confusion. At the first shout and tumult, Mago quitted the camp and
rode up at full speed. As there were in the Celtiberian army four
thousand targeteers and two hundred horsemen, this regular legion, as
it formed the flower of his troops, he stationed in the first line;
the rest, composed of light-armed, he posted in reserve. While he was
leading them out of the camp thus marshalled, the Romans discharged
their javelins at them before they had scarcely cleared the rampart.
The Spaniards stooped down to avoid the javelins thrown at them by
the enemy, and then rose up to discharge their own in turn; which the
Romans having received according to their custom in close array, with
their shields firmly united, they then engaged foot to foot, and began
to fight with their swords. But the ruggedness of the ground, while
it rendered ineffectual the agility of the Celtiberians who were
accustomed to a skirmishing kind of battle, was at the same time not
unfavourable to the Romans, who were accustomed to a steady kind of
fight, except that the narrow passes and the bushes, which grew here
and there, broke their ranks, and they were compelled to engage one
against one and two against two, as if matched together. The same
circumstance which obstructed the enemy's flight, delivered them
up, as it were, bound for slaughter. And now when almost all the
targeteers had been slain, the light-armed and the Carthaginians,
who had come up to their assistance from the other camp, having
been thrown into confusion, were put to the sword. Not more than two
thousand of the infantry, and all the cavalry, fled from the field
with Mago before the battle was well begun. The other general, Hanno,
was taken alive, together with those who came up when the battle was
now decided. Almost the whole of the cavalry and the veteran infantry,
following Mago in his flight, came to Hasdrubal on the tenth day in
the province of Gades. The newly-raised Celtiberian troops, stealing
off to the neighbouring woods, fled thence to their homes. By this