about three hundred strong. The Italian allies who were attached to the
legion seem to have been similarly armed and equipped, but their
numerical proportion of cavalry was much larger.

Such was the nature of the forces that advanced on the Roman side to the
battle of the Metaurus. Nero commanded the right wing, Livius the left,
and the praetor Porcius had the command of the centre. "Both Romans and
Carthaginians well understood how much depended upon the fortune of this
day, and how little hope of safety there was for the vanquished. Only
the Romans herein seemed to have had the better in conceit and opinion
that they were to fight with men desirous to have fled from them; and
according to this presumption came Livius the consul, with a proud
bravery, to give charge on the Spaniards and Africans, by whom he was so
sharply entertained that the victory seemed very doubtful. The Africans
and Spaniards were stout soldiers, and well acquainted with the manner
of the Roman fight. The Ligurians also were a hardy nation, and not
accustomed to give ground, which they needed the less, or were able now
to do, being placed in the midst. Livius, therefore, and Porcius found
great opposition; and with great slaughter on both sides prevailed
little or nothing. Besides other difficulties, they were exceedingly
troubled by the elephants, that brake their first ranks and put them in
such disorder as the Roman ensigns were driven to fall back; all this
while Claudius Nero, laboring in vain against a steep hill, was unable
to come to blows with the Gauls that stood opposite him, but out of
danger. This made Hasdrubal the more confident, who, seeing his own left
wing safe, did the more boldly and fiercely make impression on the other
side upon the left wing of the Romans."[65]

[Footnote 65: Sir Walter Raleigh: _Historie of the World_.]

But at last Nero, who found that Hasdrubal refused his left wing, and
who could not overcome the difficulties of the ground in the quarter
assigned to him, decided the battle by another stroke of that military
genius which had inspired his march. Wheeling a brigade of his best men
round the rear of the rest of the Roman army, Nero fiercely charged the
flank of the Spaniards and Africans. The charge was as successful as it
was sudden. Rolled back in disorder upon each other, and overwhelmed by
numbers, the Spaniards and Ligurians died, fighting gallantly to the
last. The Gauls, who had taken little or n