22 or 23 December 218 BC, dawn
The Numidian lure
During the night Hannibal sends his brother Mago with 1,000 cavalry and 1,000 infantry to hide in an old watercourse overgrown with brush, south of where he means to fight. The morning is cold and snowy. Before daybreak his Numidian cavalry cross the Trebia and attack the Roman outposts, while the rest of his army eats breakfast and prepares for battle.
The Trebbia at Rivergaro, south of the battlefieldWikimedia Commons, Dani4P, CC BY-SA 3.0 (Fiume Trebbia a Rivergaro.JPG)
Sempronius sends out all his cavalry against the Numidians, then 6,000 velites, and then his whole army, most of the men without breakfast. The Numidians fall back slowly, and the Romans follow them through the icy river, running chest high, in three columns each about 4 km long. On the west bank Hannibal’s light infantry meet them, and behind them his army forms up for battle.
Sources
- Polybius, Histories, book 3, 71 to 72.
- Livy, History of Rome, book 21, 54 to 55.
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