Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/149

 STRATAGEMS, II. ii. 7-11

was a serious obstacle to the enemy, lie won that memorable victory.^

After Mariiis had settled on a day for fighting the Cimbrians and Teutons, he fortified his soldiers with food and stationed them in front of his camp, in order that the army of the enemy might be ex- hausted by marching over the interval between the opposing armies. Then, when the enemy were thus used up, he confronted them with another embarrass- ment by so arranging his own line of battle that the barbarians were caught with the sun and wind and dust in their faces. -

VVhen Cleomcnes, the Spartan, in his battle against Hippias, the Athenian, found that the latter's main strength lay in his cavahy, he thereujwn felled trees and cluttered the battlefield with them, thus making it impassable for cavalry.^

The Iberians in Africa, upon encountering a great multitude of foes and fearing that they would be surrounded, drew near a I'iver which at that point flowed along between deep banks. Thus, de- fended by the river in the rear and enabled by their superior prowess to make frequent onsets upon those nearest them, they routed the entire host of their adversaries.

Xanthippus, the Spartan, by merely changing the locality of operations, completely altered the fortunes of the Punic War ; for when, summoned as a mer- cenary by the despairing Carthaginians, he had noticed that the' Africans, who were superior in cavalry and elephants, kept to the hills, while the Romans, whose strength was in their infantry, held to the plains, he brought the Carthaginians down to level ground, where he broke the ranks of the

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