The Battle of the Metaurus was a pivotal battle in the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, fought in 207 BC near the Metauro River in Italy. The Carthaginians were led by Hasdrubal Barca, brother of Hannibal, to have brought siege equipment and reinforcements for Hannibal; the Roman armies were led by the consuls Marcus Livius, nicknamed the Salinator, Gaius Claudius Nero. Claudius Nero had just fought Hannibal in Grumentum, some hundreds of kilometres south of the Metaurus river, reached Marcus Livius by a forced march that went unnoticed by both Hannibal and Hasdrubal, so that the Carthaginians found themselves outnumbered. In the battle, the Romans used their numerical superiority to outflank the Carthaginian army and rout them, the Carthaginians losing 15,400 men killed or captured, including Hasdrubal; the battle confirmed Roman supremacy over Italy. Without Hasdrubal's army to support him, Hannibal was compelled to evacuate pro-Carthaginian towns in much of southern Italy in the face of Roman pressure and withdraw to Bruttium, where he would remain for the next four years.

Hasdrubal's campaign to come to his brother's aid in Italy had gone remarkably well up to that point. After adeptly escaping Publius Scipio in Baecula, recruiting mercenary contingents in Celtiberia and making his way into Gaul in the winter of 208, Hasdrubal waited until the spring of 207 to make his way through the Alps and into Northern Italy. Hasdrubal made much faster progress than his brother had during his crossing due to the constructions left behind by Hannibal's army a decade earlier, but due to the removal of the Gallic threat that had plagued Hannibal during that expedition; the Gauls now feared and respected the Carthaginians, not only was Hasdrubal allowed to pass through the Alps unmolested, his ranks were swelled by many enthusiastic Gauls. Hasdrubal, in the same fashion as his brother, succeeded in bringing his war elephants and trained in Hispania, over the Alps. Rome was still reeling from the series of devastating defeats by Hannibal ten years earlier, the Romans were terrified at the prospect of fighting two sons of "the Thunderbolt" at once.

The hastily elected consuls Claudius Nero and Marcus Livius were dispatched to face Hannibal and Hasdrubal respectively. Neither consul engaged his intended target initially. Claudius Nero's force of over 40,000 men was too formidable for Hannibal to engage and so the two played an unproductive game of cat and mouse in Bruttium, it was not until Hasdrubal sent messengers to Hannibal that decisive measures were taken. Hasdrubal wished to meet with his brother in southern Umbria. Hasdrubal's messengers were captured, his plans fell into the hands of the consul Claudius Nero. Nero marched to the North with 7,000 men, 1,000 of whom were cavalry, in order to join up with Marcus Livius. Nero, recognizing the urgency of the situation and the enormous threat that a merging of the Carthaginian brothers' armies would present to Rome, circumvented the authority of the Senate, instead advising them to organize levies for their own protection. Horsemen were sent forward along the line of march with orders for country people to prepare supplies for soldiers, who took only weapons from the camp.

Nero's troops were joined by both veteran volunteers during the march. Claudius Nero reached Marcus Livius, camped at Sena along with the praetor Porcius Licinius. Hasdrubal was camped a half-mile to the north; because Claudius Nero had conveniently arrived at night, his presence was not detected until the next day, when the Romans drew themselves up for battle. Hasdrubal drew his army up as well, but upon closer observation of the forces assembled before him, noticed that Marcus Livius' army seemed to have grown over the course of the night, that he had a much larger contingent of cavalry. Hasdrubal remembered hearing a trumpet in the Roman camp heralding the arrival of an important figure the night before—a sound he had become familiar with during his entanglements with the Romans in Hispania—and concluded that he was now facing two Roman armies. Fearing defeat, he retreated from the field; the rest of the day passed without event. When nightfall came, Hasdrubal led his army out of his camp with the intent of retreating into Gaul, where he could safely establish communications with Hannibal.

Early on in the march, Hasdrubal's guides betrayed him, left him lost and confused along the banks of the Metaurus, searching futilely for a ford at which to cross. The night passed with no change in Hasdrubal's misfortunes, the morning found his army disarrayed, trapped against the banks of the Metaurus, a great many of his Gallic troops drunk. With the Roman cavalry fast approaching and the legions under the two consuls not far behind, Hasdrubal reluctantly prepared for battle; the battle was fought on the banks of the Metaurus River, near what is the modern town of Serrungarina. The exact numbers of troops on both sides are not known; the Romans estimated 8,000 Ligurians in Hasdrubal's army. The data given by the ancient sources are either insufficient or contradictory. Appian for instance says that the Carthaginian force numbered 48,000 infantry, 8,000 cavalry, 15 elephants. Livy claims that there were 61,400 slain or captured Carthaginian soldiers at the end of the battle and there were still more who escaped the slaughter.

