30.33
Then
he drew up his men, the hastati in front, behind them the principes, the triarii
closing the rear. He did not form the cohorts in line before their respective
standards, but placed a considerable interval between the maniples in order
that there might be space for the enemy elephants to be driven through
without breaking the ranks. Laelius, who had been one of his staff-officers
and was now by special appointment of the senate acting as quaestor, was in
command of the Italian cavalry on the left wing, Masinissa and his
Numidians being posted on the right. The velites, the light infantry of those
days, were stationed at the head of the lanes between the columns of
maniples with instructions to retire when the elephants charged and shelter
themselves behind the lines of maniples, or else run to the right and left
behind the standards and so allow the monsters to rush on to meet the darts
from both sides. To make his line look more menacing Hannibal posted his
elephants in front. He had eighty altogether, a larger number, than he had
ever brought into action before. Behind them were the auxiliaries, Ligurians
and Gauls, with an admixture of Balearics and Moors. The second line was
made up of Carthaginians and Africans together with a legion of
Macedonians. A short distance behind these were posted his Italian troops in
reserve. These were mainly Bruttians who had followed him from Italy more
from the compulsion of necessity than of their own free will. Like Scipio,
Hannibal covered his flanks with his cavalry, the Carthaginians on the right,
the Numidians on the left.
Different words of encouragement were required in an army
composed of such diverse elements, where the soldiers had nothing in
common, neither language nor custom nor laws nor arms nor dress, nor even
the motive which brought them into the ranks. To the auxiliaries he held out
the attraction of the pay which they would receive, and the far greater
inducement of the booty they would secure. In the case of the Gauls he
appealed to their instinctive and peculiar hatred of the Romans. The
Ligurians, drawn from wild mountain fastnesses, were told to look upon the
fruitful plains of Italy as the rewards of victory. The Moors and Numidians
were threatened by the prospect of being under the unbridled tyranny of
Masinissa. Each nationality was swayed by its hopes or fears. The
Carthaginians had placed before their eyes, their city walls, their homes, their
fathers' sepulchres, their wives and children, the alternative of either slavery
and destruction or the empire of the world. There was no middle course,
they had either everything to hope for or everything to fear. Whilst the
commander-in-chief was thus addressing the Carthaginians, and the officers
of the various nationalities were conveying his words to their own people
and to the aliens mingled with them mostly through interpreters, the
trumpets and horns of the Romans were sounded and such a clangor arose
that the elephants, mostly those in front of the left wing, turned upon the
Moors and Numidians behind them. Masinissa had no difficulty in turning
this disorder into flight and so clearing the Carthaginian left of its cavalry. A
few of the animals, however, showed no fear and were urged forward upon
the ranks of velites, amongst whom, in spite of the many wounds they
received, they did considerable execution. The velites, to avoid being
trampled to death, sprang back to the maniples and thus allowed a path for
the elephants, from both sides of which they rained their darts on the beasts.
The leading maniples also kept up a fusillade of missiles until these animals
too were driven out of the Roman lines on to their own side and put the
Carthaginian cavalry, who were covering the right flank, to flight. When
Laelius saw the enemy's horse in confusion he at once took advantage of it.