The phalanx, with obliquely pointed lances, cut through the Barbarians; there were two enormous, struggling bodies; and the wings with slings and arrows beat them back upon the phalangites.
There was no cavalry to get rid of them, except two hundred Numidians operating against the right squadron of the Clinabarians.

All the rest were hemmed in, and unable to extricate themselves from the lines.

The peril was imminent, and the need of coming to some resolution urgent.
Spendius ordered attacks to be made simultaneously on both flanks of the phalanx so as to pass clean through it.

But the narrower ranks glided below the longer ones and recovered their position, and the phalanx turned upon the Barbarians as terrible in flank as it had just been in front.
They struck at the staves of the sarissae, but the cavalry in the rear embarrassed their attack; and the phalanx, supported by the elephants, lengthened and contracted, presenting itself in the form of a square, a cone, a rhombus, a trapezium, a pyramid.

A twofold internal movement went on continually from its head to its rear; for those who were at the lowest part of the files hastened up to the first ranks, while the latter, from fatigue, or on account of the wounded, fell further back.
The Barbarians found themselves thronged upon the phalanx.