Chapter 41

On the day following this action Caesar withdrew his cohorts from all his defence posts and drew up all his forces in the plain: whereas Scipio, after the disastrous reception his troops had met with and their resulting heavy casualties in dead and wounded, proceeded to sit tight within his own fortifications. Caesar deployed his battle line along the lowest spurs of the chain of hills, and then slowly approached closer to Scipio’s fortifications. And now the Julian legions were less than a mile away from the town of Uzitta, which Scipio held, when the latter, fearing that he would lose the town, on which his army had been accustomed to rely for its water supply and all other means of support, led out all his forces. These forces were drawn up, according to his custom, in four lines, the first consisting of cavalry deployed in line of squadrons, interspersed with elephants equipped with towers and armour. Thus deployed. Scipio marched to the relief of the town, while Caesar, observing this move and supposing that Scipio was advancing towards him prepared and fully resolved to fight, accordingly halted before the town in the position I described a little earlier. With his own centre covered by the town, Scipio drew up his right and left wings, where his elephants were, in full view of his opponents.