[371] Plutarch, Timoleon, c. 27. Ἀναλαβὼν τὴν ἀσπίδα καὶ βοήσας ἕπεσθαι καὶ θαῤῥεῖν τοῖς πέζοις ἔδοξεν ὑπερφυεῖ φωνῇ καὶ μείζονι κεχρῆσθαι τοῦ συνήθους, εἴτε τῷ πάθει παρὰ τὸν ἀγῶνα καὶ τὸν ἐνθουσιασμὸν οὕτω διατεινάμενος, εἴτε ~δαιμονίου τινὸς, ὡς τοῖς πολλοῖς τότε παρέστη, συνεπιφθεγξαμένου~. The infantry were probably able to evade or break through the bulwark of interposed chariots with greater ease than the cavalry, though Plutarch does not tell us how this was done. Timoleon and his soldiers then came into close and furious contest with the chosen Carthaginian infantry, who resisted with a courage worthy of their reputation. Their vast shields, iron breastplates, and brazen helmets (forming altogether armor heavier than was worn usually even by Grecian hoplites), enabled them to repel the spear-thrusts of the Grecian assailants, who were compelled to take to their swords, and thus to procure themselves admission within the line of Carthaginian spears, so as to break their ranks. Such use of swords is what we rarely read of in a Grecian battle. Though the contest was bravely maintained by the Carthaginians, yet they were too much loaded with armor to admit of anything but fighting in a dense mass. They were already losing their front rank warriors, the picked men of the whole, and beginning to fight at a disadvantage—when the gods, yet farther befriending Timoleon, set the seal to their discomfiture by an intervention manifest and terrific.[372] A storm of the most violent character began. The hill-tops were shrouded in complete darkness; the wind blew a hurricane; rain and hail poured abundantly, with all the awful accompaniments of thunder and lightning. To the Greeks, this storm was of little inconvenience, because it came in their backs. But to the Carthaginians, pelting as it did directly in their faces, it occasioned both great suffering, and soul-subduing alarm. The rain and hail beat, and the lightning flashed, in their faces, so that they could not see to deal with hostile combatants: the noise of the wind, and of hail rattling against their armor, prevented the orders of their officers from being heard: the folds of their voluminous military tunics were surcharged with rain-water, so as to embarrass their movements: the ground presently became so muddy that they could not keep their footing; and when they once slipped, the weight of their equipment forbade all recovery. The Greeks, comparatively free from inconvenience, and encouraged by the evident disablement of their enemies, pressed them with redoubled energy. At length, when the four hundred front rank men of the Carthaginians had perished by a brave death in their places, the rest of the White-shields turned their backs and sought relief in flight. But flight, too, was all but impossible. They encountered their own troops in the rear advancing up, and trying to cross the Krimêsus; which river itself was becoming every minute fuller and