Complete Works of Frontinus Read online

  [17] Alexander of Macedon, when the enemy had fortified their camp on a lofty wooded eminence, withdrew a portion of his forces, and commanded those whom he left to kindle fires as usual, and thus to give the impression of the complete army. He himself, leading his forces around through untravelled regions, attacked the enemy and dislodged them from their commanding position.

  [18] Memnon, the Rhodian, being superior in cavalry, and wishing to draw down to the plains an enemy who clung to the hills, sent certain of his soldiers under the guise of deserters to the camp of the enemy, to say that the army of Memnon was inspired with such a serious spirit of mutiny that some portion of it was constantly deserting. To lend credit to this assertion, Memnon ordered small redoubts to be fortified here and there in view of the enemy, as though the disaffected were about to retire to these. Inveigled by these representations, those who had been keeping themselves on the hills came down to level ground, and, as they attacked the redoubts, were surrounded by the cavalry.

  [19] When Harrybas, king of the Molossians, was attacked in war by Bardylis, the Illyrian, who commanded a considerably larger army, he dispatched the non-combatant portion of his subjects to the neighbouring district of Aetolia, and spread the report that he was yielding up his towns and possessions to the Aetolians. He himself, with those who could bear arms, placed ambuscades here and there on the mountains and in other inaccessible places. The Illyrians, fearful lest the possessions of the Molossians should be seized by the Aetolians, began to race along in disorder, in their eagerness for plunder. As soon as they became scattered, Harrybas, emerging from his concealment and taking them unawares, routed them and put them to flight.

  [20] Titus Labienus, lieutenant of Gaius Caesar, eager to engage in battle with the Gauls before the arrival of the Germans, who, he knew, were coming to their aid, pretended discouragement, and, pitching his camp across the stream, announced his departure for the following day. The Gauls, imagining that he was in flight, began to cross the intervening river. Labienus, facing about with his troops, cut the Gauls to pieces in the very midst of their difficulties of crossing.

  [21] Hannibal, on one occasion, learned that the camp of Fulvius, the Roman commander, was carelessly fortified and that Fulvius himself was taking many rash chances besides. Accordingly, at daybreak, when dense mists afforded cover, he permitted a few of his horsemen to show themselves to the sentries of our fortifications; whereupon Fulvius suddenly advanced. Meanwhile, Hannibal, at a different point, entered Fulvius’s camp, and overwhelming the Roman rear, slew eight thousand of the bravest soldiers along with their commander himself.

  [22] Once, when the Roman army had been divided between the dictator Fabius and Minucius, master of the horse, and Fabius was watching for a favourable opportunity, while Minucius was burning with eagerness for battle, the same Hannibal pitched his camp on the plain between the hostile armies, and having concealed a portion of his troops among rough rocks, sent others to seize a neighbouring hillock, as a challenge to the foe. When Minucius had led out his forces to crush these, the men placed here and there in ambush by Hannibal suddenly sprang up, and would have annihilated Minucius’s army, had not Fabius come to help them in their distress.

  [23] When the same Hannibal was encamped in the depths of winter at the Trebia, with the camp of the consul, Sempronius Longus, in plain view and only the river flowing between, he placed Mago and picked men in ambush. Then he commanded Numidian cavalry to advance up to Sempronius’s fortifications, in order to lure forth the simple-minded Roman. At the same time, he ordered these troops to retire by familiar fords at our first onset. By heedlessly attacking and pursuing the Numidians, the consul gave his troops a chill, as a result of fording the stream in the bitter cold and without breakfast. Then, when our men were suffering from numbness and hunger, Hannibal led against them his own troops, whom he had got in condition for that purpose by warm fires, food, and rubbing down with oil. Mago also did his part, and cut to pieces the rear of his enemy at the point where he had been posted for the purpose.

  [24] At Trasimenus, where a narrow way, running out between the lake and the base of the hills, led out to the open plain, the same Hannibal, feigning flight, made his way through the narrow road to the open districts and pitched his camp there. Then, posting soldiers by night at various points over the rising ground of the hill and at the ends of the defile, at daybreak, under cover of a fog, he marshalled his line of battle. Flaminius, pursuing the enemy, who seemed to be retreating, entered the defile and did not see the ambush until he was surrounded in front, flank, and rear, and was annihilated with his army.

