ce. On the side of the
Romans, the left wing, and the cohorts which had lost their standards,
fought in the first line, and the twentieth legion was drawn up on
the right wing. Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and Caius Claudius Nero,
lieutenant-generals, commanded the wings, Marcellus gave vigour to the
centre by his presence, as an encourager and a witness. On the part
of Hannibal, the Spaniards, who were the flower of his whole army,
occupied the front line. After the battle had continued doubtful for
a long time, Hannibal ordered the elephants to be advanced into the
front line, if by that means any confusion or panic could be created.
At first, they threw the troops into confusion and broke their ranks,
and treading some under foot, and dispersing others who were round
them by the alarm they created, had made an opening in one part of the
Roman line; and the flight would have spread more widely had not Caius
Decimus Flavius, a military tribune seizing the standard of the first
maniple of the spearmen ordered that maniple to follow him. He led
them to the spot where the elephants, collected in a body, were
creating the greatest confusion, and ordered them to discharge their
javelins at them. As there was no difficulty in hitting such bulky
bodies at a short distance, and where so many were crowded together,
all their javelins stuck in them. But they were not all wounded, so
those in whose hides the javelins stuck, as that race of animals is
not to be depended on, by taking themselves to flight, drove away
those also which were untouched. At that moment not only one maniple,
but all the soldiers who could but overtake the body of retreating
elephants, threw their javelins at them, each man exerting himself to
his utmost. With so much greater impetuosity did the animals rush upon
their own men, and so much greater carnage did they make amongst
them than they had made amongst their enemies, in proportion as the
violence with which they are impelled, and the consternation produced
by them when under the influence of fear, is greater than when they
are ruled by their masters seated on their backs. The Roman infantry
bore their standards against the line of the enemy when thrown into
disorder by the elephants which had crossed over to them, and,
thus scattered and confused, led them to flight without any great
opposition. Marcellus sent his cavalry after them as they fled;
nor did they desist from the pursuit till they were drive