Timoleon

But these withstood his first onset sturdily, and owing to the iron breastplates and bronze helmets with which their persons were protected, and the great shields which they held in front of them, repelled the spear thrusts.

But when the struggle came to swords and the work required skill no less than strength, suddenly, from the hills, fearful peals of thunder crashed down, and vivid flashes of lightning darted forth with them.

Then the darkness hovering over the hills and mountain summits came down to the field of battle, mingled with rain, wind, and hail. It enveloped the Greeks from behind and smote their backs, but it smote the Barbarians in the face and dazzled their eyes, a tempest of rain and continuous flames dashing from the clouds.

In all this there was much that gave distress, and most of all to the inexperienced; and particularly, as it would seem, the peals of thunder worked harm, and the clatter of the armour smitten by the dashing rain and hail, which made it impossible to hear the commands of the leaders.

Besides, since the Carthaginians were not lightly equipped, but, as I have said, encased in armour, both the mud and the bosoms of their tunics filled with water impeded them,

so that they were unwieldy and ineffective in their fighting, and easily upset by the Greeks, and when they had once fallen it was impossible for them to rise again from the mud with their weapons.

For the Crimesus, having been already greatly swollen by the rains, was forced over its banks by those who were crossing it, and the adjacent plain, into which many glens and ravines opened from the hills, was filled with streams that hurried along no fixed channels, and in these the Carthaginians wallowed about and were hard beset.

Finally, the storm still assailing them, and the Greeks having overthrown their first rank of four hundred men, the main body was put to flight.

Many were overtaken in the plain and cut to pieces, and many the river dashed upon and carried away to destruction as they encountered those who were still trying to cross, but most of them the light-armed Greeks ran upon and despatched as they were making for the hills.

At any rate, it is said that among ten thousand dead bodies, three thousand were those of Carthaginians—a great affliction for the city.

For no others were superior to these in birth or wealth or reputation, nor is it recorded that so many native Carthaginians ever perished in a single battle before, but they used Libyans for the most part and Iberians and Numidians for their battles, and thus sustained their defeats at the cost of other nations.