History of Rome

​He did not, however, draw up the cohorts in close array before their respective standards, but the maniples at some distance from one another, so that there might be space through which the enemy’s elephants, when driven forward, might pass without throwing the ranks into any confusion.

​Laelius, whose services he had used formerly as lieutenant, and in that year, by a decree of the senate, as quaestor without drawing lots, he posted with the Italian cavalry on the left wing, and Masinissa and the Numidians on the right.

​The open passages between the maniples of the vanguard he filled with the velites—this was the light-armed infantry at that time—giving orders that, upon the charge of the elephants, they should either retreat behind the straight ranks or, dispersing to the right and left and aligning themselves with the vanguard, leave a passage for the beasts, through which they might rush onto missiles coming from both sides.

​Hannibal, to strike terror, drew up his elephants in the front—there were eighty of them, a greater number than he had ever before had in any battle-line; ​then the auxiliaries of the Ligurians and Gauls, with Balearians and Moors intermingled; in the second line, the Carthaginians and Africans, and a legion of Macedonians;

​then, leaving a moderate interval, he drew up a reserve line of Italian soldiers—mostly Bruttians, more of whom had followed him as he departed from Italy by force and necessity than of their own free will.

​He himself also flanked the wings with cavalry; the Carthaginians held the right, the Numidians the left. The exhortation in an army of so many men was various, ​since they did not have the same language, custom, law, arms, dress and appearance, nor the same reason for fighting. To the auxiliaries ​both present pay and a manifold increase from plunder were held out; the Gauls were inflamed by their own innate hatred against the Romans; to the Ligurians, brought down from their rugged mountains, the fertile plains of Italy were displayed in the hope of victory;

​the Moors and Numidians he terrified with the future tyrannical rule of Masinissa;

​to others, other hopes and fears were tossed about. To the Carthaginians, the walls of their native city, their household gods, the tombs of their ancestors, their children with their parents, and their trembling wives, either destruction and slavery or the empire of the world—nothing intermediate between fear or hope—were displayed. Just when the commander was doing these things among the Carthaginians, ​and the leaders of their respective nations were discussing them among their countrymen, for the most part through interpreters among the intermingled foreigners, the trumpets and horns sounded from the Romans, and so great a shout arose ​that the elephants were turned upon their own men, especially on the left wing, the Moors and Numidians. Masinissa easily added terror to those who were already stricken, and stripped the battle-line on that side of its cavalry support.

​A few of the beasts, however, driven fearlessly against the enemy, caused great slaughter among the ranks of the velites, while themselves receiving many wounds.

​For the velites, retreating to the maniples, having made a way for the elephants lest they should be trampled, hurled their javelins from both sides against the beasts, which were exposed to blows from either direction; ​nor did the javelins from the vanguard cease, until, driven out of the Roman battle-line by the missiles falling upon them from all sides, these also turned upon their own right wing, the Carthaginian cavalry itself, and put them to flight. Laelius, when he saw the enemy thrown into confusion, added terror to those who were already stricken.