Book 25
36
As, however, what with fighting and halting, they had for some time been making very little progress and night was close at hand, Scipio called his men off from battle, massed them in close order, and led them to some rising ground, not, indeed, a very safe position, especially for unnerved troops, but still somewhat more elevated than the ground round it. The baggage and the cavalry were placed in the centre and the infantry drawn up round them, and at first they had no difficulty in repelling the attacks of the Numidians. But when the three commanders appeared in full force with three regular armies it was obvious that they would be unable to defend the position by arms alone in the absence of entrenchments. The general began to look round him and consider whether it were in any way possible to surround himself with an earthwork. But the hill was so bare and the ground so rocky that there was no brushwood to cut for a stockade nor earth for constructing a rampart or carrying a fosse or for any other work. No part was naturally so steep or precipitous as to render the approach or ascent difficult for the enemy; the whole surface of the hill rose in a gentle slope. In order, however, to present to the enemy something which might look like a rampart they tied together their saddles and the packs which the animals carried and piled them up all round them as if they were building up a rampart to the usual height, and where there were not enough saddles they made it up by throwing all the kits and packages of every kind into the gaps, as a barricade.
