Descriptions of both shield walls used in attack and as an anti-cavalry formation with spears fixed into the ground exist throughout Roman history, though non-military writers tended to use classical vocabulary in describing such formations as a testudo, its Greek translation "chelone" (χελώνη), or a phalanx. However, these descriptions referred to the use of shield walls in battle, as opposed to the classical testudo formation used in siege warfare. Examples include the Battle of Callinicum, where a small group of Byzantine infantry and dismounted cavalry in the rearguard formed a shield wall that held off Persian archery and cavalry charges, and the Battle of Taginae, where a small group of fifty Byzantine soldiers seized a hill and formed into a "phalanx" that held off repeated Ostrogothic cavalry charges with their shield wall and grounded spears.