Battle of the Field of Black Roses

Battle of the Field of Black Roses
Part of the Year of Turmoil
Date 22 March 1642 Location Field of Black Roses, Amalfi Result Decisive monarchist victory
Belligerents
Monarchists	Senatorial loyalists
Commanders and leaders
Ecirius Taranus Roscii † Antius Lavianus Tesivu	Finius Tintus Betax Marius Quixus Palatiae
Strength
11,000-12,000 18 cannon	8,000-9,000 men 21 cannon
Casualties and losses
850 dead or wounded	1,400 dead or wounded

The Battle of the Field of Black Roses (Amalfitan: Proelium Agris Rosarum Nigrarum) was fought on 22 March 1642 between monarchist and Senatorial troops. The monarchists, under Ecirius Taranus Roscii, were moving from Casartium where Roscii had been proclaimed king ten days earlier. The Senatorial forces commanded by Finius Tintus Betax and Marius Quixus Palatiae had just removed the leaders of the Senatorial coup from Trasimene and marched a short distance outside the capital to the Field of Black Roses, where they were routed after a lengthy battle. The arrival of a cavalry detachment under Antius Lavianus Tesivu, a key conspirator behind the coup, helped compound the monarchists' victory.

Unknown to the victorious monarchists was that their leader had been slain in the battle; they would only discover this fact two days later after camping outside the capital in preparation for his triumphant entrance into the city. Disheartened, most of the monarchists and their commanders fled, with those who remained being wiped out by an arriving army under general Corsixus Rentius Salrosa at the Battle of the Volurna.