The Battle of Cannae (/ˈkæni/ or /ˈkæneɪ/) was a major battle of the Second Punic War, which took place on August 2, 216 BC near the town of Cannae in Apulia in southeast Italy. The army of Carthage under Hannibal decisively defeated a numerically superior army of the Roman Republic under command of the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paullus and Gaius Terentius Varro. It is regarded as one of the greatest tactical feats in military history and, in numbers killed, the second greatest defeat of Rome (second to the Battle of Arausio).