1 The “panic rout” was on the Roman left (the Roman right had already been annihilated), the “obstinate though hopeless struggle” at the centre.
2 B.C. 216
3 The Numidians (both the five hundred and the main body of them) after routing the Roman left had presumably swung round to attack the Roman centre, when Hasdrubal withdrew them from the battle to use them as pursuit troops, replacing them with the cavalry originally posted on the Punic left, which after defeating the Roman cavalry (chap. xlvii. §§ 1-3) had presumably ridden round the Roman centre and joined the Numidians. The episode of the five hundred (not mentioned by Polybius) is perhaps derived from the account of Coelius Antipater. Appian (VII. iv. 22) describes the ruse as being executed by five hundred Celtiberians (foot-soldiers in the Punic centre).
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.