Complete Works of Frontinus

by Frontinus

  [7] When the consul Verginius, in the war with the Volscians, saw the enemy run forward at full stretch from a distance, he commanded his own men to keep steady and hold their javelins at rest. Then, when the enemy were out of breath, while his own army was still strong and fresh, he attacked and routed them.

  [8] Since Fabius Maximus was well aware that the Gauls and Samnites were strong in the initial attack, while the tireless spirits of his own men actually waxed hotter as the struggle continued, he commanded his soldiers to rest content with holding the foe at the first encounter and to wear them out by delay. When this succeeded, bringing up reinforcements to his men in the van, and attacking with his full strength, he crushed and routed the enemy.

  [9] At Chaeronea, Philip purposely prolonged the engagement, mindful that his own soldiers were seasoned by long experience, while the Athenians were ardent but untrained, and impetuous only in the charge. Then, as the Athenians began to grow weary, Philip attacked more furiously and cut them down.

  [10] When the Spartans learned from scouts that the Messenians had broken out into such fury that they had come down to battle attended by their wives and children, they postponed the engagement.

  [11] In the Civil War, when Gaius Caesar held the army of Afranius and Petreius besieged and suffering from thirst, and when their troops, infuriated because of this, had slain all their beasts of burden and come out for battle, Caesar held back his own soldiers, deeming the occasion ill-suited for an engagement, since his opponents were so inflamed with wrath and desperation.

  [12] Gnaeus Pompey, desiring to check the flight of Mithridates and force him to battle, chose night as the time for the encounter, arranging to block his march as he withdrew. Having made his preparations accordingly, he suddenly forced his enemy to fight. In addition to this, he so drew up his force that the moonlight falling in the faces of the Pontic soldiers blinded their eyes, while it gave his own troops a distinct and clear view of the enemy.

  [13] It is well known that Jugurtha, aware of the courage of the Romans, was always wont to engage in battle as the day was drawing to a close, so that, in case his men were routed, they might have the advantage of night for getting away.

  [14] At Tigranocerta in Greater Armenia, Lucullus, in the campaign against Mithridates and Tigranes, did not have above 15,000 armed men, while the enemy had an innumerable host, which for this very reason was unwieldy. Taking advantage, accordingly, of this handicap of the foe, Lucullus attacked their line before it was in order, and straightway routed it so completely that even the kings themselves discarded their trappings and fled.

  [15] In the campaign against the Pannonians, when the barbarians in warlike mood had formed for battle at the very break of day, Tiberius Nero held back hand his own troops, and allowed the enemy to be hampered by the fog and be drenched with the showers, which happened to be frequent that day. Then, when he noticed that they were weary with standing, and faint not only from exposure but also from exhaustion, he gave the signal, attacked and defeated them.

  [16] Gaius Caesar, when in Gaul, learned that it was a principle and almost a law with Ariovistus, king of the Germans, not to fight when the moon was waning. Caesar therefore chose that time above all others for engaging in battle, when the enemy were embarrassed by their superstition, and so conquered them.

  [17] The deified Vespasian Augustus attacked Jews on their sabbath, a day on which it is sinful for them to do any business, and so defeated them.

  [18] When Lysander, the Spartan, was fighting against the Athenians at Aegospotami, he began by attacking the vessels of the Athenians at a regular hour and then calling off his fleet. After this had become an established procedure, as the Athenians on one occasion, after his withdrawal, were dispersing to collect their troops, he deployed his fleet as usual and withdrew it. Then, when most of the enemy had scattered according to their wont, he attacked and slew the rest, and captured all their vessels.

  II. On Choosing the Place for Battle

  [1] Manius Curius, observing that the phalanx of King Pyrrhus could not be resisted when in extended order, took pains to fight in confined quarters, where the phalanx, being massed together, would embarrass itself.

  [2] In Cappadocia Gnaeus Pompey chose a lofty site for his camp. As a result the elevation so assisted the onset of his troops that he easily overcame Mithridates by the sheer weight of his assault.

  [3] When Gaius Caesar was about to contend with Pharnaces, son of Mithridates, he drew up his line of battle on a hill. This move made victory easy for him, since the darts, hurled from higher ground against the barbarians charging from below, straightway put them to flight.

  [4] When Lucullus was planning to fight Mithridates and Tigranes at Tigranocerta in Greater Armenia, he himself swiftly gained the level top of the nearest hill with a part of his troops, and then rushed down upon the enemy posted below, at the same time attacking their cavalry on the flank. When the cavalry broke and straightway threw the infantry into confusion, Lucullus followed after them and gained a most notable victory.

  [5] Ventidius, when fighting against the Parthians, would not lead out his soldiers until the Parthians were within five hundred paces. Thus by a rapid advance he came so near them that, meeting them at close quarters, he escaped their arrows, which they shoot from a distance. By this scheme, since he exhibited a certain show of confidence, he quickly subdued the barbarians.

