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[1] Me quoque iuuat, uelut ipse in parte laboris ac periculi fuerim, ad finem belli Punici peruenisse. nam etsi profiteri ausum perscripturum res omnes Romanas in partibus singulis tanti operis fatigari minime conueniat, tamen, cum in mentem uenit tres et sexaginta annos—tot enim sunt a primo Punico ad secundum bellum finitum—aeque multa uolumina occupasse mihi quam occupauerint quadringenti duodenonaginta anni a condita urbe ad Ap. Claudium consulem, qui primum bellum Carthaginiensibus intulit, iam prouideo animo, uelut qui proximis litori uadis inducti mare pedibus ingrediuntur, quidquid progredior, in uastiorem me altitudinem ac uelut profundum inuehi et crescere paene opus, quod prima quaeque perficiendo minui uidebatur.
[1] It pleases me too, as though I myself had been in a share of the labor and the peril, to have come to the end of the Punic war. For although it is by no means fitting that one who has dared to profess that he would write out in full all Roman affairs should grow weary in the several parts of so great a work, yet, when it comes to mind that sixty‑three years—for so many there are from the first Punic to the finished second war—have occupied as many volumes for me as four hundred eighty‑eight years from the founding of the City to Ap. Claudius, consul, who brought the first war upon the Carthaginians, have occupied, I already foresee in mind, just as those who, drawn on by the shallows nearest the shore, step into the sea with their feet, that whatever I advance, I am carried into a more vast depth and, as it were, the deep, and that the work almost grows, which seemed to be diminished by finishing each of the earliest parts.
Pacem Punicam bellum Macedonicum excepit, periculo haudquaquam comparandum aut uirtute ducis aut militum robore, claritate regum antiquorum uetustaque fama gentis et magnitudine imperii, quo multa quondam Europae, maiorem partem Asiae obtinuerant armis, prope nobilius. ceterum coeptum bellum aduersus Philippum decem ferme ante annis triennio prius depositum erat, cum Aetoli et belli et pacis fuissent causa. uacuos deinde pace Punica iam Romanos et infensos Philippo cum ob infidam aduersus Aetolos aliosque regionis eiusdem socios pacem, tum ob auxilia cum pecunia nuper in Africam missa Hannibali Poenisque preces Atheniensium, quos agro peruastato in urbem compulerat, excitauerunt ad renouandum bellum.
The Macedonian war succeeded the Punic peace, by no means comparable in peril either in the virtue of the commander or in the robustness of the soldiers, yet in the renown of ancient kings, the time-worn fame of the nation, and the magnitude of the empire—by which they had once by arms possessed much of Europe and the greater part of Asia—almost more illustrious. However, the war begun against Philip about ten years before had, three years earlier, been laid aside, when the Aetolians had been the cause both of war and of peace. Then the Romans, now left unoccupied by the Punic peace and incensed against Philip both on account of the faithless peace toward the Aetolians and other allies of the same region, and on account of the auxiliaries with money lately sent into Africa to Hannibal and the Carthaginians, were stirred by the prayers of the Athenians—whom, after their land had been thoroughly ravaged, he had driven into the city—to renew the war.
[2] Sub idem fere tempus et ab Attalo rege et Rhodiis legati uenerunt nuntiantes Asiae quoque ciuitates sollicitari. his legationibus responsum est curae eam rem senatui fore; consultatio de Macedonico bello integra ad consules, qui tunc in prouinciis erant, reiecta est. interim ad Ptolomaeum Aegypti regem legati tres missi, C. Claudius Nero M. Aemilius Lepidus P. Sempronius Tuditanus, ut nuntiarent uictum Hannibalem Poenosque et gratias agerent regi quod in rebus dubiis, cum finitimi etiam socii Romanos desererent, in fide mansisset, et peterent ut, si coacti iniuriis bellum aduersus Philippum suscepissent, pristinum animum erga populum Romanum conseruaret.
[2] At about the same time legates came both from King Attalus and from the Rhodians, announcing that the cities of Asia too were being agitated. To these embassies it was answered that the matter would be a care to the senate; the consultation about the Macedonian war was left intact to the consuls, who at that time were in their provinces. Meanwhile three legates were sent to Ptolemy, king of Egypt—Gaius Claudius Nero, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, Publius Sempronius Tuditanus—to announce that Hannibal and the Punics had been vanquished and to give thanks to the king because, in doubtful circumstances, when even neighboring allies were deserting the Romans, he had remained in good faith; and to ask that, if compelled by injuries they should undertake war against Philip, he preserve his former disposition toward the Roman people.
Eodem fere tempore P. Aelius consul in Gallia, cum audisset a Boiis ante suum aduentum incursiones in agros sociorum factas, duabus legionibus subitariis tumultus eius causa scriptis additisque ad eas quattuor cohortibus de exercitu suo, C. Ampium praefectum socium hac tumultuaria manu per Umbriam qua tribum Sapiniam uocant agrum Boiorum inuadere iussit; ipse eodem aperto itinere per montes duxit. Ampius ingressus hostium fines primo populationes satis prospere ac tuto fecit. delecto deinde ad castrum Mutilum satis idoneo loco ad demetenda frumenta—iam enim maturae erant segetes—profectus neque explorato circa nec stationibus satis firmis quae armatae inermes atque operi intentos tutarentur positis, improuiso impetu Gallorum cum frumentatoribus est circumuentus.
Around the same time, Publius Aelius, consul in Gaul, when he had heard that before his arrival the Boii had made incursions into the fields of the allies, having levied two emergency legions written up on account of that tumult and having added to them four cohorts from his own army, ordered Gaius Ampius, prefect of the allies, with this ad hoc force to invade the land of the Boii through Umbria, in the quarter which they call the Sapinian tribe; he himself led by the same open route through the mountains. Ampius, having entered the borders of the enemy, at first made forays quite prosperously and safely. Then, having chosen near the fort of Mutilum a place quite suitable for reaping the grain—for already the cornfields were ripe—he set out, and, with the surrounding area not reconnoitered nor with pickets sufficiently strong posted to protect the armed and the unarmed intent upon the work, he was surrounded by a sudden assault of the Gauls together with the foragers.
then panic and flight seized even the armed men. About seven thousand men, scattered through the standing grain, were cut down, among whom was Gaius Ampius himself, the prefect; the rest were driven by fear into the camp. Then, without a fixed leader, by military consensus, on the next night, leaving a great part of their belongings, they reached the consul through passes nearly trackless.
[3] Cum primum senatum habuit, uniuersis postulantibus ne quam prius rem quam de Philippo ac sociorum querellis ageret, relatum extemplo est; decreuitque frequens senatus ut P. Aelius consul quem uideretur ei cum imperio mitteret qui, classe accepta quam ex Sicilia Cn. Octauius reduceret, in Macedoniam traiceret. M. Valerius Laeuinus propraetor missus circa Vibonem duodequadraginta nauibus ab Cn. Octauio acceptis in Macedoniam transmisit. ad quem cum M. Aurelius legatus uenisset edocuissetque eum quantos exercitus, quantum nauium numerum comparasset rex, et quemadmodum circa omnes non continentis modo urbes sed etiam insulas partim ipse adeundo, partim per legatos conciret homines ad arma: maiore conatu Romanis id capessendum bellum esse, ne cunctantibus iis auderet Philippus quod Pyrrhus prius ausus ex aliquanto minore regno esset—haec scribere eadem Aurelium consulibus senatuique placuit.
[3] As soon as he held a meeting of the senate, with everyone demanding that he take up no matter before that concerning Philip and the complaints of the allies, the matter was immediately brought forward; and a full senate decreed that Publius Aelius, the consul, should send with imperium whomsoever he judged proper, who, once he had received the fleet which Gnaeus Octavius was bringing back from Sicily, should cross over into Macedonia. Marcus Valerius Laevinus, propraetor, having been sent, crossed over into Macedonia near Vibo after receiving forty-eight ships from Gnaeus Octavius. And when Marcus Aurelius, legate, had come to him and had informed him how great armies and what number of ships the king had prepared, and how, around all the cities not only of the mainland but also the islands, partly by going himself, partly through envoys, he was stirring men to arms: that this war had to be undertaken by the Romans with greater effort, lest, while they delayed, Philip should dare what Pyrrhus earlier had dared from a somewhat smaller kingdom—Aurelius was also directed to write these same things to the consuls and to the senate.
[4] Exitu huius anni cum de agris ueterum militum relatum esset qui ductu atque auspicio P. Scipionis in Africa bellum perfecissent, decreuerunt patres ut M. Iunius praetor urbanus, si ei uideretur, decemuiros agro Samniti Apuloque, quod eius publicum populi Romani esset, metiendo diuidendoque crearet. creati P. Seruilius Q. Caecilius Metellus C. et M. Seruilii—Geminis ambobus cognomen erat—L. et A. Hostilii Catones P. Villius Tappulus M. Fuluius Flaccus P. Aelius Paetus T. Quinctius Flamininus.
[4] At the end of this year, when a motion had been brought regarding the lands of the veteran soldiers who, under the leadership and auspices of P. Scipio, had completed the war in Africa, the Fathers decreed that M. Junius, the urban praetor, should, if it seemed good to him, appoint ten men for measuring and dividing the Samnite and Apulian land, such portion of it as was public property of the Roman people. Appointed were P. Servilius, Q. Caecilius Metellus, C. and M. Servilii—“Geminus” was the cognomen of both—L. and A. Hostilii Catones, P. Villius Tappulus, M. Fulvius Flaccus, P. Aelius Paetus, T. Quinctius Flamininus.
Per eos dies P. Aelio consule comitia habente creati consules P. Sulpicius Galba C. Aurelius Cotta. praetores exinde facti Q. Minucius Rufus L. Furius Purpurio Q. Fuluius Gillo C. Sergius Plautus. ludi Romani scaenici eo anno magnifice apparateque facti ab aedilibus curulibus L. Valerio Flacco et L. Quinctio Flaminino; biduum instauratum est; frumentique uim ingentem quod ex Africa P. Scipio miserat quaternis aeris populo cum summa fide et gratia diuiserunt.
During those days, with P. Aelius, consul, holding the comitia, there were elected consuls P. Sulpicius Galba and C. Aurelius Cotta. Thereafter praetors were made: Q. Minucius Rufus, L. Furius Purpurio, Q. Fulvius Gillo, C. Sergius Plautus. The Roman scenic games that year were conducted magnificently and with elaborate preparation by the curule aediles L. Valerius Flaccus and L. Quinctius Flamininus; a two-day reinstatement was held; and they distributed to the people, with the highest good faith and favor, an immense quantity of grain which P. Scipio had sent from Africa, at four asses apiece.
