CHAP, ni.] 



ROMAN CAVALRY. 



79 



of his army to mancBuvre led Frederick the Great to 

 adopt the oblique formation, for he found he could do 

 with in punity what no other army of his age could 

 attempt without eT'treme risk of disaster. 



Another interesting feature in connection with this 

 battle is in comparing it with some of Hannibal's, and 

 tracing the effect of Hannibal's generalship in training 

 his opponents. Twelve years before, Scipio was a lad of 

 seventeen accompanying his father, who was then com- 

 manding the Koman army as one of the consuls in the 

 first skirmish of the war on the banks of the Ticinus. 

 He was also in the battle a short time after at the 

 Trebbia, and two years later fought again in the disastrous 

 field of Caunse. He had seen iu his first action the 

 Roman cavalry defeated by the invading horse, and his 

 father (whose life he is said to have saved by the most 

 brilliant gallantry) severely wounded, and saving the 

 remains of his routed army with the greatest difficulty. 

 The bitter experience of his first battle evidently taught 

 him for life the value of well-trained horsemen. At the 

 Trebbia, where he doubtless was also engaged, he saw 

 another crushing defeat suffered by his countrymen, and 

 saw that it was caused by the cavalry (the weakest of 

 the Roman troops) being overwhelmed upon the wings, 

 while the centre, where the main strength of the Romans 

 lay, could not effect anything before the fate of the battle 

 was decided. At Cannae he had again seen ruin and 

 disaster fall upon his people by the superior cavalry, 

 and the more skilful tactics of the great Carthaginian 

 leader. The eft'ect of this hard practical experience 

 showed itself from the outset of Scipio's career as a 

 general. His first idea was to perfect his cavalry as we 

 have already seen ; and when he was obliged to fight an 

 action, the memory of his cold, enfeebled, and fasting 

 comrades at the Trebbia rose up before him, and imitat- 

 ing the tactics of his father's opponent, he forced the 

 enemy into action fasting, refused his centre composed of 

 inferior troops, opened the battle by overlapping the wings 

 of his foe with his carefully disciplined horsemen, and 

 won a brilliant victory, one that in its main features is 



