicily, thus effectively dominating the coast between Spain and Italy, so making a seaborne invasion more dangerous than a land one. Moreover, enough horse transports to carry 9,000 horses to Italy might not have been available for Hannibal. An overland invasion, in contrast, would have the added advantage of achieving surprise. Hannibal needed to time his movements carefully to keep the Romans in the dark, for if the Romans got hint of his intentions, they had enough recourses to fight a multi-front war: they could send one army to block the Carthaginian army at the Pyrenees, station a strong force in Cisalpine Gaul, and invade Africa with another simultaneously; or stand on the defensive with overwhelming forces in North Italy. After the