Kitap 16
12.20
When our leading officers espied them, now near at hand, taking their places in close wedge-formation, they halted and stood fast, making a solid line, like an impregnable wall, of the vanguard, the standard bearers, and the staff-officers;The meaning is uncertain. The antepilani were the soldiers of the first two lines, the hastati, or spearmen, were also part of the first line, so that there seems to be a repetition. Büchele thought that the hastati were the standard-bearers (signiferi and draconarii), citing Petulantium hastatus, xx. 4, 18, where hastatus clearly has that sense, and that the ordinum primi were officers ranking between the centurions and the tribunes, citing Frontinus, Strat., xx. 4, which seems probable. and with like wariness the enemy held their ground in wedge-formation.
12.21
And when (just as the above mentioned deserter had told us) they saw all our cavalry opposite them on the right flank, they put all their strongest cavalry forces on their left flank in close order. And among them here and there they intermingled skirmishers and light-armed infantry, as safe policy certainly demanded.
