ame to the position of the enemy, and pitched their camp
at a distance of three miles from theirs. At first an unsuccessful
attempt was made, through ambassadors, to induce them to lay down
their arms; then the Spanish cavalry making a sudden attack on the
Roman foragers, a body of cavalry was sent to support them from the
Roman outposts, when a battle between the cavalry took place with no
memorable issue to either side. The next day, at sun-rise, the whole
force displayed their line, armed and drawn out for battle, at the
distance of about a mile from the Roman camp. The Ausetanians were in
the centre, the right wing was occupied by the Ilergetians, the left
by some inconsiderable states of Spain. Between the wings and the
centre they had left intervals of considerable extent, through which
they might send out their cavalry when occasion required. The Romans
also, drawing up their army in their usual manner, imitated the enemy
in respect only of leaving themselves also intervals between the
legions to afford passages for their cavalry. Lentulus, however,
concluding that the cavalry could be employed with advantage by those
only who should be the first to send them against the enemy's line,
thus broken by intervals, ordered Servius Cornelius, a military
tribune, to direct the cavalry to ride at full speed into the spaces
left in the enemy's line. Lentulus himself, as the battle between the
infantry was somewhat unfavourable in its commencement, waited only
until he had brought up from the reserve into the front line the
thirteenth legion to support the twelfth legion, which had been
posted in the left wing, against the Ilergetians, and which was giving
ground. And when the battle was thus placed on an equal footing in
that quarter, he came to Lucius Manlius, who was exhorting the troops
in the foremost line, and bringing up the reserves in such places as
circumstances required, and told him that all was safe in the left
wing, and that Cornelius Servius, who had been sent by him for that
purpose, would soon pour round the enemy a storm of cavalry. He had
scarcely uttered these words, when the Roman horse, riding into
the midst of the enemy, at once threw their line of infantry into
disorder, and closed up the passage by which the Spanish cavalry
were to advance. The Spaniards, therefore, giving up all thoughts of
fighting on horseback, dismounted and fought on foot. When the Roman
generals saw that the ranks of the enemy