  [25] The same Hannibal, when contending against the dictator Junius, ordered six hundred cavalrymen to break up into a number of squadrons, and at dead of night to appear in successive detachments without intermission around the camp of the enemy. Thus all night long the Romans were harassed and worn out by sentry duty on the rampart and by the rain, which happened to fall continuously, so that in the morning, when Junius gave the signal for recall, Hannibal led out his own troops, who had been well rested, and took Junius’s camp by assault.

  [26] In the same way, when the Spartans had draw entrenchments across the Isthmus and were defending the Peloponnesus, Epaminondas, the Theban, with the help of a few light-armed troops, harassed the enemy all night long. Then at daybreak, after he had recalled his own men and the Spartans had also retired, he suddenly moved forward the entire force which he had kept at rest, and burst directly through the ramparts, which had been left without defenders.

  [27] At the battle of Cannae, Hannibal, having drawn up his line of battle, ordered six hundred Numidian cavalry to go over to the enemy. To prove their sincerity, these surrendered their swords and shields to our men, and were dispatched to the rear. Then, as soon as the engagement began, drawing out small swords, which they had secreted, and picking up the shield of the fallen, they slaughtered the troops of the Romans.

  [28] Under pretence of surrender, the Iapydes handed over some of their to best men to Publius Licinius, the Roman proconsul. These were received and placed in the last line, whereupon they cut to pieces the Romans who were bringing up the rear.

  [29] Scipio Africanus, when facing the two hostile camps of Syphax and the Carthaginians, decided to make a night attack on that of Syphax, where there was a large supply of inflammable material, and to set fire to it, in order thus to cut down the Numidians as the army scurried in terror from their camp, and also, by laying ambuscades, to catch the Carthaginians, who, he knew, would rush forward to assist their allies. Both plans succeeded. For when the enemy rushed forward unarmed, thinking the conflagration accidental, Scipio fell upon them and cut them to pieces.

  [30] Mithridates, after repeated defeats in battle at the hands of Lucullus, made an attempt against his life by treachery, hiring a certain Adathas, a man of extraordinary strength, to desert and to perpetrate the deed, so soon as he should gain the confidence of the enemy. This plan the deserter did his best to execute, but his efforts failed. For, though admitted by Lucullus to the cavalry troop, he was quietly kept under surveillance, since it was neither well to put trust at once in a deserter, nor to prevent other deserters from coming. After this fellow had exhibited a ready and earnest devotion on repeated raids, and had won confidence, he chose a time when the dismissal of the staff-officers brought with it repose throughout the camp, and caused the general’s headquarters to be less frequented. Chance favoured Lucullus; for whereas the deserter expected to find Lucullus awake, in which case he would have been at once admitted to his presence, he actually found him at that time fast asleep, exhausted with revolving plans in his mind the night before. Then when Adathas pleaded to be admitted, on the ground that he had an unexpected and imperative message to deliver, he was kept out by the determined efforts of the slaves, who were concerned for their master’s health. Fearing consequently that he was an object of suspicion, he mounted the horse which he held in readiness outside the gate, and fled to Mi
thridates without accomplishing his purpose.

