Polybius, Histories

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Hannibal's Preparations and Speech

Such was Scipio's address to his men. Meanwhile

Hannibal's order of battle.

Hannibal had put his men also into position. His elephants, which numbered more than eighty, he placed in the van of the whole army. Next his mercenaries, amounting to twelve thousand, and consisting of Ligurians, Celts, Baliarians, and Mauretani; behind them the native Libyans and Carthaginians; and on the rear of the whole the men whom he had brought from Italy, at a distance of somewhat more than a stade. His wings he strengthened with cavalry, stationing the Numidian allies on the left wing, and the Carthaginian horsemen on the right. He ordered each officer to address his own men, bidding them rest their hopes of victory on him and the army he had brought with him; while he bade their officers remind the Carthaginians in plain terms what would happen to their wives and children if the battle should be lost. While these orders were carried out by the officers, Hannibal himself went along the lines of his Italian army and urged them "to remember the seventeen years during which they had been brothers-inarms, and the number of battles they had fought with the Romans, in which they had never been beaten or given the Romans even a hope of victory.

Hannibal's speech to the "army of Italy."

Above all, putting aside minor engagements and their countless successes, let them place before their eyes the battle of the River Trebia against the father of the present Roman commander; and again the battle in Etruria against Flaminius; and lastly that at Cannae against Aemilius, with none of which was the present struggle to be compared, whether in regard to the number or excellence of the enemy's men. Let them only raise their eyes and look at the ranks of the enemy; they would see that they were not merely fewer, but many times fewer than those with whom they had fought before, while, as to their soldierly qualities, there was no comparison. The former Roman armies had come to the struggle with them untainted by memories of past defeats: while these men were the sons or the remnants of those who had been beaten in Italy, and fled before him again and again. They ought not therefore," he said, "to undo the glory and fame of their previous achievements, but to struggle with a firm and brave resolve to maintain their reputation of invincibility."

Such were the addresses of the two commanders.