the phalanx so as to pass clean through it. But the narrower ranks

glided below the longer ones and recovered their position, and the
phalanx turned upon the Barbarians as terrible in flank as it had just

been in front.
They struck at the staves of the sarissae, but the cavalry in the rear

embarrassed their attack; and the phalanx, supported by the elephants,
lengthened and contracted, presenting itself in the form of a square,

a cone, a rhombus, a trapezium, a pyramid. A twofold internalmovement
went on continually from its head to its rear; for those who were at

the lowest part of the files hastened up to the first ranks, while the
latter, from fatigue, or on account of the wounded, fell further back.

The Barbarians found themselves thronged upon the phalanx. It was
impossible for it to advance; there was, as it were, an ocean wherein

leaped red crests and scales of brass, while the bright shields rolled
like silver foam. Sometimes broad currents would descend from one

extremity to the other, and then go up again, while a heavy mass
remained motionless" target="_blank" title="a.静止的；固定的">motionless in the centre. The lances dipped and rose

alternately. Elsewhere there was so quick a play of naked swords that
only the points were visible, while turmae of cavalry formed wide

circles which closed again like whirlwinds behind them.
Above the voices of the captains, the ringing of clarions and the

grating of tyres, bullets of lead and almonds of clay whistled through
the air, dashing the sword from the hand or the brain out of the

skull. The wounded, sheltering themselves with one arm beneath their
shields, pointed their swords by resting the pommels on the ground,

while others, lying in pools of blood, would turn and bite the heels
of those above them. The multitude was so compact, the dust so thick,

and the tumult so great that it was impossible to distinguish
anything; the cowards who offered to surrender were not even heard.

Those whose hands were empty clasped one another close; breasts
cracked against cuirasses, and corpses hung with head thrown back

between a pair of contracted arms. There was a company of sixty
Umbrians who, firm on their hams, their pikes before their eyes,

immovable and grinding their teeth, forced two syntagmata to recoil
simultaneously. Some Epirote shepherds ran upon the left squadron of

the Clinabarians, and whirling their staves, seized the horses by the
man; the animals threw their riders and fled across the plain. The

Punic slingers scattered here and there stood gaping. The phalanx
began to waver, the captains ran to and fro in distraction, the

rearmost in the files were pressing upon the soldiers, and the
Barbarians had re-formed; they were recovering; the victory was

theirs.
But a cry, a terrible cry broke forth, a roar of pain and wrath: it

came from the seventy-two elephants which were rushing on in double
line, Hamilcar having waited until the Mercenaries were massed

together in one spot to let them loose against them; the Indians had
goaded them so vigorously that blood was trickling down their broad

ears. Their trunks, which were smeared with mimium, were stretched
straight out in the air like red serpents; their breasts were

furnished with spears and their backs with cuirasses; their tusks were
lengthened with steel blades curved like sabres,--and to make them

more ferocious they had been intoxicated with a mixture of pepper,
wine, and incense. They shook their necklaces of bells, and shrieked;

and the elephantarchs bent their heads beneath the stream of
phalaricas which was beginning to fly from the tops of the towers.

In order to resist them the better the Barbarians rushed forward in a
compact crowd; the elephants flung themselves impetuously upon the

centre of it. The spurs on their breasts, like ships' prows, clove
through the cohorts, which flowed surging back. They stifled the men

with their trunks, or else snatching them up from the ground delivered
them over their heads to the soldiers in the towers; with their tusks

they disembowelled them, and hurled them into the air, and long
entrails hung from their ivory fangs like bundles of rope from a mast.

The Barbarians strove to blind them, to hamstring them; others would
slip beneath their bodies, bury a sword in them up to the hilt, and

perish crushed to death; the most intrepid clung to their straps; they
would go on sawing the leather amid flames, bullets, and arrows, and

the wicker tower would fall like a tower of stone. Fourteen of the
animals on the extreme right, irritated by their wounds, turned upon

the second rank; the Indians seized mallet and chisel, applied the
latter to a joint in the head, and with all their might struck a great

blow.
Down fell the huge beasts, falling one above another. It was like a

mountain; and upon the heap of dead bodies and armour a monstrous
elephant, called "The Fury of Baal," which had been caught by the leg

in some chains, stood howling until the evening with an arrow in its
eye.

The others, however, like conquerors, delighting in extermination,
overthrew, crushed, stamped, and raged against the corpses and the

debris. To repel the maniples in serried circles around them, they
turned about on their hind feet as they advanced, with a continual

rotatory motion. The Carthaginians felt their energy increase, and the
battle begin again.

The Barbarians were growing weak; some Greek hoplites threw away all
their arms, and terror seized upon the rest. Spendius was seen

stooping upon his dromedary, and spurring it on the shoulders with two
javelins. Then they all rushed away from the wings and ran towards

Utica.
The Clinabarians, whose horses were exhausted, did not try to overtake

them. The Ligurians, who were weakened by thirst, cried out for an
advance towards the river. But the Carthaginians, who were posted in

the centre of the syntagmata, and had suffered less, stamped their
feet with longing for the vengeance which was flying from them; and

they were already darting forward in pursuit of the Mercenaries when
Hamilcar appeared.

He held in his spotted and sweat-covered horse with silver reins. The
bands fastened to the horns on his helmet flapped in the wind behind

him, and he had placed his oval shield beneath his left thigh. With a
motion of his triple-pointed pike he checked the army.

The Tarentines leaped quickly upon their spare horses, and set off
right and left towards the river and towards the town.

The phalanx exterminated all the remaining Barbarians at leisure. When
the swords appeared they would stretch out their throats and close

their eyelids. Others defended themselves to the last, and were
knocked down from a distance with flints like mad dogs. Hamilcar had

desired the taking of prisoners, but the Carthaginians obeyed him
grudgingly, so much pleasure did they derive from plunging their

swords into the bodies of the Barbarians. As they were too hot they
set about their work with bare arms like mowers; and when they

desisted to take breath they would follow with their eyes a horseman
galloping across the country after a fleeing soldier. He would succeed

in seizing him by the hair, hold him thus for a while, and then fell
him with a blow of his axe.

Night fell. Carthaginians and Barbarians had disappeared. The
elephants which had taken to flight roamed in the horizon with their

fired towers. These burned here and there in the darkness like beacons
nearly half lost in the mist; and no movement could be discerned in

the plain save the undulation of the river, which was heaped with
corpses, and was drifting them away to the sea.

Two hours afterwards Matho arrived. He caught sight in the starlight
of long, uneven heaps lying upon the ground.

They were files of Barbarians. He stooped down; all were dead. He
called into the distance, but no voice replied.

That very morning he had left Hippo-Zarytus with his soldiers to march
upon Carthage. At Utica the army under Spendius had just set out, and