A strip of green cloth appeared at the top of the pole planted before
Spendius's tent: it was the signal. The Carthaginian army replied to
it with a great noise of trumpets, cymbals, flutes of asses' bones, and
tympanums. The Barbarians had already leaped outside the palisades, and
were facing their enemies within a javelin's throw of them.
A Balearic slinger took a step forward, put one of his clay bullets into
his thong, and swung round his arm. An ivory shield was shivered, and
the two armies mingled together.
The Greeks made the horses rear and fall back upon their masters by
pricking their nostrils with the points of their lances. The slaves
who were to hurl stones had picked such as were too big, and they
accordingly fell close to them. The Punic foot-soldiers exposed the
right side in cutting with their long swords. The Barbarians broke their
lines; they slaughtered them freely; they stumbled over the dying and
dead, quite blinded by the blood that spurted into their faces. The
confused heap of pikes, helmets, cuirasses and swords turned round
about, widening out and closing in with elastic contractions. The gaps
increased more and more in the Carthaginian cohorts, the engines could
not get out of the sand; and finally the Suffet's litter (his grand
litter with crystal pendants), which from the beginning might have
been seen tossing among the soldiers like a bark on the waves, suddenly
foundered.
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