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the enemy drawn up to offer battle, issued forth to meet them with alacrity. Alarmed at the prospect of the elephants’ charge, they stationed the velites in the van and behind them the legions many maniples deep, dividing the cavalry between the two wings. In thus making their whole line shorter and deeper than before they had been correct enough in so far as concerned the coming encounter with the elephants, but as to that with the cavalry, which largely outnumbered theirs, they were very wide of the mark. When both sides had made that general and detailed disposition of their forces that best suited their plan, they remained drawn up in order, each awaiting a favourable opportunity to attack. 34. No sooner had Xanthippus ordered the elephant-drivers to advance and break the enemy’s line and the cavalry on each wing to execute a turning movement and charge, than the Roman army, clashing their shields and spears together, as is their custom and uttering their battle-cry, advanced against the foe. As for the Roman cavalry on both wings it was speedily put to flight owing to the superior numbers of the Carthaginians; while of the infantry, the left wing, partly to avoid the onset of the elephants, and partly owing to the contempt they felt for the mercenary force, fell upon the Carthaginian right wing, and having broken it, pressed on and pursued it as far as the camp. But the first ranks of those who were stationed opposite the elephants, pushed back when they encountered them and trodden under foot by the strength of the animals, fell in heaps in the mélée, while the formation of the