The Carthaginians took up close order, and, shoulder to shoulder, their bodies covered with their shields, they advanced to meet the legions of Rome.

As they moved, their music--flute, harp, and lyre--rose on the air in a military march, and keeping step the long line advanced with perfect order and regularity.

In the centre were the Carthaginian foot soldiers and their African allies, clothed alike in a red tunic, with helmet of bronze, steel cuirass and circular shield, and carrying, besides their swords, pikes of twenty feet in length.

On the left were the Spaniards, in white tunics bordered with purple, with semicircular shields four feet in length and thirty-two inches in width, armed with long swords used either for cutting or thrusting.
On the left were the native allies, naked to the waist, armed with shields and swords similar to those of the Gauls, save that the swords were used only for cutting.
Sempronius brought up his second line to fill the intervals in the first, and the Romans advanced with equal steadiness to the conflict; but the much greater closeness of the Carthaginian formation served them in good stead.

They moved like a solid wall, their shields locked closely together, and pressed steadily forward in spite of the desperate efforts of the Roman centre in its more open order to resist them; for each Roman soldier in battle was allowed the space of a man's width between him and his comrade on either side, to allow him the free use of his weapon.