29.33
Syphax looked upon the struggle as too
serious a one to be entrusted to his lieutenants. He placed one division of his
army under his son Vermina with instructions to march round the back of the
mountain and attack the enemy in the rear while he himself occupied his
attention in front. Vermina started in the night as he was to fall on the enemy
unawares; Syphax broke camp and marched out in broad daylight with the
obvious intention of giving regular battle. When sufficient time had elapsed
for Vermina to reach his objective, Syphax led his men over a part of the
mountain which afforded a gentle slope and made straight for the enemy,
trusting to his superiority in numbers and the success of the attack in the
rear. Masinissa prepared to meet the attack with confidence owing to his
vastly superior position. The battle was fiercely and for a long time evenly
contested; Masinissa had the advantage of the ground and finer soldiers,
Syphax, that of great superiority in numbers. His masses of men, which had
been formed into two divisions, one pressing the enemy in front, the other
surrounding his rear, gave Syphax a decisive victory. Flight was impossible
as they were hemmed in on both sides, and almost the whole force of
infantry and cavalry were killed or made prisoners. Some two hundred
horsemen had gathered as a bodyguard round Masinissa, and he divided
them into three troops with orders to cut their way through at different
points and after they had got clear away to rejoin him at a spot he named. He
himself charged through the enemy and escaped in the direction he intended,
but two of the troops found escape impossible, one surrendered, the other
after an obstinate resistance was buried beneath the enemy's missiles.
Masinissa found Vermina almost at his heels, but by continually doubling
first to one side and then to the other he eluded his pursuit until at last he
forced him to abandon the exhausting and hopeless chase. Accompanied by
sixty troopers he reached the Lesser Syrtis. Here, in the proud consciousness
of his many heroic efforts to recover his father's throne, he passed his time
between the Carthaginian Emporia and the tribe of the Garamantes until the
appearance of Scipio and the Roman fleet in Africa. This leads me to believe
that when Masinissa came to Scipio it was with a small rather than with a
large body of troops; the former would be much more suitable to the
fortunes of an exile, the latter to those of a reigning prince.