But the Etruscans, riveted to their chain, did not stir; those who were
dead, being prevented from falling, formed an obstruction with their
corpses; and the great bronze line widened and contracted in turn, as
supple as a serpent, and as impregnable as a wall. The Barbarians would
come to re-form behind it, pant for a minute, and then set off again
with the fragments of their weapons in their hands.
Many already had none left, and they leaped upon the Carthaginians,
biting their faces like dogs. The Gauls in their pride stripped
themselves of the sagum; they showed their great white bodies from a
distance, and they enlarged their wounds to terrify the enemy. The voice
of the crier announcing the orders could no longer be heard in the
midst of the Punic syntagmata; their signals were being repeated by the
standards, which were raised above the dust, and every one was swept
away in the swaying of the great mass that surrounded him.
Hamilcar commanded the Numidians to advance. But the Naffurs rushed to
meet them.
Clad in vast black robes, with a tuft of hair on the top of the skull,
and a shield of rhinoceros leather, they wielded a steel which had no
handle, and which they held by a rope; and their camels, which bristled
all over with feathers, uttered long, hoarse cluckings.
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