Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 29
Frank Gardener Moore, Professor Emeritus in Columbia University, Ed.

33. Therefore Syphax, thinking the affair was now too serious to be conducted by his officers, sent a part of the army under his young son, Vermina by name, with orders to lead his column round and attack the rear of the enemy, whose eyes would be upon the king himself. [2] Vermina, who was to make a secret attack, set out by night. But Syphax broke camp and marched by day along an open road, since he intended to engage in battle formation, standards against standards. [3] When the interval seemed to be such that the flanking party might be thought to have reached their objective already, the king on his part, relying both on numbers and on the ambuscade prepared in the rear, led his line up along the face of the mountain over a gentle slope leading in the direction of the enemy. [4] Masinissa also, relying chiefly upon the much more favourable ground on which he was to fight, led his men out into line. The battle was fierce and long indecisive, while position and the courage of his soldiers aided Masinissa and numbers that were far superior favoured Syphax. [5] That great army in its two sections —since the one pressed the enemy hard in front, while the other had accomplished its flanking movement in the rear —gave no uncertain victory to Syphax; and there was not even a way of escape open to men enclosed both in front and in the rear. [6] Accordingly the rest, infantry and cavalry, were slain or captured; but some two hundred horsemen were ordered by Masinissa to mass about him, divide into [p. 337]three troops, and so to break their way through, a¹ place being assigned in advance at which they should meet after their flight in different directions. [7] He himself escaped in the direction he had chosen through the midst of the enemies' weapons. Two of the squadrons were held fast; one in fear surrendered to the enemy, while the other, offering a more stubborn resistance, was overwhelmed by missiles and slain. [8] Vermina, who was almost at his heels, Masinissa evaded by turning now into this road and now into that, and compelled him at last to abandon pursuit when he was weary and had given up hope. He himself made his way with sixty horsemen to the Lesser Syrtis. [9] There, with the proud consciousness of having repeatedly made claim to his father's kingdom, in the region between the Punic Emporia² and the tribe of the Garamantes³ he spent the whole time until the arrival in Africa of Gaius Laelius and the Roman fleet. These circumstances incline me to believe that Masinissa came to Scipio also later with a small force⁴ of cavalry rather than with a large one. [10] For such great numbers are suited to a monarch, while my small figures match the plight of an exile.