[5] Anno quingentesimo quinquagesimo primo ab urbe condita, P. Sulpicio Galba C. Aurelio consulibus, bellum cum rege Philippo initum est, paucis mensibus post pacem Carthaginiensibus datam. omnium primum eam rem idibus Martiis, quo die tum consulatus inibatur, P. Sulpicius consul rettulit senatusque decreuit uti consules maioribus hostiis rem diuinam facerent quibus diis ipsis uideretur cum precatione ea, 'quod senatus populusque Romanus de re publica deque ineundo nouo bello in animo haberet, ea res uti populo Romano sociisque ac nomini Latino bene ac feliciter eueniret'; secundum rem diuinam precationemque ut de re publica deque prouinciis senatum consulerent. per eos dies opportune inritandis ad bellum animis et litterae ab M. Aurelio legato et M. Valerio Laeuino propraetore allatae et Atheniensium noua legatio uenit quae regem adpropinquare finibus suis nuntiaret breuique non agros modo sed urbem etiam in dicione eius futuram nisi quid in Romanis auxilii foret.
[5] In the 551st year from the founding of the City, with P. Sulpicius Galba and C. Aurelius as consuls, war was initiated with King Philip, a few months after peace had been granted to the Carthaginians. First of all, on the Ides of March, on which day at that time the consulship was entered upon, P. Sulpicius, the consul, brought the matter before the senate, and the senate decreed that the consuls should perform a divine rite with greater victims to those gods themselves as should seem proper, with this prayer: “that what the senate and Roman people have in mind concerning the Republic and the undertaking of a new war, that matter may turn out well and happily for the Roman people, the allies, and the Latin name”; after the divine rite and the prayer, that they should consult the senate about the Republic and about the provinces. In those days, timely for inflaming spirits toward war, letters from M. Aurelius, legate, and M. Valerius Laevinus, propraetor, were delivered, and a new embassy of the Athenians arrived to announce that the king was approaching their borders, and that shortly not only their fields but the city too would be under his dominion, unless there were some aid in the Romans.
when the consuls had reported that the divine rite had been duly performed and that the gods had nodded assent to the prayer, the haruspices replying that the entrails had been favorable and that an extension of the boundaries, victory, and a triumph were portended, then the letters of Valerius and Aurelius were read and the envoys of the Athenians were heard. thereafter a decree of the senate was passed that thanks be given to the allies, because, though long solicited, they had not departed from their fidelity, not even under fear of a siege; as to sending aid, it was decided that a reply should be given when the consuls had drawn lots for their provinces, and that the consul to whom Macedonia fell as his province should bring before the people that war be declared upon King Philip of the Macedonians.
[6] P. Sulpicio prouincia Macedonia sorti euenit isque rogationem promulgauit, 'uellent iuberent Philippo regi Macedonibusque qui sub regno eius essent, ob iniurias armaque inlata sociis populi Romani bellum indici.' alteri consulum Aurelio Italia prouincia obtigit. praetores exinde sortiti sunt C. Sergius Plautus urbanam, Q. Fuluius Gillo Siciliam, Q. Minucius Rufus Bruttios, L. Furius Purpurio Galliam. rogatio de bello Macedonico primis comitiis ab omnibus ferme centuriis antiquata est.
[6] Macedonia fell by lot as a province to P. Sulpicius, and he published a bill, 'that they should be willing and should order that war be declared upon King Philip and the Macedonians who were under his rule, on account of the injuries and the arms brought against the allies of the Roman people.' To the other of the consuls, Aurelius, Italy fell as his province. Then the praetors drew lots: C. Sergius Plautus the urban jurisdiction, Q. Fulvius Gillo Sicily, Q. Minucius Rufus Bruttium, L. Furius Purpurio Gaul. The bill concerning the Macedonian war, at the first comitia, was rejected by almost all the centuries.
and since men, weary from the long duration and gravity of the war, had of their own accord done that out of a weariness of dangers and labors, then Q. Baebius, tribune of the plebs, entering upon the ancient road of accusing the Fathers, had arraigned that wars were being sown out of wars, so that the plebs could never enjoy peace. the Fathers endured that matter with difficulty, and the tribune of the plebs was torn with reproaches in the senate; and each man urged the consul to proclaim anew the comitia for bringing the bill, to chastise the sluggishness of the people, and to instruct how great a loss and disgrace that postponement of the war would be.
[7] Consul in campo Martio comitiis, priusquam centurias in suffragium mitteret, contione aduocata, 'ignorare' inquit 'mihi uidemini, Quirites, non utrum bellum an pacem habeatis uos consuli—neque enim liberum id uobis Philippus permittet, qui terra marique ingens bellum molitur—sed utrum in Macedoniam legiones transportetis an hostes in Italiam accipiatis. hoc quantum intersit, sin unquam ante alias, proximo certe Punico bello experti estis. quis enim dubitat quin, si Saguntinis obsessis fidemque nostram implorantibus impigre tulissemus opem, sicut patres nostri Mamertinis tulerant, totum in Hispaniam auersuri bellum fuerimus, quod cunctando cum summa clade nostra in Italiam accepimus?
[7] The consul, on the Campus Martius at the elections, before he sent the centuries to the vote, having called an assembly, said: "You seem to me, Quirites, not to understand that it is not for you to decide whether you have war or peace—for Philip will not allow you that freedom, as he is engineering a vast war by land and sea—but whether you will transport legions into Macedonia or receive enemies into Italy. How much this matters, if ever more than at other times, you certainly learned in the most recent Punic war. For who doubts that, if, when the Saguntines were besieged and imploring our good faith, we had vigorously brought them aid, as our fathers brought it to the Mamertines, we should have diverted the whole war into Spain, which by delaying we admitted into Italy with the utmost disaster to ourselves?"
Nor is that even doubtful: that we kept this very Philip confined in Macedonia—though he had already struck a pact through envoys and letters with Hannibal to cross into Italy—by sending Laevinus with a fleet to carry war to him of our own accord. And what we did then, when we had the enemy Hannibal in Italy, do we now hesitate to do, with Hannibal driven from Italy and the Carthaginians conquered? Shall we allow the king to test our sluggishness by the storming of Athens, just as by the storming of Sagunto we allowed Hannibal? He will arrive in Italy not in the fifth month from there, as Hannibal from Sagunto, but on the fifth [thence] day from when he loosens his ships from Corinth.
How much more—Italy flourishing, our affairs more intact, our commanders safe, so many armies safe which the Punic war afterward consumed—when he set upon us, did Pyrrhus nevertheless shake us, and as a victor he came almost to the very city of Rome. Nor did only the Tarentines and those shores of Italy which they call Greater Greece—as you would think them to have followed the Greek tongue and name—fall away from us, but the Lucanian and the Bruttian and the Samnite did as well. Do you believe that these will keep quiet or remain in loyalty, if Philip crosses over into Italy?
Macedonia rather than Italy should have the war; let the cities and fields of the enemy be devastated with iron and fire. We have already experienced that our arms are more felicitous and more potent abroad than at home. Go to the vote with the gods kindly aiding, and command what the Fathers have decreed.
‘Of this opinion not the consul alone is an authority for you, but even the immortal gods, who, as I was sacrificing and praying that this war might turn out well and happily for me, for the senate and for you, for our allies and the Latin name, for our fleets and our armies, portend all things joyful and prosperous.’
[8] Ab hac oratione in suffragium missi, uti rogaret, bellum iusserunt. supplicatio inde a consulibus in triduum ex senatus consulto indicta est, obsecratique circa omnia puluinaria di ut quod bellum cum Philippo populus iussisset, id bene ac feliciter eueniret; consultique fetiales ab consule Sulpicio, bellum quod indiceretur regi Philippo utrum ipsi utique nuntiari iuberent an satis esset in finibus regni quod proximum praesidium esset, eo nuntiari. fetiales decreuerunt utrum eorum fecisset recte facturum.
[8] After this oration, being sent to the vote, as he put the question, they ordered war. Then a supplication for three days was proclaimed by the consuls by decree of the senate, and the gods were besought around all the pulvinaria that the war with Philip which the people had ordered might turn out well and happily; and the fetials were consulted by Consul Sulpicius, concerning the war which was to be declared against King Philip, whether they ordered that it by all means be announced to himself in person, or whether it were sufficient that, on the borders of the kingdom, to whatever garrison was nearest, it be announced there. The fetials decreed that whichever of those he should do, he would do rightly.
Tum de exercitibus consulum praetorumque actum. consules binas legiones scribere iussi, ueteres dimittere exercitus. Sulpicio, cui nouum ac magni nominis bellum decretum erat, permissum ut de exercitu quem P. Scipio ex Africa deportasset uoluntarios, quos posset, duceret: inuitum ne quem militem ueterem ducendi ius esset.
Then there was action taken concerning the armies of the consuls and praetors. The consuls were ordered to enroll two legions apiece, and to discharge the veteran armies. To Sulpicius, to whom a new war of great renown had been assigned, it was permitted to take from the army which P. Scipio had brought back from Africa volunteers, as many as he could; but he was to have no right to lead any veteran soldier who was unwilling.
to the praetors L. Furius Purpureo and Q. Minucius Rufus the consuls were to give five thousand apiece of the allies of the Latin name, by which garrisons the one should hold Gaul, the other the province of the Bruttii. Q. Fulvius Gillo himself was ordered, from that army which the consul P. Aelius had had, to enroll those who had the fewest campaigns, until he too had made up five thousand of allies of the Latin name: that would be the garrison for the province of Sicily. For M. Valerius Falto, who as praetor in the previous year had held Campania as his province, his imperium was prolonged for a year, to the end that, as propraetor, he should cross over to Sardinia; he too was to select from the army which was there five thousand of the allies of the Latin name, those among them who had the fewest campaigns.
[9] In ipso apparatu belli legati a rege Ptolomaeo uenerunt qui nuntiarent Athenienses aduersus Philippum petisse ab rege auxilium: ceterum, etsi communes socii sint, tamen nisi ex auctoritate populi Romani neque classem neque exercitum defendendi aut oppugnandi cuiusquam causa regem in Graeciam missurum esse; uel quieturum eum in regno, si populo Romano socios defendere libeat, uel Romanos quiescere, si malint, passurum atque ipsum auxilia, quae facile aduersus Philippum tueri Athenas possent, missurum. gratiae regi ab senatu actae responsumque tutari socios populo Romano in animo esse: si qua re ad id bellum opus sit indicaturos regi, regnique eius opes scire subsidia firma ac fidelia suae rei publicae esse. munera deinde legatis in singulos quinum milium aeris ex senatus consulto missa.
