ops which formed her last reliance were
defeated. To this important contest, the day following, two generals, by
far the most renowned of any, and belonging to two of the most powerful
nations in the world, advanced either to crown or overthrow on that day
the many honors they had previously acquired.

Scipio drew up his troops, posting the hastati in front, the principes
behind them, and closing his rear line with the triarii. He did not draw
up his cohorts in close order, but each before their respective
standards; placing the companies at some distance from each other, so as
to leave a space through which the elephants of the enemy passing might
not at all break their ranks. Laelius, whom he had employed before as
lieutenant-general, but this year as quaestor, by special appointment,
according to a decree of the senate, he posted with the Italian cavalry
in the left wing, Masinissa and the Numidians in the right. The open
spaces between the companies of those in the van he filled with velites,
which then formed the Roman light-armed troops, with an injunction that
on the charge of the elephants they should either retire behind the
files, which extended in a right line, or, running to the right and left
and placing themselves by the side of those in the van, afford a passage
by which the elephants might rush in between weapons on both sides.

Hannibal, in order to terrify the enemy, drew up his elephants in front,
and he had eighty of them, being more than he had ever had in any
battle; behind these his Ligurian and Gallic auxiliaries, with
Balearians and Moors intermixed. In the second line he placed the
Carthaginians, Africans, and a legion of Macedonians; then, leaving a
moderate interval, he formed a reserve of Italian troops, consisting
principally of Bruttians, more of whom had followed him on his departure
from Italy by compulsion and necessity than by choice. His cavalry also
he placed in the wings, the Carthaginian occupying the right, the
Numidian the left. Various were the means of exhortation employed in an
army consisting of a mixture of so many different kinds of men; men
differing in language, customs, laws, arms, dress, and appearance, and
in the motives for serving. To the auxiliaries, the prospect both of
their present pay and many times more from the spoils was held out. The
Gauls were stimulated by their peculiar and inherent animosity against
the Romans. To the Ligurians the hope was held out of e