Timoleon
Plutarch
Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VI. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1918.
the Crimesus came into view, and the enemy were seen crossing it, in the van their four-horse chariots formidably arrayed for battle, and behind these ten thousand men-at-arms with white shields.
These the Corinthians conjectured to be Carthaginians, from the splendour of their armour and the slowness and good order of their march.
After these the other nations streamed on and were making the crossing in tumultuous confusion. Then Timoleon, noticing that the river was putting it in their power to cut off and engage with whatever numbers of the enemy they themselves desired, and bidding his soldiers observe that the phalanx of the enemy was sundered by the river, since some of them had already crossed, while others were about to do so, ordered Demaretus to take the horsemen and fall upon the Carthaginians and throw their ranks into confusion before their array was yet formed.
Then he himself, descending into the plain, assigned the wings to the other Sicilian Greeks, uniting a few of his mercenaries with each wing, while he took the Syracusans and the best fighters among his mercenaries under his own command in the centre. Then he waited a little while, watching what his horsemen would do,