[9] In the very apparatus of war, envoys came from King Ptolemy to announce that the Athenians, against Philip, had sought aid from the king; however, although they are common allies, nevertheless, unless by the authority of the Roman people, the king would send neither fleet nor army into Greece for the sake of defending or attacking anyone; he would either remain quiet in his kingdom, if it should please the Roman people to defend their allies, or he would allow the Romans to be quiet, if they prefer, and he himself would send auxiliaries which could easily protect Athens against Philip. Thanks were given to the king by the Senate, and the response was that it is the intention of the Roman people to safeguard their allies: if in any respect there is need for that war, they would notify the king; and they know that the resources of his kingdom are firm and faithful supports of their commonwealth. Then gifts to the envoys, five thousand asses apiece, were sent by decree of the Senate.
Cum dilectum consules haberent pararentque quae ad bellum opus essent, ciuitas religiosa in principiis maxime nouorum bellorum, supplicationibus habitis iam et obsecratione circa omnia puluinaria facta, ne quid praetermitteretur quod aliquando factum esset, ludos Ioui donumque uouere consulem cui prouincia Macedonia euenisset iussit. moram uoto publico Licinius pontifex maximus attulit, qui negauit ex incerta pecunia uoueri debere, quia <ea> pecunia non posset in bellum usui esse seponique statim deberet nec cum alia pecunia misceri: quod si factum esset, uotum rite solui non posse. quamquam et res et auctor mouebat, tamen ad collegium pontificum referre consul iussus si posset recte uotum incertae pecuniae suscipi.
While the consuls were holding a levy and preparing the things that were needful for war, the state—scrupulously religious, especially at the beginnings of new wars—supplications having already been held and an obsecration made around all the pulvinars, lest anything be omitted which had ever been done, ordered that the consul to whom the province of Macedonia had fallen should vow games to Jupiter and a gift. Licinius, the pontifex maximus, put a delay upon the public vow, declaring that it ought not to be vowed out of uncertain money, because that money could not be for use in the war and ought to be set aside at once, nor be mixed with other money; and if that were done, the vow could not be duly discharged. Although both the matter and the authority moved them, nevertheless the consul was ordered to refer to the college of pontiffs, to see whether a vow could rightly be undertaken from uncertain money.
the pontiffs decreed that it could be done, and that this was even more correct. The consul vowed in the same words, with the pontifex maximus prompting, in which previously the quinquennial vows were accustomed to be undertaken, except that he vowed he would perform the games and gifts with as much money as the senate should have resolved at the time when it was to be discharged. Eight times before the Great Games had been vowed from a definite sum of money; these were the first from an indefinite sum.
[10] Omnium animis in bellum Macedonicum uersis repente, nihil minus eo tempore timentibus, Gallici tumultus fama exorta. Insubres Cenomanique et Boii excitis Celinibus Iluatibusque et ceteris Ligustinis populis, Hamilcare Poeno duce, qui in iis locis de Hasdrubalis exercitu substiterat, Placentiam inuaserant; et direpta urbe ac per iram magna ex parte incensa, uix duobus milibus hominum inter incendia ruinasque relictis, traiecto Pado ad Cremonam diripiendam pergunt. uicinae urbis audita clades spatium colonis dedit ad claudendas portas praesidiaque per muros disponenda, ut obsiderentur tamen prius quam expugnarentur nuntiosque mitterent ad praetorem Romanum.
[10] With everyone’s minds turned toward the Macedonian war, suddenly—when they were fearing nothing less at that time—the report of a Gallic tumult arose. The Insubres, the Cenomani, and the Boii, with the Celini and the Iluates and the other Ligustine peoples stirred up, under the leadership of Hamilcar the Carthaginian, who had remained in those places from Hasdrubal’s army, had invaded Placentia; and the city, plundered and, in anger, for the most part burned, with scarcely two thousand men left amid the fires and ruins, they crossed the Po and proceed toward Cremona to sack it. The disaster of the neighboring city, once heard, gave the colonists time for shutting the gates and for arranging garrisons along the walls, so that they were besieged, however, before they were stormed, and they sent messengers to the Roman praetor.
L. Furius Purpurio then was commanding the province, the rest of the army having been dismissed by decree of the senate except five thousand of the allies and of the Latin name; with those forces he had halted in the nearest region of the province around Ariminum. He then wrote to the senate in what tumult the province was: of the two colonies which had escaped that huge tempest of the Punic war, the one had been captured and despoiled by the enemy, the other was being besieged; nor would there be in his army sufficient protection for the colonists in their distress unless he should wish to throw five thousand of the allies to be butchered by forty thousand enemies—for so many were in arms—and that by the destruction of a Roman colony the spirits of the enemies, already swollen by so great a disaster of ours, would be increased.
[11] His litteris recitatis decreuerunt ut C. Aurelius consul exercitum, cui in Etruriam ad conueniendum diem edixerat, Arimini eadem die adesse iuberet et aut ipse, si per commodum rei publicae posset, ad opprimendum Gallicum tumultum proficisceretur aut Q. Minucio praetori scriberet ut, cum ad eum legiones ex Etruria uenissent, missis in uicem earum quinque milibus sociorum quae interim Etruriae praesidio essent, proficisceretur ipse ad coloniam liberandam obsidione.
[11] When these letters had been read aloud, they decreed that Gaius Aurelius, the consul, should order the army, for which he had appointed a day for convening in Etruria, to be at Ariminum on the same day; and that either he himself, if it could be done with advantage to the commonwealth, should set out to suppress the Gallic tumult, or he should write to the praetor Quintus Minucius that, when the legions had come to him from Etruria, having sent in their stead 5,000 of the allies to be in the meantime a garrison for Etruria, he himself should set out to free the colony from the siege.
Legatos item mittendos in Africam censuerunt, eosdem Carthaginem, eosdem in Numidiam ad Masinissam: Carthaginem ut nuntiarent ciuem eorum Hamilcarem relictum in Gallia—haud satis scire ex Hasdrubalis prius an ex Magonis postea exercitu—bellum contra foedus facere, exercitus Gallorum Ligurumque exciuisse ad arma contra populum Romanum; eum, si pax placeret, reuocandum illis et dedendum populo Romano esse. simul nuntiare iussi perfugas sibi non omnes redditos esse ac magnam partem eorum palam Carthagini obuersari dici; quos comprehendi conquirique debere ut sibi ex foedere restituantur. haec ad Carthaginienses mandata.
Likewise they decreed that legates should be sent into Africa—the same men to Carthage, and the same to Numidia to Masinissa: to Carthage, to announce that their fellow-citizen Hamilcar, left behind in Gaul—without their knowing well whether from Hasdrubal’s earlier army or later from Mago’s—was waging war contrary to the treaty, and had stirred the armies of the Gauls and Ligurians to arms against the Roman People; that he, if peace was their pleasure, must by them be recalled and surrendered to the Roman People. At the same time they were ordered to announce that not all the deserters had been returned to them, and that a great part of them were said to be openly present at Carthage; that these ought to be apprehended and searched out, in order that they may be restored to them in accordance with the treaty. These were the mandates to the Carthaginians.
They were instructed to congratulate Masinissa because he had recovered not only his ancestral kingdom but had even increased it by the addition of the most flourishing part of Syphax’s territories. They were further instructed to announce that a war had been undertaken with King Philip, because he had aided the Carthaginians with auxiliaries and, by inflicting injuries upon the allies of the Roman People while the war in Italy was blazing, had compelled fleets and armies to be sent into Greece and had been, above all, the cause of detaining the forces and thus of a later crossing into Africa; and they were to request that he send to that war auxiliaries of Numidian horsemen. Ample gifts were given for them to carry to the king: golden and silver vessels, a purple toga and a palm-embroidered tunic with an ivory staff, and a toga with a purple border together with a curule chair; and they were ordered to promise that, if he should indicate that he needed anything for strengthening and augmenting his kingdom, the Roman People, in view of his merit, would earnestly provide it.
Verminae quoque Syphacis filii legati per eos dies senatum adierunt excusantes errorem adulescentiamque et culpam omnem in fraudem Carthaginiensium auertentes: et Masinissam Romanis ex hoste amicum factum, Verminam quoque adnisurum ne officiis in populum Romanum aut a Masinissa aut ab ullo alio uincatur; petere ut rex sociusque et amicus ab senatu appellaretur. responsum legatis est et patrem eius Syphacem sine causa ex socio et amico hostem repente populi Romani factum et eum ipsum rudimentum adulescentiae bello lacessentem Romanos posuisse; itaque pacem illi prius petendam ab populo Romano esse quam ut rex sociusque et amicus appelletur: nominis eius honorem pro magnis erga se regum meritis dare populum Romanum consuesse. legatos Romanos in Africa fore, quibus mandaturum senatum ut Verminae pacis dent leges, liberum arbitrium eius populo Romano permittendi: si quid ad eas addi, demi mutariue uellet, rursus ab senatu ei postulandum fore.
Envoys of Vermina, too, the son of Syphax, during those days approached the senate, excusing error and adolescence and diverting all blame onto the fraud of the Carthaginians: and that Masinissa had been made from an enemy a friend to the Romans, and that Vermina likewise would strive not to be surpassed in services toward the Roman People either by Masinissa or by any other; they asked that he be styled by the senate king and ally and friend. The envoys were answered that both his father Syphax, without cause, from ally and friend had suddenly become an enemy of the Roman People, and that he himself, as the first rudiment of youth, had set about provoking the Romans by war; and so peace must first be sought by him from the Roman People before he be called king and ally and friend: the Roman People are accustomed to grant the honor of that title in return for great merits of kings toward themselves. Roman envoys would be in Africa, to whom the senate would give a mandate to grant terms of peace to Vermina, with his granting to the Roman People free discretion over himself: if he should wish anything to be added to, taken from, or changed in them, he would have to request it again from the senate.
