[12]
Syphax and the Carthaginians were much the more numerous. They marched with wagons and a great load of luggage and luxuries. On the other hand, Masinissa was an example in all doing and enduring and had only cavalry, no pack animals and no provisions. Thus he was able the more easily to retreat, to attack, and to take refuge in strongholds. Often, when surrounded, he divided his forces so that they might scatter as best they could, concealing himself with a handful until they should all come together again, by day or by night, at an appointed rendezvous Once he was one of three who lay concealed in a cave around which his enemies were encamped. He never had any fixed camping-place. His generalship consisted especially in concealing his position. Thus his enemies never could make a regular assault upon him, but were always warding off his attacks. His provisions were obtained each day from whatever place he came upon toward evening, whether village or city. He seized and carried off everything and divided the plunder with his men, for which reason many Numidians flocked to him, although he did not give regular pay, for the sake of the booty, which was better.
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
This text was converted to electronic form by optical character recognition and has been proofread to a medium level of accuracy.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.