  [31] When Sertorius was encamped next to Pompey near the town of Lauron in Spain, there were only two tracts from which forage could be gathered, one near by, the other farther off. Sertorius gave orders that the one near by should be continually raided by light-armed troops, but that remoter one should not be visited by any troops. Thus, he finally convinced his adversaries that the more distant tract was safer. When, on one occasion, Pompey’s troops had gone to this region, Sertorius ordered Octavius Graecinus, with ten cohorts armed after the Roman fashion, and ten cohorts of light-armed Spaniards along with Tarquinius Priscus and two thousand cavalry, set forth to lay an ambush against the foragers. These men executed their instructions with energy; for after examining the ground, they hid the above-mentioned forces by night in a neighbouring wood, posting the light-armed Spaniards in front, as best suited to stealthy warfare, the shield-bearing soldiers a little further back, and the cavalry in the rear, in order that the plan might not be betrayed by the neighing of the horses. Then they ordered all to repose in silence till the third hour of the following day. When Pompey’s men, entertaining no suspicion and loaded down with forage, thought of returning, and those who had been on guard, lured on by the situation, were slipping away to forage, suddenly the Spaniards, darting out with the swiftness characteristic of their race, poured forth upon the stragglers, inflicted many wounds upon them, and put them to rout, to their great amazement. Then, before resistance to this first assault could be organised, the shield-bearing troops, bursting forth from the forest, overthrew and routed the Romans who were returning to the ranks, while the cavalry, dispatched after those in flight, followed them all the way back to the camp, cutting them to pieces. Provision was also made that no one should escape. For two hundred and fifty reserve horsemen, sent ahead for the purpose, found it a simple matter to race forward by short cuts, and then to turn back and meet those who had first fled, before they reached Pompey’s camp. On learning of this, Pompey sent out a legion under Decimus Laelius to reinforce his men, whereupon the cavalry of the enemy, withdrawing to the right flank, pretended to give way, and then, passing round the legion, assaulted it from the rear, while those who had followed up the foragers attacked it from the front also. Thus the legion with its commander was crushed between the two lines of the enemy. When Pompey led out his entire army to help the legion, Sertorius exhibited his forces drawn up on the hillside, and thus baulked Pompey’s purpose. Thus, in addition to inflicting a twofold disaster, as a result of the same strategy, Sertorius forced Pompey to be the helpless witness of the destruction of his own troops. This was the first battle between Sertorius and Pompey. According to Livy, ten thousand men were lost in Pompey’s army, along with the entire transport.

  [32] Pompey, when warring in Spain, having first posted troops here and there to attack from ambush, by feigning fear, drew the enemy on in pursuit, till they reached the place of the ambuscade. Then when the opportune moment arrived, wheeling about, he slaughtered the foe in front and on both flanks, and likewise captured their general, Perperna.

  [33] The same Pompey, in Armenia, when Mithridates was superior to him in the number and quality of his cavalry, stationed three thousand light-armed men and five hundred cavalry by night in a valley under cover of bushes lying between the two camps. Then at daybreak he sent forth his cavalry against the position of the enemy, planning that, as soon as the full force of the enemy, cavalry and infantry, became engaged in battle, the Romans should gradually fall back, still keeping ranks, until they should afford room to those who had been stationed for the purpose of attacking from the rear to arise and do so. When this design turned out successfully, those who had seemed to flee turned about, enabling Pompey to cut to pieces the enemy thus caught in panic between his two lines. Our infantry also, engaging in hand-to-hand encounter, stabbed the horses of the enemy. That battle destroyed the faith which the king had reposed in his cavalry.

  [34] In the Slave War, Crassus fortified two camps close beside the camp of the enemy, near Mt. Cantenna. Then, one night, he moved his forces, leading them all out and posting them at the base of the mountain above mentioned, leaving his headquarters tent in the larger camp in order to deceive the enemy. Dividing the cavalry into two detachments, he directed Lucius Quintius to oppose Spartacus with one division and fool him with a mock encounter; with the other to lure to combat the Germans and Gauls, of the faction of Castus and Cannicus, and, by feigning flight, to draw them on to the spot where Crassus himself had drawn up his troops in battle array. When the barbarians followed, the cavalry fell back to the flanks, and suddenly the Roman force disclosed itself and rushed forward with a shout. In that battle Livy tells us that thirty-five thousand armed men, with their commanders, were slain; five Roman eagles and twenty-six standards were recaptured, along with much other booty, including five sets of rods and axes.

  [35] Gaius Cassius, when fighting in Syria against the Parthians and their leader Osaces, exhibited only cavalry in front, but had posted infantry in hiding on rough ground in the rear. Then, when his cavalry fell back and retreated over familiar roads, he drew the army of the Parthians into the ambush prepared for them and cut them to pieces.

  [36] Ventidius, keeping his own men in camp on pretence of fear, caused the Parthians and Labienus, who were elated with victorious successes, to come out for battle. Having lured them into an unfavourable situation, he attacked them by surprise and so overwhelmed them that the Parthians refused to follow Labienus and evacuated the province.