[12] Litterae deinde in senatu recitatae sunt Q. Minuci praetoris, cui Bruttii prouincia erat: pecuniam Locris ex Proserpinae thesauris nocte clam sublatam nec ad quos pertineat facinus uestigia ulla exstare. indigne passus senatus non cessari ab sacrilegiis et ne Pleminium quidem, tam clarum recensque noxae simul ac poenae exemplum, homines deterrere. C. Aurelio consuli negotium datum ut ad praetorem in Bruttios scriberet: senatui placere quaestionem de expilatis thesauris eodem exemplo haberi quo M. Pomponius praetor triennio ante habuisset; quae inuenta pecunia esset, reponi; si quo minus inuentum foret, expleri ac piacularia, si uideretur, sicut ante pontifices censuissent, fieri.
[12] Then letters were read in the senate from Quintus Minucius, the praetor to whom the Bruttian province belonged: that money at Locri from Proserpina’s treasury had been secretly removed by night, and that no traces existed as to whom the crime pertained. The senate took it indignantly that sacrileges did not cease, and that not even Pleminius, so illustrious and recent an example of guilt and likewise of punishment, deterred men. The business was assigned to the consul Gaius Aurelius to write to the praetor in Bruttium: that it was the senate’s pleasure that an inquiry concerning the plundered treasures be held on the same precedent by which the praetor Marcus Pomponius had held it three years before; that whatever money was found be replaced; if any deficiency should be found, it be made up, and that expiatory rites, if it seemed good, be performed, just as the pontiffs had previously determined.
Prodigies too, reported at the same time in several places, inflamed the concern for expiating the violation of that temple. Among the Lucanians they reported that the sky had burned; at Privernum, with a clear sky, the sun was red for the whole day; at Lanuvium, in the temple of Juno Sospita, by night a huge clamor arose. Already obscene offspring of animals were being reported in several places: in the Sabine country an infant was born of uncertain sex, whether male or female; another, already sixteen years old, likewise of ambiguous sex, was found; at Frusino, a lamb with a swine’s head; at Sinuessa, a pig born with a human head; among the Lucanians, on public land, a colt with five feet.
All things were seen foul and deformed, and nature seeming to wander into alien offspring: above all, hermaphrodites were abominated and were ordered to be carried off to the sea at once, just as most recently, in the consulship of C. Claudius and M. Livius, an offspring of a like prodigy had been carried away. Nonetheless they ordered the decemvirs to consult the books regarding that portent. The decemvirs, from the books, commanded the same divine rites to be performed as most recently had been done after that prodigy.
Moreover they ordered that a song be sung through the city by 27 virgins, and that a gift be borne to Juno the Queen. Gaius Aurelius the consul, in accordance with the response of the decemvirs, took care that these things be done. The song—just as in the memory of the fathers Livius had done—was on that occasion composed by Publius Licinius Tegula.
[13] Expiatis omnibus religionibus—nam etiam Locris sacrilegium peruestigatum ab Q. Minucio erat pecuniaque ex bonis noxiorum in thesauros reposita—cum consules in prouincias proficisci uellent, priuati frequentes, quibus ex pecunia quam M. Valerio M. Claudio consulibus mutuam dederant tertia pensio debebatur eo anno, adierunt senatum, quia consules, cum ad nouum bellum quod magna classe magnisque exercitibus gerendum esset uix aerarium sufficeret, negauerant esse unde iis in praesentia solueretur. senatus querentes eos non sustinuit: si in Punicum bellum pecunia data in Macedonicum quoque bellum uti res publica uellet, aliis ex aliis orientibus bellis quid aliud quam publicatam pro beneficio tamquam ob noxiam suam pecuniam fore? cum et priuati aequum postularent nec tamen soluendo aere alieno res publica esset, quod medium inter aequum et utile erat decreuerunt, ut, quoniam magna pars eorum agros uolgo uenales esse diceret et sibimet emptis opus esse, agri publici qui intra quinquagesimum lapidem esset copia iis fieret: consules agrum aestimaturos et in iugera asses uectigal testandi causa publicum agrum esse imposituros, ut si quis, cum soluere posset populus, pecuniam habere quam agrum mallet, restitueret agrum populo.
[13] With all religious obligations expiated—for at Locri too the sacrilege had been thoroughly investigated by Q. Minucius, and the money from the goods of the guilty was replaced in the treasuries—when the consuls wished to set out to their provinces, numerous private citizens, to whom, from the money which they had lent in the consulship of M. Valerius and M. Claudius, a third installment was owed that year, approached the senate, because the consuls—since for a new war, which was to be conducted with a great fleet and great armies, the treasury was scarcely sufficient—had said there was no source from which it could be paid to them at present. The senate did not sustain them in their complaints: if the money given for the Punic war the commonwealth should also wish to use for the Macedonian war, with wars rising one out of another, what else would happen than that their money, given as a benefaction, would be made public property (confiscated) as if on account of their own fault? Since both the private parties were asking what was equitable, and yet the state was not able to discharge the public debt, they decreed what was a middle course between the equitable and the expedient: namely, that, since a great part of them said that fields were commonly for sale and that they needed to buy for themselves, the public land that was within the 50th milestone should be made available to them; the consuls would appraise the land and impose as a ground-rent asses per iugerum, for the purpose of attesting that it was public land, so that if anyone, when the people could make payment, preferred to have money rather than the land, he should restore the land to the people.
[14] Tum P. Sulpicius secundum uota in Capitolio nuncupata paludatis lictoribus profectus ab urbe Brundisium uenit et, ueteribus militibus uoluntariis ex Africano exercitu in legiones discriptis nauibusque ex classe Cn. Corneli electis, altero die quam a Brundisio soluit in Macedoniam traiecit. ibi ei praesto fuere Atheniensium legati orantes ut se obsidione eximeret. missus extemplo Athenas est C. Claudius Cento cum uiginti longis nauibus et mille militum—neque enim ipse rex Athenas obsidebat: eo maxime tempore Abydum oppugnabat, iam cum Rhodiis et Attalo naualibus certaminibus, neutro feliciter proelio, uires expertus, sed animos ei faciebat praeter ferociam insitam foedus ictum cum Antiocho Syriae rege diuisaeque iam cum eo Aegypti opes, cui morte audita Ptolomaei regis ambo imminebant.
[14] Then P. Sulpicius, after vows were pronounced on the Capitol, set out with his lictors in military cloaks and came from the city to Brundisium; and, with veteran volunteer soldiers from the African army assigned into legions and ships chosen from the fleet of Cn. Cornelius, on the second day after he put out from Brundisium he crossed over into Macedonia. There envoys of the Athenians were at hand for him, begging that he free them from the siege. C. Claudius Cento was sent straightway to Athens with twenty long ships and a thousand soldiers— for the king himself was not besieging Athens: at that very time he was assaulting Abydus, already having tested his forces in naval contests with the Rhodians and Attalus, with neither battle fortunate; but, besides the fierceness inborn, a treaty struck with Antiochus, king of Syria, and the resources of Egypt already partitioned with him, gave him spirit; and upon that realm, when the death of King Ptolemy was heard, both were looming.
Contraxerant autem sibi cum Philippo bellum Athenienses haudquaquam digna causa, dum ex uetere fortuna nihil praeter animos seruant. Acarnanes duo iuuenes per initiorum dies non initiati templum Cereris imprudentes religionis cum cetera turba ingressi sunt. facile eos sermo prodidit absurde quaedam percunctantes, deductique ad antistites templi, cum palam esset per errorem ingressos, tamquam ob infandum scelus interfecti sunt.
The Athenians had contracted war for themselves with Philip for by no means a worthy cause, while from their former fortune they preserved nothing except their spirit. Two Acarnanian youths, uninitiated, during the days of the initiations, entered the temple of Ceres, ignorant of the religion, along with the rest of the crowd. Their speech easily betrayed them as they were inquiring about certain absurd things; and, led to the temple’s priests, since it was clear they had entered by error, they were put to death as though on account of an unspeakable crime.
that deed, so foully and in a hostile manner, the Acarnanian nation reported to Philip, and they obtained from him that, Macedonian auxiliaries being furnished, he would permit them to bring war against the Athenians. This army, having first ravaged the land of Attica with iron and fire, returned into Acarnania with booty of every kind. And that indeed was the first irritation of spirits; afterwards a just war was produced, by the decrees of the commonwealth, by declaring it of their own accord.
For King Attalus and the Rhodians, having pursued Philip as he retreated into Macedonia, when they had come to Aegina, the king crossed over to the Piraeus for the sake of renewing and strengthening the alliance with the Athenians. The whole citizenry poured out to meet him with their wives and children; the priests, with their own insignia, received him as he entered the city, and, as it were, the gods themselves, roused from their seats, received him.
[15] In contionem extemplo populus uocatus ut rex quae uellet coram ageret; deinde ex dignitate magis uisum scribere eum de quibus uideretur quam praesentem aut referendis suis in ciuitatem beneficiis erubescere aut significationibus acclamationibusque multitudinis adsentatione immodica pudorem onerantis. in litteris autem, quae missae in contionem recitataeque sunt, commemoratio erat beneficiorum primum in ciuitatem suorum, deinde rerum quas aduersus Philippum gessisset, ad postremum adhortatio capessendi belli dum se, dum Rhodios, tum quidem dum etiam Romanos haberent: nequiquam postea, si tum cessassent, praetermissam occasionem quaesituros. Rhodii deinde legati auditi sunt; quorum recens erat beneficium, quod naues longas quattuor Atheniensium captas nuper ab Macedonibus reciperatasque remiserant.
[15] Forthwith the people were called into an assembly, that the king might conduct in person what he wished; then it seemed more in keeping with dignity that he should write about whatever should seem proper than, being present, either blush while recounting his benefactions to the city, or have his modesty laden by the signals and acclamations of the multitude with immoderate adulation. But in the letters, which were sent into the assembly and read aloud, there was first a commemoration of his benefactions to the city, then of the things he had carried on against Philip, and finally an exhortation to undertake war, while they had himself, while they had the Rhodians, indeed at that time while they even had the Romans: afterwards, if they then held back, they would in vain seek the opportunity that had been let slip. Then the envoys of the Rhodians were heard; whose benefaction was recent, that they had lately recovered from the Macedonians and sent back four Athenian long ships that had been captured.
accordingly by a huge consensus war against Philip was decreed. Honors first to King Attalus were immoderate, then also to the Rhodians were paid: then for the first time mention was introduced of a tribe which they would call the Attalid, to be added to the ten ancient tribes, and the people of the Rhodians were presented with a golden crown for valor, and citizenship was granted to the Rhodians just as the Rhodians had previously granted it to the Athenians. After these things King Attalus withdrew to Aegina to the fleet; the Rhodians from Aegina to Ceos, then through the islands they sailed to Rhodes, with all, except Andros, Paros, and Cythnus—which were held by Macedonian garrisons—received into the alliance.
