Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/155

 STRATAGEMS, II. in. 3-5

Paiiimenes, the Theban, having observed the battle- line of the Persians, where the most ])0verful troops were posted on the right wing, drew up his own men also on the same plan, putting all his cavalry and the bravest of his infantry on the right wing, but station- ing opposite the bravest of the enemy his own weakest troops, whom he directed to flee at the first onset of the foe and to retreat to rough, wooded places. When in this way he had made the enemy's strength of no effect, he himself with the best part of his own forces enveloped the whole array of the enemy with his right wing and put them to rout.^

Publius Cornelius Scipio, who subsequently re- ceived the name Africanus, on one occasion, when waging war in Spain against Hasdrubal, leader of the Carthaginians, led out his troops day after day in such formation that the centre of his battle-line was composed of his best fighting men. But when the enemy also regularly came out marshalled on the same plan, Scij)io, on the dav when he had determined to fight, altered the scheme of his arrangement and stationed his strongest troops on the wings, having his light-armed troops in the centre, but slightly behind the line. Thus, by attacking the enemy's weakest point in crescent formation from the flank, where he himself was strongest, he easilv routed them.^

Metellus, in the battle in which he vanquished Hirtuleius in Spain, had discovered that the battalions of Hirtuleius which were deemed strongest were posted in the centre. Accordingly he drew back the centre of his own troops, to avoid encountering the enemy at that part of the line, until by an enveloping movement of his wings he could surround their centre from all sides.^

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