About two-thirds of their foot and all their cavalry came down to the engagement.

The remainder of their infantry they stationed on the declivity of the hill.

Scipio, conceiving that the confined nature of the ground would be in his favour, both because the Roman troops were better adapted for fighting in a contracted space than the Spanish, and also because the enemy had come down and formed their line on ground which would not contain all their forces, applied his mind to a new expedient.

For he considered that he could not himself cover his flanks with his cavalry, and that those of the enemy which they had led out, together with their infantry, would be unable to act.

Accordingly he ordered Laelius to lead the cavalry round by the hills as secretly as possible, and separate, as far as he could, the fight between the cavalry from that between the infantry.