Messengers sent into Aetolia kept Attalus at Aegina, and envoys awaited from there held him for some time doing nothing. But he could not call them out to arms, as they rejoiced in the peace, however arranged, with Philip; and both he himself and the Rhodians—although, if they had pressed Philip, they might have had the excellent title of a Greece freed by their own efforts—by allowing him again to cross into the Hellespont and, by seizing the opportune places of Thrace, to collect strength, they fostered the war and conceded to the Romans the glory of its being carried through and completed.
[16] Philippus magis regio animo est usus; qui cum Attalum Rhodiosque hostes non sustinuisset, ne Romano quidem quod imminebat bello territus, Philocle quodam ex praefectis suis cum duobus milibus peditum, equitibus ducentis ad populandos Atheniensium agros misso, classe tradita Heraclidi ut Maroneam peteret, ipse terra eodem cum expeditis duobus milibus peditum, equitibus ducentis pergit. et Maroneam quidem primo impetu expugnauit; Aenum inde cum magno labore, postremo per proditionem Callimedis praefecti Ptolomaei, cepit. deinceps alia castella, Cypsela et Doriscon et Serrheum, occupat.
[16] Philip used a more kingly spirit; and although he had not withstood Attalus and the Rhodians as enemies, yet, not even terrified by the Roman war that was impending, after sending a certain Philocles, one of his prefects, with two thousand infantry and two hundred cavalry to ravage the fields of the Athenians, and handing over the fleet to Heraclides to make for Maronea, he himself proceeds by land to the same place with two thousand light-armed infantry and two hundred cavalry. And Maronea, indeed, he stormed at the first assault; then Aenus, though with great labor, he at last took through the treachery of Callimedes, prefect of Ptolemy. Thereafter he occupies other forts, Cypsela and Doriscus and Serrheum.
thence advancing to the Chersonese he received Elaeus and Alopeconnesus, they themselves surrendering; Callipolis likewise and Madytus were given up, as well as certain ignoble forts. The Abydenians, not even admitting the legates, closed their gates to the king. That siege held Philip for a long time, and they could have been snatched from the blockade, if there had not been delay on the part of Attalus and the Rhodians.
Attalus sent only three hundred soldiers as a garrison, and the Rhodians one quadrireme from the fleet, as it was lying off Tenedos. To the same place later, when they could now scarcely sustain the siege, even Attalus himself, after he had crossed over, displayed only the hope of aid from close at hand, the allies being assisted neither by land nor by sea.
[17] Abydeni primo tormentis per muros dispositis non terra modo adeuntes aditu arcebant sed nauium quoque stationem infestam hosti faciebant; postea, cum et muri pars strata ruinis et ad interiorem raptim oppositum murum cuniculis iam peruentum esset, legatos ad regem de condicionibus tradendae urbis miserunt. paciscebantur autem ut Rhodiam quadriremem cum sociis naualibus Attalique praesidium emitti liceret atque ipsis urbe excedere cum singulis uestimentis. quibus cum Philippus nihil pacati nisi omnia per mittentibus respondisset, adeo renuntiata haec legatio ab indignatione simul ac desperatione iram accendit ut ad Saguntinam rabiem uersi matronas omnes in templo Dianae, pueros ingenuos uirginesque, infantes etiam cum suis nutricibus in gymnasio includi iuberent, aurum et argentum in forum deferri, uestem pretiosam in naues Rhodiam Cyzicenamque quae in portu erant coici, sacerdotes uictimasque adduci et altaria in medio poni.
[17] The Abydenians at first, with artillery placed along the walls, kept those approaching not only by land from access, but also made the station of ships hostile to the enemy; afterwards, when both a part of the wall had been laid low in ruins and by tunnels they had already reached the inner wall hastily set up opposite, they sent envoys to the king about the conditions for delivering the city. They were stipulating that it be permitted to send out the Rhodian quadrireme with her naval allies and Attalus’s garrison, and that they themselves depart the city with a single garment each. When Philip answered to these proposals nothing peaceable unless they yielded everything, the report of this embassy so inflamed their anger, from indignation and desperation alike, that, turned to Saguntine frenzy, they ordered all the matrons to be shut up in the temple of Diana, the freeborn boys and maidens, and even infants with their nurses, to be enclosed in the gymnasium, the gold and silver to be carried into the forum, the precious clothing to be thrown into the Rhodian and Cyzicene ships which were in the harbor, the priests and sacrificial victims to be brought in, and altars to be set in the middle.
There first were chosen men who, when they should see their own battle-line cut down, fighting before the shattered wall, would immediately slay their wives and children, cast the gold, silver, and clothing that was on the ships into the sea, and set fires beneath public and private buildings in as many places as they could: they were bound by oath to perpetrate this deed, the priests going before with an execrable chant; then the men of military age swear that no one shall leave the battle-line alive unless as a victor. These, mindful of the gods, fought so pertinaciously that, when night was about to break off the combat, the king first, terrified by their madness, desisted from the fight. The chiefs, to whom the more atrocious part of the deed had been delegated, when they saw that few, and exhausted by wounds and weariness, survived the battle, at first light send the priests with fillets to surrender the city to Philip.
[18] Ante deditionem ex iis legatis Romanis qui Alexandream missi erant M. Aemilius trium consensu, minimus natu, audita obsidione Abydenorum ad Philippum uenit. qui questus Attalo Rhodiisque arma inlata et quod tum maxime Abydum oppugnaret, cum rex ab Attalo et Rhodiis ultro se bello lacessitum diceret, 'num Abydeni quoque' inquit 'ultro tibi intulerunt arma?' insueto uera audire ferocior oratio uisa est quam quae habenda apud regem esset. 'aetas' inquit 'et forma et super omnia Romanum nomen te ferociorem facit.
[18] Before the surrender, from those Roman legates who had been sent to Alexandria, M. Aemilius, by the consensus of the three, the youngest in years, upon hearing of the siege of the Abydenians, came to Philip. He, having complained that arms had been brought against Attalus and the Rhodians, and that at that very time he was most especially assaulting Abydus, while the king was saying that he had been provoked to war by Attalus and the Rhodians of their own accord, said, 'Did the Abydenians too of their own accord bring arms against you?' To one unaccustomed to hear truths, the speech seemed more ferocious than what ought to be delivered before a king. 'Your age,' he said, 'and your appearance, and above all the Roman name, make you more ferocious.'
Ita dimisso legato Philippus auro argento quaeque <alia> coaceruata erant acceptis hominum praedam omnem amisit. tanta enim rabies multitudinem inuasit ut repente proditos rati qui pugnantes mortem occubuissent, periuriumque alius alii exprobrantes et sacerdotibus maxime, qui quos ad mortem deuouissent, eorum deditionem uiuorum hosti fecissent, repente omnes ad caedem coniugum liberorumque discurrerent seque ipsi per omnes uias leti interficerent. obstupefactus eo furore rex suppressit impetum militum et triduum se ad moriendum Abydenis dare dixit.
Thus, with the envoy dismissed, Philip, after receiving the gold, silver, and whatever <other things> had been heaped up, lost all the human booty. For such rabies seized the multitude that suddenly—thinking those who had fallen fighting had been betrayed, and reproaching one another with perjury, and most of all the priests, who had made over to surrender alive to the enemy those whom they had devoted to death—at once they all ran about to the slaughter of their wives and children, and put themselves to death along all the streets. Astounded at that fury, the king suppressed the soldiers’ onset and said that he gave the Abydenians three days for dying.
In that span the defeated perpetrated more crimes against themselves than hostile victors would have perpetrated, nor, except for anyone whom bonds or some other necessity prevented from dying, did anyone come alive into the enemy’s power. Philip, with a garrison imposed on Abydus, returned to his kingdom. And when, just as the excision of Saguntum had put Hannibal in heart for the Roman war, so the calamity of the Abydenes had put Philip in heart for it, messengers met him that the consul was already in Epirus and had brought the land forces into winter quarters at Apollonia, the naval forces at Corcyra.
[19] Inter haec legatis, qui in Africam missi erant, de Hamilcare Gallici exercitus duce responsum a Carthaginiensibus est nihil ultra se facere posse quam ut exilio eum multarent bonaque eius publicarent: perfugas et fugitiuos quos inquirendo uestigare potuerint reddidisse et de ea re missuros legatos Romam qui senatui satisfacerent. ducenta milia modium tritici Romam, ducenta ad exercitum in Macedoniam miserunt. inde in Numidiam ad reges profecti legati.
[19] Meanwhile, to the envoys who had been sent into Africa, concerning Hamilcar, commander of the Gallic army, the Carthaginians replied that they could do nothing further than to punish him with exile and to publicize (confiscate) his goods: that they had returned the deserters and fugitives whom they had been able to track down by inquiry, and that on this matter they would send envoys to Rome to satisfy the senate. They sent 200,000 modii of wheat to Rome, 200,000 to the army in Macedonia. From there the envoys set out into Numidia to the kings.
he advanced to meet the envoys at the first borders of his kingdom, and permitted that they themselves write whatever conditions of peace they wished: any peace would be good and just for him with the Roman people. the laws of peace were given, and he was ordered to send envoys to Rome to confirm it.
[20] Per idem tempus L. Cornelius Lentulus pro consule ex Hispania rediit. qui cum in senatu res ab se per multos annos fortiter feliciterque gestas exposuisset postulassetque ut triumphanti sibi inuehi liceret in urbem, res triumpho dignas esse censebat senatus, sed exemplum a maioribus non accepisse ut qui neque dictator neque consul neque praetor res gessisset triumpharet: pro consule illum Hispaniam prouinciam, non consulem aut praetorem obtinuisse. decurrebatur tamen eo ut ouans urbem iniret, intercedente Ti. Sempronio Longo tribuno plebis, qui nihilo magis id more maiorum aut ullo exemplo futurum diceret.
[20] About the same time L. Cornelius Lentulus, proconsul, returned from Spain. When he had set forth in the senate the affairs conducted by himself for many years bravely and successfully, and had requested that he be allowed to be carried in triumph into the city, the senate judged the deeds worthy of a triumph, but that they had not received from the ancestors a precedent that one who had conducted affairs neither as dictator nor consul nor praetor should triumph: that he had held Spain as a province as proconsul, not as consul or praetor. Nevertheless it was decided to this effect, that he should enter the city in an ovation, with Ti. Sempronius Longus, tribune of the plebs, interposing a veto, who said that not at all more would that be according to the custom of the ancestors or to any precedent.
