Spring 255 BC
The armies deploy
In the spring of 255 BC Xanthippus leads 12,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and 100 elephants out of Carthage and camps on an open plain near the Romans. The exact site is unknown, and it is thought to lie close to Tunis. Regulus advances with about 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry and camps some 2 km away.
Plan of the battle near Tunis in Nikolai Golitsyn’s history of war, German edition, 1874Wikimedia Commons, Nikolai Sergeyevich Golitsyn, Public domain (Battle of Bagradas.jpg)
The next morning Xanthippus places the Carthaginian citizen infantry in the centre, with the veterans from Sicily and the new mercenaries on either side and the cavalry on both wings. The 100 elephants stand in a single line in front of the infantry. Regulus draws up his legions deeper and denser than usual, a formation Polybius thinks effective against elephants, though it shortens the Roman front. Skirmishers screen the legions, and the 500 horsemen are split between the wings.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 1, 33.
- John Lazenby, The First Punic War (1996).
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