  [6] At Numistro, when Hannibal was expecting a battle with Marcellus, he secured a position where his flank was protected by hollows and precipitous roads. By thus making the ground serve as a defence, he won a victory over a most renowned commander.

  [7] Again at Cannae, when Hannibal learned that the Volturnus River, at variance with the nature of other streams, sent out high winds in the morning, which carried swirling sand and dust, he so marshalled his line of battle that the entire fury of the elements fell on the rear of his own troops, but struck the Romans in the face and eyes. Since this difficulty was a serious obstacle to the enemy, he won that memorable victory.

  [8] After Marius had settled on a day for fighting the Cimbrians and Teutons, he fortified his soldiers with food and stationed them in front of his camp, in order that the army of the enemy might be exhausted by marching over the interval between the opposing armies. Then, when the enemy were thus used up, he confronted them with another embarrassment by so arranging his own line of battle that the barbarians were caught with the sun and wind and dust in their faces.

  [9] When Cleomenes, the Spartan, in his battle against Hippias, the Athenian, found that the latter’s main strength lay in his cavalry, he thereupon felled trees and cluttered the battlefield with them, thus making it impassable for cavalry.

  [10] The Iberians in Africa, upon encountering a great multitude of foes and fearing that they would be surrounded, drew near a river which at that point flowed along between deep banks. Thus, defended by the river in the rear and enabled by their superior prowess to make frequent onsets upon those nearest them, they routed the entire host of their adversaries.

  [11] Xanthippus, the Spartan, by merely changing the locality of operations, completely altered the fortunes of the Punic War; for when, summoned as a mercenary by the despairing Carthaginians, he had noticed that the Africans, who were superior in cavalry and elephants, kept to the hills, while the Romans, whose strength was in their infantry, held to the plains, he brought the Carthaginians down to level ground, where he broke the ranks of the Romans with the elephants. Then pursuing their scattered troops with Numidians, he routed their army, which till that day had been victorious on land and sea.

  [12] Epaminondas, leader of the Thebans, when about to marshal his troops in battle array against the Spartans, ordered his cavalry to engage in manoeuvres along the front. Then, when he had filled the eyes of the enemy with clouds of dust and had caused them to expect an encounter with cavalry, he led his infantry around to one side, where it was possible to attack the enemy’s rear from higher ground, and
thus, by a surprise attack, cut them to pieces.

  [13] Against a countless horde of Persians, three hundred Spartans seized and held the pass of Thermopylae which was capable of admitting only a like number of hand-to-hand opponents. In consequence, the Spartans became numerically equal to the barbarians, so far as opportunity for fighting was concerned, and being superior to them in valour, slew large numbers of them. Nor would they have been overcome, had not the enemy been led around to the rear by the traitor Ephialtes, the Trachinian, and thus been enabled to overwhelm them.

  [14] Themistocles, leader of the Athenians, saw that it was most advantageous for Greece to fight in the Straits of Salamis against the vast numbers of Xerxes’s vessels, but he was unable to persuade his fellow Athenians of this. He therefore employed a stratagem to make the barbarians force the Greeks to do what was advantageous for the latter; for under pretence of turning traitor, he sent a messenger to Xerxes to inform him that the Greeks were planning flight, and that the situation would be more difficult for the King if he should besiege each city separately. By this policy, in the first place he caused the host of the barbarians to be kept on the alert doing guard-duty all night; in the second place, he made it possible for his own followers, the next morning, with strength unimpaired, to encounter the barbarians all exhausted with watching, and (precisely as he had wished) in a confined place, where Xerxes could not utilise his superiority in numbers.

  III. On the Disposition of Troops for Battle

  [1] Gnaeus Scipio, when campaigning in Spain against Hanno, near the town of Indibile, noted that the Carthaginian line of battle was drawn up with the Spaniards posted on the right wing — sturdy soldiers, to be sure, but fighting for others — while on the left were the less powerful, but more resolute, Africans. He accordingly drew back his own left wing, and keeping his battle-line at an angle with the enemy, engaged the enemy with his right wing, which he had formed of his sturdiest soldiers. Then routing the Africans and putting them to flight, he easily forced the surrender of the Spaniards, who had stood apart after the manner of spectators.

  [2] When Philip, king of the Macedonians, was waging war against the Hyllians, he noticed that the front of the enemy consisted entirely of men picked from the whole army, while their flanks were weaker. Accordingly he placed the stoutest of his own men on the right wing, attacked the enemy’s left, and by throwing their whole line into confusion won a complete victory.

  [3] Pammenes, the Theban, having observed the battle-line of the Persians, where the most powerful 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 stationing 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.

  [4] Publius Cornelius Scipio, who subsequently received 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, Scipio, on the day 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 easily routed them.

  [5] 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.

  [6] Artaxerxes, having superior numbers in his campaign against the Greeks, who had invaded Persia, drew up his line of battle with a wider front than the enemy, placing infantry, cavalry, and light-armed troops on the wings. Then by purposely causing the centre to advance more slowly he enveloped the enemy troops and cut them to pieces.