These figures look inflated given

The 2016 Manitoba Scotties Tournament of Hearts, the provincial women's curling championship of Manitoba, was held from January 20 to 24 at the Sun Gro Centre in Beausejour. The winning Kerri Einarson team represented Manitoba at the 2016 Scotties Tournament of Hearts in Grande Prairie, Alberta; the teams are listed as follows: Draw 1Brown 5-4 Link McDonald 11-3 Ursel Montford 7-6 MacKay Birchard 6-3 ZachariasDraw 2Overton-Clapham 10-4 Rolles Menard 9-7 Spencer Reed 11-10 Einarson Robertson 12-3 HarveyDraw 3McDonald 8-4 MacKay Birchard 7-5 Link Brown 5-4 Zacharias Montford 8-5 UrselDraw 4Einarson 8-3 Menard Overton-Clapham 9-5 Harvey Robertson 10-4 Rolles Spencer 9-6 Reed Draw 5Montford 8-4 Link Brown 8-5 Ursel Birchard 8-3 MacKay McDonald 8-3 ZachariasDraw 6Spencer 9-8 Harvey Robertson 10-6 Reed Overton-Clapham 6-3 Menard Einarson 7-1 RollesDraw 7Birchard 9-1 Ursel McDonald 9-5 Link Montford 10-3 Zacharias MacKay 7-5 BrownDraw 8Overton-Clapham 9-3 Reed Einarson 8-1 Harvey Rolles 6-5 Spencer Menard 7-5 Robertson Draw 9Spencer 9-2 Robertson Menard 10-6 Rolles Reed 8-4 Harvey Einarson 8-5 Overton-ClaphamDraw 10Brown 12-7 Montford MacKay 7-4 Zacharias Link 10-2 Ursel McDonald 9-4 BirchardDraw 11Menard 7-6 Reed Overton-Clapham 6-4 Robertson Einarson 12-2 Spencer Harvey 8-5 RollesDraw 12MacKay 8-4 Ursel Birchard 8-3 Brown vs.

McDonald 6-4 Montford Zacharias 10-3 Link Draw 13Einarson 9-5 Robertson Reed 9-6 Rolles Menard 7-6 Harvey Overton-Clapham 5-4 SpencerDraw 14Brown 9-5 McDonald Ursel 9-3 Zacharias MacKay 7-2 Link Birchard 6-5 Montford Saturday, January 23, 6:00 pm Saturday, January 23, 6:00 pm Sunday, January 24, 9:00 am Sunday, January 24, 1:30 pm

Richard Joyce is a British-Australian-New Zealand philosopher, known for his contributions to the fields of meta-ethics and moral psychology. He is Professor of Philosophy at Victoria University of Wellington. Joyce was raised in New Zealand. After an initial education at the University of Auckland, he received his PhD from Princeton University in 1998. After Princeton, he was a lecturer at the University of Sheffield for a few years, held research fellowships at the Australian National University and the University of Sydney, he took up his professorship at Victoria University of Wellington in 2010. Moral error theoryTo hold an error theory about morality is to endorse a kind of radical moral skepticism--a skepticism analogous to atheism in the religious domain; the atheist thinks that religious utterances, such as "God loves you," are truth-evaluable assertions, but that the world just doesn't contain the items necessary to render such assertions true. The moral error theorist maintains that moral judgments are truth-evaluable assertions but that the world doesn't contain the properties needed to render moral judgments true.

In other words, moral discourse aims at the truth but systematically fails to secure it. This view was argued for by J. L. Mackie in his 1977 book, Mackie's position and arguments have been developed by Joyce in many publications, most notably his 2001 book The Myth of Morality. Moral fictionalismIf a moral error theory is true what are we supposed to do with our faulty moral discourse? The natural thought is that we should less do away with it. Another possibility is that we should carry on believing it while maintaining that it is false. Joyce, in contrast, defends a third way—the fictionalist view—which treats morality as a kind of convenient fiction. According to the moral fictionalist, we should carry on using moral discourse, though not believing it or asserting it, such that it has a status similar to make-believe. Joyce likens this view to our familiar use of metaphors, whereby we can convey something important and true via saying something false. Moral nativismWhere does the human capacity for moral thinking come from?

One view is that it is the by-product of other psychological faculties that evolved for other purposes—perhaps a recent cultural phenomenon that emerged when humans started living in large groups. Joyce has explored and tentatively advocated the alternative nativist view, according to which human moral thinking is a distinct biological adaptation. Joyce hypothesizes that moral thinking evolved in order to strengthen our ancestors' motivation to engage in adaptive cooperative behavior; this is the subject of his 2006 book The Evolution of Morality. Evolutionary debunking argumentIf human moral thinking evolved in order to strengthen cooperative bonds among our ancestors the question arises as to why we should suppose that it provides us with accurate information. Why should we trust our moral intuitions, no matter how strong they are, if we have a reasonable explanation of their origin, compatible with their being false? Joyce has developed and defended what has come to be known as an "evolutionary debunking argument," according to which the evolutionary origin of human moral thinking might give us cause to doubt our moral judgments.

The conclusion of Joyce's debunking argument is not the error-theoretic view that all moral judgments are false, but the epistemological view that all moral judgments are unjustified. Joyce is the author of several books: Essays in Moral Skepticism; the Evolution of Morality. The Myth of Morality, he is editor of several collections: The End of Morality. The Routledge Handbook of Evolution and Philosophy. Cooperation and its Evolution. A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie’s Moral Error Theory. Joyce has published numerous journal articles and book chapters. Curriculum vitae. Richard Joyce’s website. Review of Essays in Moral Skepticism by Jack Woods. Review of The Evolution of Morality by Peter Singer Article on moral fictionalism in The New York Times. Interview at This View of Life for The Evolution Institute