HKB
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Often appears with: battle and tactics · military discipline and training · conquest, plunder, and captives · siege and fortification · xenophon’s tactics · syphax and hasdrubal defeat · switch from mounted to infantry fighting · siege of utica · siege of sardis · roman cavalry wings · retreat to châlons · renewed war
Usually: narrative (6) · the test or trial (3) · curiosity (2) · commentary or gloss (1) · confronting death (1) · crisis of belief (1) · detachment (1)
“Men, these men whom you see in front of you are the sole obstacles still interposed between us and the haven of our hopes so long deferred. We will swallow them up whole, without cooking, if we can.” Xenophon, Anabasis · precept
Scipio resumes the siege of Utica but shifts strategy when the war renews, positions his forces near the king’s camp, and fights a major battle where Roman cavalry and Masinissa defeat the wings while Celtiberians die to the last.
arms. Such was the answer given to the ambassadors; and, after a few days, Hasdrubal and Syphax again united their forces. This army consisted of about thirty-five thousand fighting men. 8. Scipio, considering that Syphax and the Carthaginians could make no further efforts, gave his whole attention to the siege of Utica, and was now bringing up his engines to the walls, when he was diverted from his purpose by a rep…
More notes discuss Roman battle deployment around Jugurtha’s position—fronts becoming flanks, cavalry on wings, enemy ignorance, fatigue, and how struggle was carried out under the law of the text.
[165] Rendering it uncertain--*Incerti.* Presenting such an appearance that a spectator could not be certain what they were. [166] He drew up these in the right wing--in three lines--_In dextero latere triplicibus subsidiis aciem instruxit._ In the other passages in which Sallust has the word *subsidia* (Cat. c. 59), he uses it for *the lines behind the front.* Thus he says of Catiline, _Octo cohortes in fronte cons…
After taking quarters in nearby villages, the Hellenes endure panic at night; Clearchus uses herald Tolmides and a reward proclamation to restore discipline, then re-forms for battle.
anywhere in the neighbourhood. The king, as it would appear, was himself quite taken aback by the advent of the army; as he fully showed by his proceedings next day. During the progress of this night the Hellenes had their turn of scare--a panic seized them, and there was a noise and clatter, hardly to be explained except by the visitation of some sudden terror. But Clearchus had with him the Eleian Tolmides, the be…
Xenophon persuades the Greeks to fight the Colchians on the mountain in columns-by-companies rather than a straight line, leads the attack, and after the enemy flees they occupy villages where intoxication from poisonous honey incapacitates the troops.
(2) Or, "we will gobble them up raw." He is thinking of the Homeric line ("Iliad", iv. 35) "Perchance wert thou to enter within the gates and long walls and devour Priam raw, and Priam's sons and all the Trojans, then mightest thou assuage thine anger."--Leaf. The several divisions fell into position, the companies were formed into columns, and the result was a total of something like eighty companies of…
Attila lifts the siege approach near Orléans, retreats to the plains of Châlons, consults priests and haruspices, and arranges a battle formation that culminates in a fight on the Catalaunian Fields.
been planted in the diocese of Bayeux; the Burgundians were settled in Savoy; and the Breones were a warlike tribe of Rhaetians, to the east of the Lake of Constance.] On their approach the king of the Huns immediately raised the siege, and sounded a retreat to recall the foremost of his troops from the pillage of a city which they had already entered. 39 The valor of Attila was always guided by hi…
Cyrus plans a tactic against Croesus’s cavalry at the plain in front of Sardis by placing armed men on camels so horses flee, leading the Lydians to dismount, fight on foot, and retreat into a fortress under siege.
Lydians had been taken and that Croesus had been made prisoner. Then (and not before) they ceased from their efforts, being grieved at the event as at a great calamity. 84. Now the taking of Sardis came about as follows:—When the fourteenth day came after Croesus began to be besieged, Cyrus made proclamation to his army, sending horsemen round to the several parts of it, that he would give gifts to the man who shoul…
King Harald Sigurdson splits his forces before approaching a city, rides with Earl Tosti, and on seeing a large enemy horse-host prepares counsel and battle arrangements rather than fleeing.
made he ready his host and parted them, some to fare and some to tarry; and of each company he let two men go up for every one left behind. And Tosti the Earl prepared him to go up with his company, but to guard his ship there tarried behind Olaf own son to the King, Paal and Erling the Orkney Earls, and Eystein Blackcock, the son of Thorberg Arnason, who was in those days the man of most renown and withal dearest t…