[21] Iam exercitus consularis ab Arretio Ariminum transductus erat et quinque milia socium Latini nominis ex Gallia in Etruriam transierant. itaque L. Furius magnis itineribus ab Arimino aduersus Gallos Cremonam tum obsidentes profectus, castra mille quingentorum passuum interuallo ab hoste posuit. occasio egregie rei gerendae fuit, si protinus de uia ad castra oppugnanda duxisset: palati passim uagabantur per agros nullo satis firmo relicto praesidio; lassitudini militum timuit, quod raptim ductum agmen erat.
[21] Already the consular army had been led across from Arretium to Ariminum, and five thousand allies of the Latin name had crossed from Gaul into Etruria. Therefore L. Furius, by forced marches, set out from Ariminum against the Gauls who were then besieging Cremona, and he pitched his camp at a distance of one thousand five hundred paces from the enemy. There was an opportunity for a deed to be done with distinguished success, if he had led them straight from the road to assault the camp: scattered, they were wandering everywhere through the fields, no sufficiently firm garrison having been left; he feared the soldiers’ fatigue, because the column had been led in haste.
The Gauls, recalled from the fields by the shouting of their own men, abandoned the booty that was in their hands and returned to the camp; and on the following day they advanced into the battle-line. Nor did the Roman make any delay in fighting; but there was scarcely space for forming the line: at that pace the enemy came into battle. The right wing—he had the allied army divided into wings—was placed in the first line, with two Roman legions in reserve.
M. Furius was placed in command of the right wing, M. Caecilius of the legions, L. Valerius Flaccus of the cavalry—they were all legates. The praetor had with him two legates, C. Laetorius and P. Titinius, with whom he could reconnoiter and go to meet all the enemy’s sudden attempts. At first the Gauls, massed with their whole multitude into one place, hoped that they could overwhelm and crush the right wing itself, which was in the front line.
When that was making little progress, they tried to go around from the wings and enfold the enemy’s battle-line, which, with their multitude against a few, seemed easy. When the praetor saw this, so that he too might dilate the line, he places two legions from the reserves to the right and left of the wing which was fighting in the first line, and he vowed a temple to Jove, if on that day he should rout the enemy. He orders L. Valerius to send out against the enemy’s wings, on the one side the cavalry of the two legions, on the other the cavalry of the allies, and not to allow them to go around the line; at the same time he himself, when he saw the middle of the Gallic line attenuated by the wings having been drawn apart, orders the closely packed soldiers to bear in the standards and to break through the ranks.
and the wings were driven by the cavalry and the center by the infantry; and suddenly, as they were being laid low with immense slaughter on every side, the Gauls turned their backs and in headlong rout made for the camp again. The cavalry pursued the fugitives; soon the legions also followed up and made an assault upon the camp. Fewer than 6,000 men got away from there: more than 35,000 were slain or captured, with seventy military standards, and more than 200 Gallic wagons loaded with much booty.
[22] Magna uictoria laetaque Romae fuit: litteris allatis supplicatio in triduum decreta est. Romanorum sociorumque ad duo milia eo proelio ceciderunt, plurimi dextrae alae, in quam primo impetu uis hostium ingens inlata est. quamquam per praetorem prope debellatum erat, consul quoque C. Aurelius, perfectis quae Romae agenda fuerant, profectus in Galliam uictorem exercitum a praetore accepit.
[22] The victory was great and gladdening at Rome: when the letters had been brought, a supplication for three days was decreed. About two thousand of Romans and allies fell in that battle, very many of the right wing, against which at the first onset an immense force of the enemy was directed. Although by the praetor the war had been almost brought to an end, the consul Gaius Aurelius also, the things which had had to be done at Rome having been completed, set out into Gaul and received the victorious army from the praetor.
Consul alter cum autumno ferme exacto in prouinciam uenisset, circa Apolloniam hibernabat. ab classe, quae Corcyrae subducta erat, C. Claudius triremesque Romanae, sicut ante dictum est, Athenas missae cum Piraeum peruenissent, despondentibus iam animos sociis spem ingentem attulerant. nam et terrestres ab Corintho quae per Megara incursiones in agros fieri solitae erant non fiebant, et praedonum a Chalcide naues, quae non mare solum infestum sed etiam omnes maritimos agros Atheniensibus fecerant, non modo Sunium superare sed ne extra fretum <quidem> Euripi committere aperto mari se audebant.
The other consul, when autumn was almost spent, having come into the province, was wintering around Apollonia. From the fleet which had been hauled up at Corcyra, Gaius Claudius and the Roman triremes, as was said before, having been sent to Athens, when they reached the Piraeus, brought immense hope to the allies, whose spirits were already desponding. For both the terrestrial incursions from Corinth, which used to be made through Megara into the fields, were not occurring, and the pirates’ ships from Chalcis—which had made not only the sea unsafe but also all the maritime fields for the Athenians—did not dare to round Sunium, nor indeed to venture beyond the strait of the Euripus into the open sea.
To these there supervened three Rhodian quadriremes, and there were three Attic open ships, prepared to guard the maritime fields. If with this fleet the city and fields of the Athenians were defended, Claudius deemed it sufficient for the present; fortune offered an opportunity for an even greater affair.
[23] Exules ab Chalcide regiorum iniuriis pulsi attulerunt occupari Chalcidem sine certamine ullo posse; nam et Macedonas, quia nullus in propinquo sit hostium metus, uagari passim, et oppidanos praesidio Macedonum fretos custodiam urbis neglegere. his auctoribus profectus quamquam Sunium ita mature peruenerat ut inde prouehi ad primas angustias Euboeae posset, ne superato promunturio conspiceretur, classem in statione usque ad noctem tenuit. primis tenebris mouit et tranquillo peruectus Chalcidem paulo ante lucem, qua infrequentissima urbis sunt, paucis militibus turrim proximam murumque circa scalis cepit, alibi sopitis custodibus, alibi nullo custodiente.
[23] Exiles driven out from Chalcis by the injuries of the royal party brought word that Chalcis could be occupied without any contest; for both the Macedonians, because there is no fear of enemies near, roam everywhere, and the townspeople, relying on the Macedonian garrison, neglect the guard of the city. Setting out on these advisers’ authority, although he had reached Sunium early enough that from there he could put out to the first narrows of Euboea, in order that he might not be sighted after the promontory was rounded he held the fleet on station until night. At first darkness he got under way and, in a calm, was carried to Chalcis a little before dawn; at the hour when the parts of the city are least frequented, with a few soldiers he seized by ladders the nearest tower and the wall around it—elsewhere the guards being asleep, elsewhere with no one keeping watch.
Advancing thence to districts thick with buildings, with the guards slain and the gate broken open, they admitted the rest of the multitude of armed men. Then there was a rush throughout the entire city, the tumult being increased also because around the forum fire had been thrown onto the roofs: both the royal storehouses and the arsenal, with a huge apparatus of machines and artillery engines, went up in flames. Then slaughter began everywhere alike of those fleeing and those resisting; and now there was no one of military age who was not either cut down or put to flight, Sopater too, an Acarnanian, the prefect of the garrison, being killed. All the booty was first brought together into the forum, then loaded onto the ships.
the prison too was broken open by the Rhodians, and the captives were released whom Philip had stowed away as though in the most secure custody. then, the king’s statues having been thrown down and mutilated, with the signal for retreat given, they boarded the ships and returned to the Piraeus, whence they had set out. but if there had been so many Roman soldiers that both Chalcis could be held and the garrison of Athens need not have been abandoned, it would have been a great affair straightway at the beginning of the war: Chalcis and the Euripus would have been taken from the king; for as by land the narrows of Thermopylae shut in Greece, so by sea the strait of the Euripus encloses it.
[24] Demetriade tum Philippus erat. quo cum esset nuntiata clades sociae urbis, quamquam serum auxilium perditis <rebus> erat, tamen, quae proxima auxilio est, ultionem petens, cum expeditis quinque milibus peditum et trecentis equitibus extemplo profectus cursu prope Chalcidem contendit, haudquaquam dubius opprimi Romanos posse. a qua destitutus spe nec quicquam aliud quam ad deforme spectaculum semirutae ac fumantis sociae urbis cum uenisset, paucis uix qui sepelirent bello absumptos relictis aeque raptim ac uenerat transgressus ponte Euripum per Boeotiam Athenas ducit, pari incepto haud disparem euentum ratus responsurum.
[24] Philip was then at Demetrias. When the disaster of the allied city was announced to him, although aid was late for the ruined <affairs>, nevertheless, seeking vengeance, which is next to help, with 5,000 light-armed infantry and 300 cavalry he set out at once and by a rapid march pressed on near Chalcis, by no means doubting that the Romans could be overborne. Disappointed of that hope, and when he had come to nothing else than the hideous spectacle of the half-ruined and smoking allied city, leaving a few, scarcely sufficient, to bury those taken by the war, just as hastily as he had come, after crossing the Euripus by the bridge he leads through Boeotia to Athens, thinking that to an equal attempt a not dissimilar outcome would respond.
and it would have answered, had not a scout—hemerodromi the Greeks call them, traversing an enormous distance in one day’s course—having caught sight of the royal column from a certain lookout, gone on ahead and reached Athens at midnight. the same sleep and the same negligence were there which a few days before had betrayed Chalcis. roused by a fearful message, both the praetor of the Athenians and Dioxippus, prefect of the cohort of auxiliaries serving for pay, with the soldiers called into the forum, order the signal to be given by trumpet from the citadel, so that all might know that the enemies were at hand.
thus on all sides they run to the gates, to the walls. a few hours later Philip, yet somewhat before daybreak, approaching the city, on seeing numerous lights and, as in such a tumult, on hearing the roar of panic‑stricken men, held back the standards and ordered the column to halt and rest, intending to use open force openly, since stratagem had profited too little. he approached from the Dipylon Gate.
