From this Hannibal derived a twofold joy, for nothing which was going on among the enemy escaped him, the deserters revealing many things, and he himself examining by his own scouts.

For he considered that he should be able to entrap the unrestrained temerity of Minucius by his usual arts, and that half the force of the sagacity of Fabius had vanished.

There was an eminence between the camps of Minucius and the Carthaginians, whoever occupied it would evidently render the position of his enemy less advantageous.

Hannibal was not so desirous of gaining it without a contest, though that were worth his while, as to bring on a quarrel with Minucius, who, he well knew, would at all times throw himself in his way to oppose him.

All the intervening ground was at first sight unavailable to one who wished to plant an ambuscade, because it not only had not any part that was woody, but none even covered with brambles, but in reality formed by nature to cover an ambush, so much the more, because no such deception could be apprehended in a naked valley and there were in its curvatures hollow rocks, such that some of them were capable of containing two hundred armed men.