Marcus Valerius Laevinus

Marcus Valerius Laevinus kept Hannibal contained by opening a second war behind him. He was praetor in 215 BC, in the worst years of the Second Punic War, after Trasimene and Cannae had destroyed Roman armies and much of southern Italy had defected to Carthage. Philip V of Macedon then allied with Hannibal, and Rome faced the prospect of a Macedonian army crossing the Adriatic to join him. Laevinus was given the Adriatic command with a single legion and a fleet, which was all that could be spared. He could not invade Macedon and did not try. Instead he assembled a coalition of Philip's Greek enemies. In 211 BC he negotiated a treaty with the Aetolian League — the first formal Roman treaty with a Greek state — under which the Aetolians would fight on land and take the territory, and Rome would supply ships and take the movable plunder and the captives. Sparta, Elis, Messenia and Pergamum joined. The effect was exactly what was needed: Philip spent the following years fighting in Greece and never sent a soldier to Italy. Laevinus was consul in 210 BC and took Agrigentum in Sicily, completing the recovery of the island, and afterwards resettled the population and restored agriculture there. In 210 BC, with the treasury empty, he proposed that the senators contribute their own gold and silver to fund the fleet and did it first himself, which the equestrians and then the people followed. He served as an envoy to Attalus of Pergamum and died in 200 BC.

• Lived: 260 BCE – 200 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: general, statesman