That gate, as though set at the mouth of the city, is somewhat larger and more open than the rest, and both within it and without it there are broad roads, so that the townspeople could align their battle line from the forum to the gate, and outside a roadway, nearly a thousand paces long, leading to the Academy’s gymnasium, might afford free space for the enemy’s infantry and cavalry. On that roadway the Athenians, with Attalus’s garrison and Dioxippus’s cohort, their line drawn up inside the gate, brought out the standards. When Philip saw this, thinking he had the enemies in his power and that he would sate his long-desired slaughter—for he was hostile to no Greek city more—he would fulfill his <anger>, he exhorted the soldiers to fight with their eyes on himself and to know that there the standards, there the battle line ought to be where the king was; he spurred his horse against the enemy, borne up not only by anger but also by glory, because, with the walls filled by a huge crowd—even for the spectacle—he deemed it glorious to be seen fighting.
somewhat before the battle line, having ridden out with a few horsemen into the midst of the enemy, he injected into his own men a huge ardor and into the enemy a panic. Having with his own hand wounded very many both at close quarters and from afar and having driven them in flight to the gate, he himself following, when he had inflicted a greater slaughter in the narrow places upon the panic-stricken, nevertheless had a safe withdrawal in a rash undertaking, because those who were on the towers of the gate held back their missiles so as not to hurl them upon their own men mixed with the enemy. Then, with the Athenian soldiers holding inside the walls, Philip, the signal for retreat having been given, set up camp at Cynosarges—there was a temple of Hercules, and a gymnasium, and a grove surrounding it—.
[25] Postero die cum primo clausae fuissent portae, deinde subito apertae quia praesidium Attali ab Aegina Romanique ab Piraeo intrauerant urbem, castra ab urbe rettulit rex tria ferme milia passuum. inde Eleusinem profectus spe improuiso templi castellique quod et imminet et circumdatum est templo capiendi, cum haudquaquam neglectas custodias animaduertisset et classem a Piraeo subsidio uenire, omisso incepto Megara ac protinus Corinthum ducit et, cum Argis Achaeorum concilium esse audisset, inopinantibus Achaeis contioni ipsi superuenit. consultabant de bello aduersus Nabim tyrannum Lacedaemoniorum, qui tralato imperio a Philopoemene ad Cycliadan, nequaquam parem illi ducem, dilapsa cernens Achaeorum auxilia redintegrauerat bellum agrosque finitimorum uastabat et iam urbibus quoque erat terribilis.
[25] On the next day, when at first the gates had been closed, then suddenly opened because Attalus’s garrison from Aegina and the Romans from the Piraeus had entered the city, the king moved his camp back from the city about three miles. Thence he set out for Eleusis, in the hope of seizing by surprise the temple and the fortress which both overhangs and encircles the temple; but when he observed that the guards were by no means negligent and that a fleet was coming from the Piraeus as a relief, abandoning the attempt he led to Megara and straightway to Corinth; and, when he had heard that at Argos there was a council of the Achaeans, he came upon the assembly itself with the Achaeans unawares. They were deliberating about war against Nabis, tyrant of the Lacedaemonians, who, the command having been transferred from Philopoemen to Cycliadas, by no means a leader equal to him, seeing the Achaeans’ auxiliaries dispersed, had renewed the war and was devastating the fields of the neighbors and was now terrible even to the cities as well.
Against this enemy, while they were deliberating how many soldiers should be levied from each city, Philip promised that he would relieve them of the concern so far as it pertained to Nabis and the Lacedaemonians, and that he would not only keep the allies’ fields from depredations but would transfer all the terror of the war into Laconia itself by leading his army there forthwith. When this speech was received with great assent of the men, he said, “Yet it is fair thus: that I be protected by your arms, lest meanwhile my own be stripped of garrisons. Therefore, if it seems good to you, prepare just so many soldiers as may suffice to defend Oreus and Chalcis and Corinth, so that, my rear being safe, I may without anxiety wage war upon Nabis and the Lacedaemonians.” The Achaeans were not deceived as to the aim of so benign a promise and the proffered aid against the Lacedaemonians: it was sought that he might lead the Achaean youth out of the Peloponnese as hostages, to bind the nation to the war with the Romans.
And Cycliadas, the praetor of the Achaeans, thinking it of no relevance to refute that point, after merely saying that by the laws of the Achaeans it is not permitted to bring a motion on matters other than those for which they had been convened, with a decree having been passed for preparing an army against Nabis, dismissed the council, which had been held bravely and freely—though before that day he had been counted among royal flatterers. Philip, his great hope dispelled, after enrolling a few volunteer soldiers, returned to Corinth and into the Attic land.
[26] Per eos ipsos dies quibus Philippus in Achaia fuit Philocles praefectus regius ex Euboea profectus cum duobus milibus Thracum Macedonumque ad depopulandos Atheniensium fines regione Eleusinis saltum Cithaeronis transcendit. inde dimidia parte militum ad praedandum passim per agros dimissa, cum parte ipse occultus loco ad insidias opportuno consedit ut, si ex castello ab Eleusine in praedantes suos impetus fieret, repente hostes effusos ex improuiso adoriretur. non fefellere insidiae.
[26] During those very days in which Philip was in Achaea, Philocles, the royal prefect, having set out from Euboea with two thousand Thracians and Macedonians to devastate the borders of the Athenians, crossed the pass of Cithaeron in the Eleusinian region. Thence, after he had sent out half of the soldiers to plunder everywhere through the fields, he himself, concealed with the rest in a place opportune for an ambuscade, took position, so that, if a sally should be made from the fort at Eleusis against his marauders, he might suddenly assail the enemy, spread out, by surprise. The ambush did not fail.
and so, having recalled the soldiers who had run about to plunder and having been drawn up to assault the Eleusinian castellum, he set out, and he withdrew from there with many wounds and joined himself to Philip as he was coming from Achaia. The oppugnation of that same castellum was also attempted by the king himself; but Roman ships coming from the Piraeus, and a praesidium having been admitted, compelled them to desist from the undertaking. Then, the army having been divided, the king sends Philocles with a part to Athens; with a part he proceeds to the Piraeus, in order that, while Philocles by approaching the walls and by threatening an oppugnation might confine the Athenians within the city, there might be for himself a facility for storming the Piraeus, left with a light garrison.
but his assault at Piraeus was no easier than at Eleusis, with nearly the same defenders. from Piraeus he suddenly led to Athens. there, after a sudden sally of infantry and cavalry, he was driven back in the narrows of the half-ruined wall which with its two arms joins Piraeus to Athens; and, abandoning the assault on the city, after again dividing the army with Philocles he set out to lay waste the fields. since he had employed the earlier ravaging in demolishing the tombs around the city, so as to leave nothing inviolate he ordered the temples of the gods, which they held consecrated in the country-demes, to be torn down and burned.
and the Attic land, exquisitely adorned with that kind of works, both by the abundance of native marble and by the ingenuity of artificers, furnished material for this frenzy; for he held it not enough merely to demolish the temples themselves and to overturn the simulacra, but he ordered the stones also to be broken, lest, being intact, they should heap up the ruins. And after not so much his wrath was sated as material for exercising his wrath was lacking, he passed out into enemy territory in Boeotia and did nothing else in Greece worthy of memory.
[27] Consul Sulpicius eo tempore inter Apolloniam ac Dyrrachium ad Apsum flumen habebat castra, quo arcessitum L. Apustium legatum cum parte copiarum ad depopulandos hostium fines mittit. Apustius extrema Macedoniae populatus, Corrhago et Gerrunio et Orgesso castellis primo impetu captis ad Antipatream, in faucibus angustis sitam urbem, uenit. ac primo euocatos principes ad conloquium, ut fidei Romanorum se committerent, perlicere est conatus; deinde, ubi magnitudine ac moenibus situque urbis freti dicta aspernabantur, ui atque armis adortus expugnauit puberibusque interfectis, praeda omni militibus concessa, diruit muros atque urbem incendit.
[27] At that time the consul Sulpicius had his camp by the river Apsus between Apollonia and Dyrrachium; thither he summons the legate L. Apustius and dispatches him with part of the forces to lay waste the enemy frontiers. Apustius, after ravaging the furthest parts of Macedonia and taking at the first assault the forts of Corrhagus, Gerrunium, and Orgessus, came to Antipatreia, a city set in narrow defiles. At first he tried to entice the leading men, summoned to a conference, to commit themselves to the good faith of the Romans; then, when they, relying on the size, walls, and position of their city, spurned his words, attacking by force of arms he took it by storm, and, the youths slain and all the booty granted to the soldiers, he razed the walls and burned the city.
This fear brought it about that Codrion, a town strong enough and fortified, was surrendered to the Romans without a contest. A garrison having been left there, Cnidus—the name more familiar because of the other city in Asia than the town—was taken by force. As the legate was returning to the consul with a quite large booty, a certain Athenagoras, the king’s prefect, attacking at the crossing of a river from the rearmost column, threw the hindmost into disorder.
At whose shouting and trepidation, when the legate, having quickly ridden back on horseback, had turned the standards and, with the baggage thrown into the middle, had drawn up the battle line, the king’s troops did not endure the impetus of the Roman soldiers: many of them were killed, more captured. The legate, with the army brought back unscathed, is sent back to the consul, and from there immediately to the fleet.
[28] Hac satis felici expeditione bello commisso reguli ac principes accolae Macedonum in castra Romana ueniunt, Pleuratus Scerdilaedi filius et Amynander Athamanum rex et ex Dardanis Bato Longari filius: bellum suo nomine Longarus cum Demetrio Philippi patre gesserat. pollicentibus auxilia respondit consul Dardanorum et Pleurati opera, cum exercitum in Macedoniam induceret, se usurum; Amynandro Aetolos concitandos ad bellum attribuit. Attali legatis—nam ii quoque per id tempus uenerant—mandat ut Aeginae rex, ubi hibernabat, classem Romanam opperiretur, qua adiuncta bello maritimo, sicut ante, Philippum urgeret.
[28] With this expedition quite successful and the war commenced, petty kings and chieftains dwelling near the Macedonians came into the Roman camp—Pleuratus, son of Scerdilaedus, and Amynander, king of the Athamanians, and from the Dardanians Bato, son of Longarus: Longarus had waged war in his own name with Demetrius, Philip’s father. To those proffering auxiliaries the consul replied that he would employ the aid of the Dardanians and of Pleuratus when he should lead the army into Macedonia; to Amynander he assigned the task of stirring up the Aetolians to war. To the envoys of Attalus—for they too had come about that time—he gives orders that the king at Aegina, where he was wintering, should await the Roman fleet, and when it had been joined to him, in the maritime war, as before, he should press Philip.
Envoys were also sent to the Rhodians, that they might take up a share in the war. Nor did Philip act more sluggishly—for he had already arrived in Macedonia—but was preparing for war. His son Perseus, quite a boy, after appointing from among his friends men to govern his minority, he sends with a part of the forces to blockade the narrows which are at Pelagonia.
