the entente it should have to passe
moche tyme, to come to lye on the fronte. This waie was observed of
Aniball at Canne, and of Mario against the Cimbrians. If thou happen to
be moche inferiour of horses, ordaine thine armie emongeste Vines, and
trees, and like impedimentes, as in our time the Spaniardes did, when
thei overthrewe the Frenchmenne at Cirignuola. And it hath been seen
many times, with all one Souldiours, variyng onely the order, and the
place, that thei have become of losers victorers: as it happened to the
Carthageners, whom havyng been overcome of Marcus Regolus divers tymes,
were after by the counsaill of Santippo a Lacedemonian, victorious: whom
made them to go doune into the plaine, where by vertue of the horses,
and of Eliphantes, thei were able to overcome the Romaines. It semes
unto me, accordyng to the auncient insamples that almoste all the
excellente Capitaines, when thei have knowen, that the enemie hath made
strong one side of his battaile, thei have not set against it, the moste
strongest parte, but the moste weakest, and thother moste strongest thei
have set against the most weakest: after in the beginning the faighte,
thei have commaunded to their strongest parte, that onely thei sustaine
the enemie, and not to preace upon hym, and to the weaker, that thei
suffer them selves to be overcome, and to retire into the hindermoste
bandes of the armie. This breadeth twoo greate disorders to the enemie:
the firste, that he findeth his strongest parte compassed about, the
second is, that semyng unto him to have the victorie, seldome tymes it
happeneth, that thei disorder not theim selves, whereof groweth his
sodain losse. Cornelius Scipio beyng in Spain, againste Asdruball of
Carthage, and understanding how to Asdruball it was knowen, that he in
the orderyng the armie, placed his Legions in the middest, the whiche
was the strongest parte of his armie, and for this how Asdruball with
like order ought to procede: after when he came to faighte the battaile,
he chaunged order, and put his Legions on the hornes of the armie, and
in the middest, placed all his weakeste men: then commyng to the handes,
in a sodain those men placed in the middeste, he made to marche softly,
and the hornes of the armie, with celeritie to make forwarde, so that
onely the hornes of bothe the armies fought, and the bandes in the
middest, through beyng distaunt the one from the other, joyned not
together, and thus the strongest