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On the following day, before he marched out to resume the siege, he ordered the whole of his cavalry to take their station before the camp, on the side where the approach of Jugurtha was to be apprehended; assigning the gates, and adjoining posts, to the charge of the tribunes. He then marched toward the town, and commenced an assault upon the walls as on the day before. Jugurtha, meanwhile, issuing from his concealment, suddenly attacked our men in the camp, of whom those stationed in advance were for the moment alarmed and thrown into confusion; but the rest soon came to their support; nor would the Numidians have longer maintained their ground, had not their foot, which were mingled with the cavalry, done great execution in the struggle; for the horse, relying on the infantry, did not, as is common in actions of cavalry, charge and then retreat, but pressed impetuously forward, disordering and breaking the ranks, and thus, with the aid of the light-armed foot, almost succeeded in giving the army a defeat.1
1 LIX. And thus, with the aid of the light-armed foot, almost succeeded in giving the enemy a defeat] “Ita expeditis peditibus suis hostes pœne victos dare.” Gortius, Kritzius, and Allen, concur in regarding expedites peditibus as an ablative of the instrument, i.e. as equivalent to per expedites pedites, and victos dare as nothing more than vincere. This appears to be the right mode of explanation; but most of the translators, French as well as English, have taken expeditis peditibus as a dative, and given to the passage the sense that "the cavalry delivered up the enemy, when nearly conquered, to be dispatched by the light-armed foot."
Sallust. The Jugurthine War. Rev. John Selby Watson, M.A. New York and London. Harper & Brothers. 1899.
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