Scipio feigns negotiations, then mounts a treacherous surprise attack on Syphax, approaching by stealth and setting fire to the enemy camp, where the combined armies of the Carthaginians and Numidians become panicked and flee, and are mostly killed by Scipio's army.

Though not a "battle," both Polybius and Livy estimate that the death toll in this single attack exceeded forty thousand Carthaginian and Numidian dead, and more captured.

Hasdrubal Gisco and Syphax, both men having succeeded in escaping from their camps, which Scipio and his Numidian ally Masinissa had destroyed with the aid of and Laelius, fall back with a few followers who had also escaped the massacre.

Scipio, his command extended until the end of the war, marches to meet Hasdrubal and Syphax at a place called the Great Plains.

The charge of the Roman cavalry causes the Carthaginian infantry and cavalry flee from the field; only the Spanish infantry remain standing, defending themselves fiercely.

The number of Spanish mercenaries is about equal to the first line of the Romans, the hastati.

Then Scipio orders his principes and triarii to march from behind the hastati and attack the flanks of the Spanish mercenaries, who are routed, with only a handful managing to escape.