The Battlefield
The phalanx and close-order cavalry was the reason that Scipio retreated into the Baetis valley. Its sharply undulating terrain would make phalanx maneuvenng hard if impossible. The Romans with their looser formations would not be affected Because both Livy and Polybius speak of the broken ground giving the Romans an advantage in the battle, I suggest the area have many ridges and valleys in close proximity, making the Carthaginian phalanxes useless in the fight. (Carthaginians are reported fighting hand to hand with the legionaries, but Livy considered these only a nuisance to the Romans. The scutarii with their short swords were a much deadlier foe. If you consider that the Punic spearmen were trained with spears and not short swords, Livy's remarks make perfect sense.)
The Actual Battle
Scipio caught the Spanish with both sides able to ploy from a march column into a fine. The ground was broken, and neither side could complete an organized line of battle, but Roman discipline and armor was the telling difference against Iberian courage. Scipio might have won the struggle except that pesky Masinissa and his band of Numidians now joined the fray, cutting down Roman stragglers and worse, leading the two Carthaginian mynads into the battle. The Baetis riverbed seethed with struggling groups of men as, with little or no orders and shattered organizations, each tried to beat off the other.
Livy claims that Roman drill and elan still might have allowed the Romans the victory, Polybius is neutral on this fact, but Scipio s propensity to attract wounds sealed the army's fate. (He was much like the South's Maj. Gen. W.W. Walker, so-called "old shot pouch", since he was wounded so much.) This time how ever, the wound was fatal. As this news of this occurrence flashed throughout the battle, the Romans who had been recruited personally by Scipio, lost heart, and with it the battle. The remaining hours of daylight were spent hunting down Romans. Only darkness put an end to the slaughter. Perhaps half a legion (2,000 men) escaped.
The Aftermath
With Publius Spio's Army destroyed, the victorious myriads of Mago, and Hasdrubal Gisgo, effected a junction with the third . Carthaginian myriad, Hasdrubal Barca's. Together they advanced on Gnaeus Scipio's hastily entrenched position, and overran it. Scipio fell fighting and only 1,000 men made it to join with the remnants of Publius Scipio's army. Spain was lost to the Romans except for some coast cities. These still would allow the Romans to maintain sea communications with Italy. Why did not the Punics finish their victory? Perhaps Spain was too unstable to continue operations, until control was applied to the fickle tribes.
Livy, to reclaim some honor to the defeated Roman army, claims that an Equite named Lucius Marcius son of the consul Septimius rallied the remnants, attacked the pursuing force of Gisgo and routed it. Not content with that assertion Livv next claims that Marcius attacked the two additional camps of the other miriads and catching them unaware. destroyed them. All this with less then a Legion!
I believe that what really happened was what the historian Piso reports: Mago was ambushed by the remnants of the Scipios' army and lost 5,000 captured and killed. It would be easy for victorious pursuing force to be spread out enough to be cut up piecemeal. This slight reverse may have discouraged other maneuvers against the Romans. Roman historians say the loss at the Baetis was the loss of the province and history seemingly agrees. Spain is not mentioned again as a major theater of the war until Scipio the Younger is ready to emerge on its center stage.
Battle of Baetis 211 BC
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