Page:Frontinus - The stratagems, and, the aqueducts of Rome (Bennet et al 1925).djvu/193

 STRATAGEMS, II. v. 23-25

only the river flowing between, he placed Mago and picked men in ambush. Then he commanded Numidian cavalry to advance uj) to Sempronius's fortifications, in order to lure forth the simple-minded Roman. At the same time, he ordered these troops to retire by familiar fords at our first onset. By heedlessly attacking and pursuing the Xumidians, the consul gave his troops a chill, as a result of fording the stream in the bitter cold and without breakfast. Then, when our men were suffering from numbness and hunger, Hannibal led against them his own troops, whom he had got in condition for that purpose by warm fires, food, and rubbing down with oil. Mago also did his part, and cut to pieces the rear of his enemy at the point where he had been posted for the purpose. ^

At Trasimenus, where a narrow way,^ running between the lake and the base of the hills, led out to the open plain, the same Hannibal, feigning flight, made his way through the narrow road to the open districts and pitched his camp there. Then, posting soldiers by niglit at vaiious points over the rising ground of the hill and at the ends of the defile, at daybreak, under cover of a fog, he marshalled his line of battle. Flaminius, pursuing the enemy, Avho seemed to be retreating, entered the defile and did not see the ambush until he was surrounded in front, flank, and rear, and was annihilated with his army.^

The same Hannibal, when contending against the dictator Junius,* ordered six hundred cavalrymen to break up into a number of squadrons, and at dead of night to appear in successive detachments with- out intermission around the camp of the enemy. Thus all night long the Romans were harassed and

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