Book 37
41
The king commanded the right in person, the left he placed in charge of his son Seleucus and his nephew Antipater. The centre was entrusted to three commanders, Minnio, Zeuxis and Philip; the latter was the master of the elephants. The morning haze, which as the day advanced lifted into clouds, obscured the atmosphere, and then a drizzling rain coming with the south wind wetted everything. This did not inconvenience the Romans much, but it was a serious disadvantage to the king's troops. As the Roman line was of only moderate length, the indistinctness of the light did not obstruct the view over the whole of it, and as it consisted almost entirely of heavy-armed troops, the fine rain had no effect on their weapons which were swords and javelins. The king's line, on the other hand, was of such an enormous length that it was impossible to see the wings from the centre, let alone the fact that the extremes of the line were out of sight of each other, and the wetting mist relaxed their bows and slings and the thongs of their missile spears. Antiochus trusted to his scythe chariots to throw the enemy ranks into utter confusion, but they only turned the danger against their own side. These chariots were armed in the following manner: On either side of the pole where the yoke-bar was fastened spikes were fixed which projected forward like horns, ten cubits long, so as to pierce anything that came in their way, and at each end of the yoke-bar two scythes projected, one on a level with the bar so as to cut off sideways anything it came against, the other turned towards the ground to catch those lying down or trying to get under it. Similarly two scythes pointing in opposite directions to each end of the axis of the wheels.