  [37] The same Ventidius, having himself only a small force available for use against the Parthians under Pharnastanes, but observing that the confidence of the enemy was growing in consequence of their numbers, posted eighteen cohorts at the side of the camp in a hidden valley, with cavalry stationed behind the infantry. Then he sent a very small detachment against the enemy. When these by feigning flight had drawn the enemy in hot pursuit beyond the place of ambush, the force at the side rose up, whereupon Ventidius drove the Parthians in precipitate flight and slaughtered them, Pharnastanes among them.

  [38] On one occasion when the camps of Gaius Caesar and Afranius were pitched in opposite plains, it was the special ambition of each side to secure possession of the neighbouring hills — a task of extreme difficulty on account of the jagged rocks. In these circumstances, Caesar marshalled his army as though to march back again to Ilerda, a move supported by his deficiency of supplies. Then, within a short time, making a small detour, he suddenly started to seize the hills. The followers of Afranius, alarmed at sight of this, just as though their camp had been captured, started out themselves at top speed to gain the same hills. Caesar, having forecast this turn of affairs, fell upon Afranius’s men, before they could form — partly with infantry, which he had sent ahead, partly with cavalry sent up in the rear.

  [39] Antonius, near Forum Gallorum, having heard that the consul Pansa was approaching, met his army by means of ambuscades, set here and there in the woodland stretches along the Aemilian Way, thus routing his troops and inflicting on Pansa himself a wound from which he died in a few days.

  [40] Juba, king in Africa at the time of the Civil War, by feigning a retirement, once roused unwarranted elation in the heart of Curio. Under the influence of this mistaken hope, Curio, pursuing Sabboras, the king’s general, who, he thought, was in flight, came to open plains, where, surrounded by the cavalry of the Numidians, he lost his army and perished himself.

  [41] Melanthus, the Athenian general, on one occasion came out for combat, in response to the challenge of the king of the enemy, Xanthus, the Boeotian. As soon as they stood face to face, Melanthus exclaimed: “Your conduct is unfair, Xanthus, and contrary to agreement. I am alone, but you have come out with a companion against me.” When Xanthus wondered who was following him and looked behind, Melanthus dispatched him with a single stroke, as his head was turned away.

  [42] Iphicrates, the Athenian, on one occasion in the Chersonesus, awar
e that Anaxibius, commander of the Spartans, was proceeding with his troops by land, disembarked a large force of men from his vessels and placed them in ambush, but directed his ships to sail in full view of the enemy, as though loaded with all his forces. When the Spartans were thus thrown off their guard and apprehended no danger, Iphicrates, attacking them by land from the rear as they marched along, crushed and routed them.

  [43] The Liburnians on one occasion, when they had taken a position among some shallows, by allowing only their heads to appear above the surface of the water, caused the enemy to believe that water was deep. In this way a galley which followed them became stranded on the shoal, and was captured.

  [44] Alcibiades, commander of the Athenians at the Hellespont against Mindarus, leader of the Spartans, having a large army and numerous vessels, landed some of his soldiers by night, and hid part of his ships behind certain headlands. He himself, advancing with a few troops, so as to lure the enemy on in scorn of his small force, fled when pursued, until he finally drew the foe into the trap which had been laid. Then attacking the enemy in the rear, as he disembarked, he cut him to pieces with the aid of the troops which he had landed for this very purpose.

  [45] The same Alcibiades, on one occasion, with about to engage in a naval combat, erected a number of masts on a headland, and commanded the men whom he left there to spread sails on these as soon as they noticed that the engagement had begun. By this means he caused the enemy to retreat, since they imagined another fleet was coming to his assistance.

  [46] Memnon, the Rhodian, in a naval encounter, possessing a fleet of two hundred ships, and wishing to lure the vessels of the enemy out to battle, made arrangements for raising the masts of only a few of his ships, ordering these to proceed first. When the enemy from a distance saw the number of masts, and from that inferred the number of vessels, they offered battle, but were fallen upon by a larger number of ships and defeated.