Kitap 1
44
The method of fighting adopted by the enemy’s troops was to charge at first at full speed, boldly seize a position, take no particular trouble to preserve their ranks, but fight singly and in loose order; if they were hard pressed they did not consider it a disgrace to retire and quit their position, for, waging a continuous warfare against the Lusitanians and other barbarous tribes, they had become used to a barbarous kind of fighting, as it usually happens that when troops have spent a long time in any district they are greatly influenced by the methods of the country. It was this system that now threw our men into confusion, unaccustomed as they were to this kind of fighting; for as the enemy kept charging singly they thought that they were being surrounded on their exposed flank. As for themselves, they had judged it right to keep their ranks and not to desert their standards nor to give up without grave cause the position they had taken. And so when the vanguard was thrown into confusion the legion posted on that wing could not stand its ground and withdrew to the nearest hill.
