thrusting spear instead. Both legionary sub-units and individual legionaries fought in relatively open order. It was the long-standing Roman procedure to elect two men each year, known as consuls, to each lead an army. An army was usually formed by combining a Roman legion with a similarly sized and equipped legion provided by their Latin allies; allied legions usually had a larger attached complement of cavalry than Roman ones. The order of battle of the Roman army at Ibera is not known, but has been estimated at around 25,000; probably made up of two Roman legions, two Italian allied legions and their associated cavalry, and reinforced by an unknown number of locally recruited Iberian infantry and cavalry. It is believed to have been about the same size as the Carthaginian army. Carthaginian Carthage usually recruited foreigners to make up its army. Many would be from North Africa which provided several types of fighters including: close-order heavy infantry equipped with large shields, helmets, short swords and long thrusting spears; javelin-armed light infantry skirmishers; close-order shock cavalry (also known as “heavy cavalry”) carrying spears; and light cavalry skirmishers who threw javelins from a distance and avoided close combat. Iberia provided large numbers of experienced infantry; unarmoured troops who would charge ferociously, but had a reputation for breaking off if a combat was protracted. Militia would sometimes be recruited from Carthaginian populated cities and colonies, and would be equipped as the North African heavy infantry. The close order North African infantry and the citizen-militia would fight in a tightly packed formation known as a phalanx. The Libyans were usually well trained but the citizen-militia were notoriously ill-trained and ill-disciplined. Slingers were frequently recruited from the Balearic Islands. The Carthaginians also employed war elephants; North Africa had indigenous African forest elephants at the time. The sources are not clear as to whether they carried towers containing fighting men. The order of battle of the Carthaginian army at Ibera is not known in detail, but has been estimated at around 25,000 and is believed to have been about the same size as the Roman army. The Carthaginian army also had a small number of war elephants, perhaps the 21 which Hannibal left in Iberia when he set out for Italy in 218 BC. Battle Deployment Formal battles were usually preceded by the two armies camping one to seven miles apart (2–12 km) for days or