David Durham: Pride of Carthage

But fading into melancholy served no one on this day. He wrested his focus back and studied the enemy deployment, searching in it for anything that required a change in his own tactics. The Roman formation was plain enough: a wide front line of infantry, three maniples deep, with a further line of veteran triarii held in reserve. On his western wing was the Italian cavalry, led, he knew, by Laelius, the consul's trusted friend. An even stronger contingent of Numidians composed the eastern wing, directed by Masinissa. There was something strange about the quincunx, the checkerboard pattern of their infantry, but Hannibal registered this without addressing it.

Surveying the enemy helped straighten his spine. As the skirmishers began to exchange missile fire, there was a comforting familiarity with the scene before him. He had watched such mass movements before, and every time he had pulled strings and moved men at his will. Perhaps he could do so one more time. The two forces were of nearly equal number, about forty thousand troops each. Many of his men were raw, some only marginally loyal, but they all knew what was at stake. And it was not as if he had no strategy in his deployment. The lines were spaced with distance between them for a reason, each with a role he had secretly assigned. And the elephants, all of which he had placed along the front line—with a small breath of Fortune they would open the battle marvelously.

Motion caught the corner of his eye and drew his complete attention. Into the general skirmishing, the cavalry on the right flank, under Maharbal, streamed forward at a full gallop. Hannibal, surprised, yelled for them to halt. He snapped around and shouted for the confused signaler to raise his horn and stop them. But even as he spoke, he knew it would not work. He changed his order to one that would steady the rest of the army, just tell them that nothing had changed, not to break ranks or move. Looking back again he still could not understand. He thought the flamboyant general might have a plan in mind, but could not imagine what it was, why they had not discussed it.

From the Roman side, Masinissa's Numidians rode out to meet them. They flew toward each other as if they would collide at a full gallop and rip each other to shreds. But at the last moment—just before the crash of men and horses, teeth and hooves and spears—the two sides turned. They carried their speed into a coordinated movement that brought them together, riding side by side, not engaging at all but merging like two rivers mixing currents. Even from the distance at which he watched, Hannibal heard their trilling flying up from tilted chins. And then he understood completely. Maharbal and the bulk of his men had just deserted to Masinissa, their tribal king. Of course they had! They were Massylii.

Hannibal issued new orders. He pulled a portion of the left-flank Carthaginian cavalry out, had them traverse behind the army and position themselves in the vacated position. It was the correct response, but even as he oversaw it he breathed hard to recover from the shock. The fact that he had not seen this coming stunned him. He had fought so long with Maharbal at his side that he had not paused to consider whether the arrival in Africa would change his sympathies. It was a shocking oversight, one that he never would have made before. But he had no time to ponder it. The Romans had begun their forward march.

To answer them, Hannibal ordered the pachyderms to advance. As they shuffled forward, he gave the order for the front line to ready their spears. These soldiers were hard to direct from a distance, but he hoped to get them to launch at least one unified volley of missiles to further fracture whatever the elephants did not break of the Roman ranks. But just after he spoke, Hannibal received his second shock of the morning.

Halfway across the field a number of the elephants stopped dead in their tracks. A few others trembled and tossed their heads and changed direction. The sound reached him later than the sight, so it took him a moment to hear the blast of noise that had met the elephants. The Romans, all at once, had unleashed a barrage of sound. Nearly all the men of the front line carried war horns. These they blew on. Behind them the others shouted in unison, on signals given to various cohorts, so that the sound pulsed, first from one place and the another. All the men banged their swords or spears on their shields, on their breastplates, on their helmets. The elephants, especially the young ones, had never heard anything like it. They must have wondered what sort of beast they were approaching and why.

As soon as the first of the elephants neared pilum range, hundreds of missiles flew at them, piercing the creatures between the eyes or in the ears, catching them in their open mouths, dangling from their chests as they ran. For many of them, this was too much. They turned and retreated, adding their maddened trumpeting to the tumult. The thirty or so that did manage to enter the enemy ranks found the troops drawn into an alternating pattern of tightly wedged men or wide, open avenues. This was what had been strange about the quincunx. They had been positioned in such a way that the troops could step out of the elephants' path and slot into each other. Faced with the path of least resistance, the elephants, no matter what their mahouts tried to convince them, hurtled down through the open stretches as if racing to exit the far end. Few of them made it, however, for the Romans turned and pelted them in passing. Pila and stones, javelins and smaller missiles: all so great in number that the creatures stumbled and fell beneath them, roaring, crying, tears dripping from their long lashes, their hides stuck like pincushions. Some soldiers even began to approach them, stick a foot up, and yank out the missiles to see if they could be used again.

As all this took place on the Roman side, the Carthaginian side suffered conversely. Several of the elephants stampeded straight back and through the infantry, cutting a path through the men like four-legged boulders. To the left, four elephants in close formation drove a wedge through the cavalry, sending them into complete chaos, a situation which Masinissa soon exploited, appearing among them out of the elephants' dusty wake. He drove the confused horsemen from the field. Before long Maharbal and Laelius set the right wing to flight as well. They rushed up the slope at an angle off to the north, and for the next hour the horsemen were to play no part in the main conflict.

The Romans resumed their march toward Hannibal's first line. They did not have many missiles left, but Hannibal could not get his troops to take advantage of this. They did not launch the volley he had hoped for, but tried to pick out singular targets and met with little success. The Romans stepped up to them slowly and began the cut, block, and thrust, cut, block, and thrust that they were so efficient at, using their shields to knock their opponents off their guard or even off their feet. The mixed troops trying to fight them in a variety of styles had no chance against the relentless uniformity of the Roman advance. As the Gauls jostled for room to swing their long swords, the Romans jabbed at their naked torsos, slit their trouser legs open, and sent them to their knees. The slight Ligurians fought well at close quarters, quick with short swords, standing up and squatting, striking high and low, whirlwinds of movement, but rarely landing fatal blows. Many of the Africans fought with spears, but they struggled as individuals trying to fight their way into an impenetrable wall.

Hannibal was not surprised when they began to crumble. First one soldier and then several and then large groups from the first line retreated toward the second. They thought they would sink into their masses. As they approached they discovered the second line would not accept them, no matter how they tried to push through, cursing and indignant. Spears and swords and grim faces met them, held them in place until the Romans caught them up again and they had to turn and fight once more. This was just as he had ordered. Treacherous, yes, but the circumstances left little room for anything else.