Syphax looked upon the struggle as too serious a one to be entrusted to his lieutenants. He placed one division of his army under his son Vermina with instructions to march round the back of the mountain and attack the enemy in the rear while he himself occupied his attention in front. [2] Vermina started in the night as he was to fall on the enemy unawares; Syphax broke camp and marched out in broad daylight with the obvious intention of giving regular battle. [3] When sufficient time had elapsed for Vermina to reach his objective, Syphax led his men over a part of the mountain which afforded a gentle slope and made straight for the enemy, trusting to his superiority in numbers and the success of the attack in the rear. [4] Masinissa prepared to meet the attack with confidence owing to his vastly superior position. The battle was fiercely and for a long time evenly contested; Masinissa had the advantage of the ground and finer soldiers, Syphax, that of great superiority in numbers. [5] His masses of men, which had been formed into two divisions, one pressing the enemy in front, the other surrounding his rear, gave Syphax a decisive victory. Flight was impossible as they were hemmed in on both sides, and almost the whole force of infantry and cavalry were killed or made prisoners. [6] Some two hundred horsemen had gathered as a bodyguard round Masinissa, and he divided them into three troops with orders to cut their way through at different points and after they had got clear away to rejoin him at a spot he named. [7] He himself charged through the enemy and escaped in the direction he intended, but two of the troops found escape impossible, one surrendered, the other after an obstinate resistance was buried beneath the enemy's missiles. [8] Masinissa found Vermina almost at his heels, but by continually doubling first to one side and then to the other he eluded his pursuit until at last he forced him to abandon the exhausting and hopeless chase. Accompanied by sixty troopers he reached the Lesser Syrtis. [9] Here, in the proud consciousness of his many heroic efforts to recover his father's throne, he passed his time between the Carthaginian Emporia and the tribe of the Garamantes until the appearance of Scipio and the Roman fleet in Africa. [10] This leads me to believe that when Masinissa came to Scipio it was with a small rather than with a large body of troops; the former would be much more suitable to the fortunes of an exile, the latter to those of a reigning prince.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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