We hear that Heraclea surrendered under compulsion to Hannibal in 212 BCE. We have no account of the part taken by Heraclea in the Social War; but from an incidental notice in Cicero, that all the public records of the city had been destroyed by fire at that period, it would seem to have suffered severely. Cicero nevertheless speaks of it, in his defence of the poet Aulus Licinius Archias (who had been adopted as a citizen of Heraclea), as still a flourishing and important town, and it appears to have been one of the few Greek cities in the south of Italy that still preserved their consideration under the Roman dominion. Its name is unaccountably omitted by the 2nd century AD geographer Ptolemy; but its existence at a much later period is attested by the Antonine Itinerary and the Tabula Peutingeriana. It was still a place of some importance under the empire; a branch road from Venusia joined the coast road at Heraclea. The time and circumstances of its final extinction are wholly unknown, but the site is now desolate, and the whole neighbouring district, once celebrated as one of the most fertile in Italy, was by the mid-19th century almost wholly uninhabited. The position of the ancient city may nevertheless be clearly identified; and though no ruins worthy of the name are still extant, large heaps of rubbish and foundations of ancient buildings mark the site of Heraclea near Policoro, about 5 km from the sea, and a short distance from the right bank of the Aciris. Numerous coins, bronzes, and other relics of antiquity have been discovered on the spot. A medieval town, Anglona, was founded on the site; however, once a bishopric, now itself is but a heap of ruins, among which are those of an 11th-century church. The bronze tablets commonly known as the Tables of Heraclea ("Tabulae Heracleenses"), were found a short distance from the site of Heraclea, between it and Metapontum. They are significant in the study of Roman Law. Heraclea is generally regarded as the native country of the celebrated painter Zeuxis, though there is much doubt to which of the numerous cities of the name that distinguished artist really owed his birth. But the flourishing state of the arts in the Lucanian Heraclea (in common with most of the neighbouring cities of Magna Graecia) is attested by the beauty and variety of its coins, some of which may deservedly be reckoned among the choicest specimens of Greek art; while their number sufficiently proves the opulence and commercial activity of the city to which they belong.