hope that the Roman right wing would be unable to
come to close quarters with these unserviceable barbarians before he
could make some impression with his Spanish veterans on the Roman left.
This was the only chance that he had of victory or safety, and he seems
to have done everything that good generalship could do to secure it. He
placed his elephants in advance of his centre and right wing. He had
caused the driver of each of them to be provided with a sharp iron spike
and a mallet, and had given orders that every beast that became
unmanageable, and ran back upon his own ranks, should be instantly
killed by driving the spike into the vertebra at the junction of the
head and the spine. Hasdrubal's elephants were ten in number. We have no
trustworthy information as to the amount of his infantry, but it is
quite clear that he was greatly outnumbered by the combined Roman
forces.

The tactics of the Roman legions had not yet acquired that perfection
which they received from the military genius of Marius,[64] and which we
read of in the first chapter of Gibbon. We possess, in that great work,
an account of the Roman legions at the end of the commonwealth, and
during the early ages of the empire, which those alone can adequately
admire who have attempted a similar description. We have also, in the
sixth and seventeenth books of Polybius, an elaborate discussion on the
military system of the Romans in his time, which was not far distant
from the time of the battle of the Metaurus. But the subject is beset
with difficulties; and instead of entering into minute but inconclusive
details, I would refer to Gibbon's first chapter as serving for a
general description of the Roman army in its period of perfection, and
remark that the training and armor which the whole legion received in
the time of Augustus were, two centuries earlier, only partially
introduced. Two divisions of troops, called _hastati_ and _principes_,
formed the bulk of each Roman legion in the Second Punic War. Each of
these divisions was twelve hundred strong. The hastatus and the princeps
legionary bore a breastplate or coat of mail, brazen greaves, and a
brazen helmet with a lofty upright crest of scarlet or black feathers.
He had a large oblong shield; and, as weapons of offence, two javelins,
one of which was light and slender, but the other was a strong and
massive weapon, with a shaft about four feet long and an iron head of
equal length. The sword was ca