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The Numidians who stood quiet in the wings during the action, when they saw their party turning their backs, accompanied them in their flight only for a short time; but when they perceived that they were all making for Agrigentum with the most violent haste, they turned off to the neighbouring towns round about, through fear of a siege.
Some time after this dispute, M. Rogéry, member of the Philanthropic Society of Cape Verd, secretly left the caravan, striking into the middle of the Desert, without knowing very well what he sought. He wished perhaps to explore the ancient country of the Numidians and Getulians, and to give himself a slave to the great Emperor of Morocco. What would it avail to acquire such celebrity?
Leaving his Numidians and Spaniards for the protection both of the camp and Capua, he went down thence with the rest of his troops to the lake Avernus on the pretence of performing sacrifice, but in reality to make an attempt upon Puteoli and the garrison in it.
The senate therefore, having largely reinforced the army, ordered the consuls to advance and give battle. They had under them eight full legions, or eighty thousand infantry and seven thousand two hundred cavalry. To oppose these Hannibal had forty thousand infantry and ten thousand excellent cavalry, of whom two thousand were Numidians.
For some time the Roman soldiers surveyed their dangerous task and looked expectantly at the height that they were asked to storm. The vague hope that the enemy would come down finally disappeared; the growing darkness filled them with resolute despair; and, closing their ranks, they rushed for the higher ground. In a moment the Numidians were scattered and the height was gained.
Forthwith, therefore, an army of the enemy, having been gathered into one place from Numidia and Byzacium, went with great zeal against Carthage. And the Numidians were commanded by Coutzinas and Iaudas, and the men of Byzacium by Antalas. And with him was also John, the tyrant, and his followers; for the mutineers, after the death of Stotzas, had set him up as ruler over themselves.
On the following morning Hannibal, knowing that Varro would be in command, and feeling sure that, with his impetuous disposition, the consul would be burning to avenge the insult offered by the surrounding of his camp by the Numidians, moved his army across the river, and formed it in order of battle, leaving eight thousand of his men to guard his camp.
He had been seen along the gulf with the Mercenaries, near the lagoon with the Numidians, and on the shores of the lake among the Negroes, and from the back part of the plain he urged forward masses of soldiers who came ceaselessly against the ramparts. By degrees he had drawn near; the smell of blood, the sight of carnage, and the tumult of clarions had at last made his heart leap.
The Romans filled up the blanks in their Italian contingents partly by increased levies from the burgesses and from the inhabitants already almost wholly Romanized of the Celtic districts on the south of the Alps, of whom 10,000 served in the Campanian army alone, partly by the contingents of the Numidians and other transmarine nations; and with the aid of the free cities in Greece and Asia Minor they collected a war fleet.
The Roman trumpets were sounding, while the wild yells which came up on the breeze told Malchus that Hannibal's cavalry were a party of the Numidians.
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