oud noise of footsteps dominated by
the shrill sound of the trumpets, which were being blown furiously.
The space which the Barbarians had in front of them, which was full
of eddies and tumult, attracted like a whirlpool; some dashed into it.
Cohorts of infantry appeared; they closed up; and at the same time
all the rest saw the foot-soldiers hastening up with the horseman at a
gallop.

Hamilcar had, in fact, ordered the phalanx to break its sections, and
the elephants, light troops, and cavalry to pass through the intervals
so as to bring themselves speedily upon the wings, and so well had he
calculated the distance from the Barbarians, that at the moment when
they reached him, the entire Carthaginian army formed one long straight
line.

In the centre bristled the phalanx, formed of syntagmata or full squares
having sixteen men on each side. All the leaders of all the files
appeared amid long, sharp lanceheads, which jutted out unevenly around
them, for the first six ranks crossed their sarissae, holding them in
the middle, and the ten lower ranks rested them upon the shoulders of
their companions in succession before them. Their faces were all half
hidden beneath the visors of their helmets; their right legs were all
covered with bronze knemids; broad cylindrical shields reached down to
their knees; and the horrible quadrangular mass moved in a single body,
and seemed to live like an animal and work like a machine. Two cohorts
of elephants flanked it in regular array; quivering, they shook off the
splinters of the arrows that clung to their black skins. The Indians,
squatting on their withers among the tufts of white feathers, restrained
them with their spoon-headed harpoons, while the men in the towers, who
were hidden up to their shoulders, moved about iron distaffs furnished
with lighted tow on the edges of their large bended bows. Right and
left of the elephants hovered the slingers, each with a sling around his
loins, a second on his head, and a third in his right hand. Then came
the Clinabarians, each flanked by a Negro, and pointing their lances
between the ears of their horses, which, like themselves, were
completely covered with gold. Afterwards, at intervals, came the light
armed soldiers with shields of lynx skin, beyond which projected the
points of the javelins which they held in their left hands; while
the Tarentines, each having two coupled horses, relieved this wall of
soldiers at its two extremities