Page:History of Greece Vol XI.djvu/202

 176 HISTORY OF GREECE. Though the contest was bravely maintained ly the Carthaginians, yet they were too much loaded with armor to admit of anything but fighting in a dense mass. They were already losing their front rank warriors, the picked men of tli3 whole, and beginning to fig it at a disadvantage when the gods, yet farther befriending Timo- leon, set the seal to their discomfiture by an intervention manifest and terrific. 1 A storm of the most violent character began. The Lill-tops were shrouded in complete darkness ; the wind blew a hurricane ; rain and hail poured abundantly, with all the awful ac- companiments of thunder and lightning. To the Greeks, this storm was of little inconvenience, because it came in their backs. But to the Carthaginians, pelting as it did directly in their faces, it occasioned both great suffering, and soul-subduing alarm. The rain and hail beat, and the lightning flashed, in their faces, so that they could not see to deal with hostile combatants : the noise of the wind, and of hail rattling against their armor, prevented the or- ders of their officers from being heard : the folds of their volum- inous military tunics were surcharged with rain-water, so as to embarrass their movements : the ground presently became so muddy that they could not keep their footing ; and when they once slipped, the weight of their equipment forbade all recovery, The Greeks, comparatively free from inconvenience, and en- couraged by the evident disablement of their enemies, pressed them with redoubled energy. At length, when the four hundred front rank men of the Carthaginians had perished by a brav* death in their places, the rest of the White-shields tui-ned their backs and sought relief in flight. But flight, too, was all but im- possible. They encountered their own troops in the rear advanc- ing up, and trying to cross the Krimesus ; which river itself was becoming every minute fuller and more turbid, through the vio- lent rain. The attempt to recross was one of such unspeakable confusion, that numbers perished in the torrent. Dispersing in total rout, the whole Carthaginian army thought only of escape, leaving their camp and baggage a prey to the victors, who pur- sued them across the river and over the hills on the other side, inflicting prodigious slaughter. In this pursuit the cavalry of 1 Diodor. xvi. 79. JlFpie-yevovTO yup uvehmaruf TUV Tro?(.e/j.it,/i>, ov M nal fitu ~r/v TUV i?ewv avvepyiav,