  [7] On the other hand, at Cannae Hannibal, having drawn back his flanks and advanced his centre, drove back our troops at the first assault. Then, when the fighting began, and the flanks gradually worked towards each other moving forward according to instructions, Hannibal enveloped within his own lines the impetuously attacking enemy, forced them towards the centre from both sides, and cut them to pieces, using veteran troops of long training; for hardly anything but a trained army, responsive to every direction, can carry out this sort of tactics.

  [8] In the Second Punic War, when Hasdrubal was seeking to avoid the necessity of an engagement, and had drawn up his line on a rough hillside behind protective works, Livius Salinator and Claudius Nero diverted their own forces to the flanks, leaving their centre vacant. Having in this way enveloped Hasdrubal, they attacked and defeated him.

  [9] After Hannibal had been defeated in frequent battles by Claudius Marcellus, he finally laid out his camp on this plan: Protected by mountains, marshes, or similar advantages of terrain, he so posted his troops as to be able to withdraw his army, practically without loss, within his fortifications, in case the Romans won, but so as to have free option of pursuit, in case they gave way.

  [10] Xanthippus, the Spartan, in the campaign conducted in Africa against Marcus Atilius Regulus, placed his light-armed troops in the front line, holding the flower of his army in reserve. Then he directed the auxiliary troops, after hurling their javelins, to give way before the enemy, withdraw within the ranks of their fellow-soldiers, hurry to the flanks, and from there again rush forward to attack. Thus when the enemy had been met by the stronger troops, they were enveloped also by these light-armed forces.

  [11] Sertorius employed the same tactics in Spain in the campaign against Pompey.

  [12] Cleandridas, the Spartan, when fighting against the Lucanians, drew up his troops in close array, so as to present the appearance of a much smaller army. Then, when the enemy had thus been put off their guard, at the moment the engagement began he opened up his ranks, enveloped the enemy on the flank, and put them to rout.

  [13] Gastron, the Spartan, having come to assist the Egyptians against the Persians, and realizing that the Greek soldiers were more powerful and more dreaded by the Persians, interchanged the arms of the two contingents, placing the Greeks in the front line. When these merely held their own in the encounter, he sent in the Egyptians as reinforcements. Although the Persians had proved equal to the Greeks (deeming them Egyptians), they gave way, so soon as they were set upon by a multitude, of whom (as supposedly consisting of Greeks) they had stood in terror.

  [14] When Gnaeus Pompey was fighting in Albania, and the enemy were superior in numbers and in cavalry, he directed his infantry to cover their helmets, in order to avoid being visible in consequence of the reflection, and to take their place in a defile by a hill. Then he commanded his cavalry to advance on the plain and to act as a screen to the infantry, but to withdraw at the first onset of the enemy, and, as soon as they had reached the infantry, to disperse to the flanks. When this manoeuvre had been executed, suddenly the force of infantry rose up, revealing its position, and pouring with unexpected attack upon the enemy who were heedlessly bent on pursuit, thus cut them to pieces.

  [15] When Mark Antony was engaged in battle with the Parthians and these were showering his army with innumerable arrows, he ordered his men to stop and form a testudo. The arrows passed over this without harm to the soldiers, and the enemy’s supply was soon exhausted.

  [16] When Hannibal was contending against Scipio in Africa, having an army of Carthaginians and auxiliaries, part of whom were not only of different nationalities, but actually consist
ed of Italians, he placed eighty elephants in the forefront, to throw the enemy into confusion. Behind these he stationed auxiliary Gauls, Ligurians, Balearians, and Moors, that these might be unable to run away, since the Carthaginians were standing behind them, and in order that, being placed in front, they might at least harass the enemy, if not do him damage. In the second line he placed his own countrymen and the Macedonians, to be fresh to meet the exhausted Romans; and in the rear the Italians, whose loyalty he distrusted and whose indifference he feared, inasmuch as he had dragged most of them from Italy against their will.

  Against this formation Scipio drew up the flower of his legions in three successive front lines, arranged according to hastati, principes, and triarii, not making the cohorts touch, but leaving a space between the detached companies through which the elephants driven by the enemy might easily be allowed to pass without throwing the ranks into confusion. These intervals he filled with light-armed skirmishers, that the line might show no gaps, giving them instructions to withdraw to the rear or the flanks at the first onset of the elephants. The cavalry he distributed on the flanks, placing Laelius in charge of the Roman horsemen on the right, and Masinissa in charge of the Numidians on the left. This shrewd scheme of arrangement was undoubtedly the cause of his victory.

  [17] In the battle against Lucius Sulla, Archelaus placed his scythe-bearing chariots in front, for the purpose of throwing the enemy into confusion; in the second line he posted the Macedonian phalanx, and in the third line auxiliaries armed after the Roman way, with a sprinkling of Italian runaway slaves, in whose doggedness he had the greatest confidence. In the last line he stationed the light-armed troops, while on the two flanks, for the purpose of enveloping the enemy, he placed the cavalry, of whom he had a great number.