The giant Theron came out in solitary majesty, as if he alone were a phalanx. The lion skin, and his enormous stature, attracted the gaze of all. His club rose and fell, crashing into the groups of fugitives and opening great swaths through their ranks.
"It is Hercules!" the besiegers shouted, with superstitious terror. "The god of Saguntum has come out against us!"
The presence of the giant accelerated the dispersion even more than the blows of the Saguntines.
Hannibal tried to advance, to face about; in vain he lifted up his voice, brandishing his sword. He was swept by the torrent of flight; his own soldiers crowded him along, blinded by the contagion of terror; they tramped on his heels, they pressed against his back with their heads bent low in swift retreat, and he had to make strenuous efforts to keep from being overwhelmed and trampled down. A moment more and the Saguntines, having destroyed every engine of war, reached the camp.
The chieftain was snarling curses and threats against his brother and Maherbal who did not come up with the reserves to stay the torrent of the rout. He saw the troops issuing from the camp hurriedly, but on foot and in disorder, with the precipitation produced by an unexpected event. Many of them were adjusting the straps of their cuirasses, and the different tribes were jostled together and minus their leaders, who in vain had trumpeters blow their horns to bring the hosts to order.
The Saguntines in the blind impulse of victory clashed with this reinforcement and almost routed it in the first encounter. Hannibal, who had managed to reunite a group of the bravest soldiers, presented a firm front to the Saguntines.
"This way! This way!" he shouted to those coming from the camp, who in their excitement did not know where to rally.
But at the same time his cries attracted the enemy. Theron, as if guided by his god, turned toward Hannibal, and soon his mace began to hammer at the shields of the Carthaginians. He hurled himself against them with cool courage, breaking their lances with a blow of his club, wounding himself on the swords which seemed to rebound from his powerful muscles, dripping blood beneath his lion skin, ferocious and magnificent, like unto a divinity. He never raised his knotty trunk without dropping an enemy at his feet.