Gustav Klimt Mother and Child detail from The Three Ages of Woman painting

Gustav Klimt Mother and Child detail from The Three Ages of Woman paintingGuido Reni The Archangel Michael paintingFrancois Boucher The Rape of Europa painting
forces available in the province-a single regular regiment. The Third, together with a few battalions of auxiliaries and two cavalry squadrons. Tacfarinas was a Numidian chief, originally a deserter from the ranks of the Roman auxiliaries, and a remarkably successful bandit. He had recently built up a sort of army on the Roman model in the interior of his own country and had allied himself with the Moors for an invasion of the province from the West. The two armies together outnumbered Furius's force by at least five to one. They met in open country about fifty miles from the City and Furius had to decide whether to attack Tacfarinas's two semidisciplined regiments which were in the centre or the undisciplined Moorish forces on the flank. He sent the cavalry and auxiliaries, mostly archers, to keep the Moors in play and with his regular regiment marched straight at Tacfarinas's Numidians. I was watching the battle from a hill some five hundred paces away-I had ridden out on a mule -and never before or since, I think, have I been so proud of being a Roman. The