[29] Concilium Aetolorum stata die, quod Panaetoli<c>um uocant, futurum erat. huic ut occurrerent, et regis legati iter accelerarunt et a consule missus L. Furius Purpurio legatus uenit; Atheniensium quoque legati ad id concilium occurrerunt. primi Macedones, cum quibus recentissimum foedus erat, auditi sunt.
[29] The Council of the Aetolians on an appointed day, which they call the Panaetoli<c>um, was to be held. To meet this, both the king’s legates hastened their journey, and Lucius Furius Purpurio, a legate sent by the consul, arrived; the legates of the Athenians also came to that council. First the Macedonians, with whom the most recent treaty had been, were heard.
who said that, in no new matter, they had nothing new which they could bring: for the reasons on account of which, after the Roman alliance had been found by experience to be unprofitable, they had made peace with Philip, they ought to keep the peace once composed. ‘Or do you prefer,’ said one of the envoys, ‘to imitate the licence—or shall I say the levity—of the Romans? They, after having ordered that your envoys at Rome be answered thus: “Why do you come to us, Aetolians, you who made peace with Philip without whose authority?”, these same men now demand that you conduct war with them against Philip; and before they were pretending that, on account of you and on your behalf, arms had been taken up against him, now they forbid you to be in peace with Philip.
They crossed over into Sicily first to be a help to Messana, and again to draw Syracuse, oppressed by the Carthaginians, out into liberty; and Messana and Syracuse and all Sicily they themselves hold and have subjected as a tributary province to the axes and the fasces. Of course, just as you at Naupactus have an assembly by your own laws through magistrates created by yourselves, to choose freely whom you will as ally or enemy, and to have peace and war at your own discretion, so for the cities of the Sicilians a council is proclaimed at Syracuse or Messana or Lilybaeum. The Roman praetor holds the assizes: summoned to it by his imperium they assemble; they see him, on a lofty platform handing down haughty judgments, hedged about with lictors; rods menace their backs, axes their necks; and year by year they draw one master after another.
nor ought they to marvel at this, nor can they, since they see the cities of Italy, Rhegium, Tarentum, Capua—not to name the neighboring ones from whose ruins the city Rome grew—, subjected to the same dominion. Capua indeed, the tomb and monument of the Campanian people, with the very people removed and made exiles, survives, a truncated city without a senate, without a plebs, without magistrates, a prodigy, left to be inhabited more cruelly than if it had been razed. it is madness, if alien men, separated from us more by language and mores and laws than by the expanse of seas and lands, have held these things, to hope that anything will remain in the same state.
The kingdom of Philip seems to obstruct your liberty; he, though with just cause given by yourselves he was hostile to you, asked nothing from you beyond peace, and today desires the faith of the peace concluded. Accustom these lands to foreign legions and accept the yoke: late and in vain, when you have a Roman master, you will seek Philip as a partner. The Aetolians, the Acarnanians, the Macedonians—men of the same language—slight causes arising for a time sunder and unite; with aliens, with barbarians, there is and will be an eternal war for all Greeks; for by nature, which is perpetual, they are enemies, not by causes changing from day to day.
but where my oration began, there it will end. In this same place you, the same men, decreed concerning the peace of that same Philip three years before, with those same Romans disapproving that peace—who now wish to disturb the peace agreed and composed. In which consultation Fortune changed nothing; why you should change I do not see.'
[30] Secundum Macedonas ipsis Romanis ita concedentibus iubentibusque Athenienses, qui foeda passi iustius in crudelitatem saeuitiamque regis inuehi poterant, introducti sunt. deplorauerunt uastationem populationemque miserabilem agrorum: neque id se queri, quod hostilia ab hoste passi forent; esse enim quaedam belli iura, quae ut facere ita pati sit fas: sata exuri, dirui tecta, praedas hominum pecorumque agi misera magis quam indigna patienti esse; uerum enim uero id se queri, quod is qui Romanos alienigenas et barbaros uocet adeo omnia simul diuina humanaque iura polluerit ut priore populatione cum infernis deis, secunda cum superis bellum nefarium gesserit. omnia sepulcra monumentaque diruta esse in finibus suis, omnium nudatos manes, nullius ossa terra tegi.
[30] After the Macedonians—upon the Romans themselves thus conceding and ordering—the Athenians, who, having suffered foul outrages, could more justly inveigh against the king’s cruelty and savagery, were admitted. They bewailed the devastation and the pitiable ravaging of their fields: nor did they complain of this, that they had suffered hostile acts from an enemy; for there are certain laws of war, which it is right as well to do as to suffer: that the sown crops be burned, roofs be torn down, and the booty of men and cattle be driven off—things more wretched than unworthy for the sufferer to endure; but indeed in very truth they complained of this—that he who calls the Romans aliens and barbarians had so polluted all rights, divine and human alike, that in the earlier raid he waged a nefarious war with the gods below, in the second with the gods above. All tombs and monuments, they said, had been demolished within their borders, the shades of all laid bare, the bones of no one covered by earth.
that they had had shrines which, in former times, when they lived by districts, had been consecrated in those little forts and villages—shrines which their ancestors had not abandoned even after being gathered into a single city; that Philip had carried hostile firebrands about all those temples; that half-burned, mutilated simulacra of the gods lay among the overthrown doorposts of the temples. Such as he has made the land of Attica—once adorned and opulent—such he, if it be permitted him, will make Aetolia and all Greece. A like deformity would have befallen their own city as well, had not the Romans succored them.
for by the same wickedness the gods worshiping the city and Minerva, the guardian of the citadel, were assailed; by the same at Eleusis the temple of Ceres; by the same at the Piraeus Jupiter and Minerva; but, repulsed from not only their temples but even their walls by force and arms, he raged against those shrines which alone had been safe by religion. and so they beg and beseech the Aetolians to undertake war, taking pity on the Athenians, with the immortal gods as leaders, and then the Romans, who after the gods had the greatest power.
[31] Tum Romanus legatus: 'totam orationis meae formam Macedones primum, deinde Athenienses mutarunt. nam et Macedones, cum ad conquerendas Philippi iniurias in tot socias nobis urbes uenissem, ultro accusando Romanos, defensionem ut accusatione potiorem haberem effecerunt, et Athenienses in deos inferos superosque nefanda atque inhumana scelera eius referendo quid mihi aut cuiquam reliquerunt quod obicere ultra possim? eadem haec Cianos Abydenos Aenios Maronitas Thasios Parios Samios Larisenses Messenios hinc ex Achaia existimate queri, grauiora etiam acerbioraque eos quibus nocendi maiorem facultatem habuit.
[31] Then the Roman legate: 'The Macedonians first, then the Athenians have changed the whole form of my oration. For both the Macedonians, when I had come into so many cities allied to us to complain of Philip’s injuries, by of their own accord accusing the Romans, have made it so that I should have defense preferable to accusation; and the Athenians, by recounting his nefarious and inhuman crimes against the gods below and above, what have they left to me or to anyone that I can further object? Judge that these same things the Cians, the Abydenians, the Aenians, the Maronites, the Thasians, the Parian, the Samians, the Larissaeans, the Messenians, from here out of Achaea, complain of—indeed heavier and more bitter [wrongs] those against whom he had a greater capacity of harming.'
for as to those things which he has objected to us, unless they are worthy of glory, I confess they cannot be defended. He objected to us Rhegium and Capua and Syracuse. In the war of Pyrrhus, at the entreaty of the Rhegians themselves, a legion was sent by us as a garrison to Rhegium; it criminally took possession of the city which it had been sent to defend.
Did we then approve that crime? Or rather, having prosecuted by war the criminal legion, once it had been brought into our power, when we had compelled it to pay the penalties, with back and neck, to our allies, we restored the city, the fields, and all their property, together with their freedom and their Rhegian laws? When the Syracusans were oppressed by foreign tyrannies—which made it the more outrageous—after we had brought aid and had been worn down for almost three years, by land and sea, with a most strongly fortified city to be assaulted; when by then the Syracusans themselves preferred to serve tyrants rather than be captured by us, we restored to them the city, taken by those same arms and liberated.
We do not deny that Sicily is our province and that the cities which were on the Carthaginians’ side and with one mind waged war with them against us are tributary and tax-paying to us; nay rather, we wish both you and all nations to know this: that each one’s condition is according to his deserts toward us. Are we to regret the penalties of the Campanians, about which not even they themselves can complain? These men—although on their behalf we had waged war against the Samnites for nearly 70 years, with great disasters to us, and had joined them to us, first by treaty, then by intermarriage and thence by kinships, and finally by citizenship—when our fortune turned adverse, were the first of all the peoples of Italy, after our garrison had been foully slain, to defect to Hannibal; then, indignant at being besieged by us, they sent Hannibal to attack Rome.
If of these neither the city itself nor any man at all were to survive, who could be indignant that this was set down as harsher than in proportion to their own deserts? More, by the conscience of their crimes, contrived death for themselves than were by us subjected to punishment. For the rest we took away the town and the fields in such a way that we gave them land and a place to dwell, we allowed the blameless city to stand unscathed, so that whoever sees it today finds there no trace of its having been besieged or captured.
But why do I speak of Capua, when to conquered Carthage we have given peace and liberty? Rather, this is the danger: lest by forgiving the conquered too easily we incite more people, for that very reason, to try the fortune of war against us. Let these things be said on our behalf, these against Philip, whose domestic parricides and the slaughters of kinsmen and friends, and a lust more inhuman—almost beyond cruelty itself—you, inasmuch as you are nearer to Macedonia, know better.
As for you, Aetoli, we undertook war on your behalf against Philip, while you without us made peace with him. And perhaps you will say that, we being occupied with the Punic war, you, coerced by fear, accepted the laws of peace from him who then had greater power; and that we too, when greater matters pressed, let drop the war that you had laid aside. Now both we, by the benignity of the gods, with the Punic war perfected, have with all our forces borne down upon Macedonia, and to you the fortune has been offered of restoring yourselves into our friendship and alliance—unless you prefer to perish with Philip rather than to conquer with the Romans.'
[32] Haec dicta ab Romano cum essent, inclinatis omnium animis ad Romanos Damocritus praetor Aetolorum pecunia, ut fama est, ab rege accepta, nihil aut huic aut illi parti adsensus, rem magni discriminis consiliis nullam esse tam inimicam quam celeritatem dixit: celerem enim paenitentiam, sed eandem seram atque inutilem sequi, cum praecipitata raptim consilia neque reuocari neque in integrum restitui possint. deliberationis autem eius cuius ipse maturitatem expectandam putaret tempus ita iam nunc statui posse: cum legibus cautum esset ne de pace belloque nisi in Panaetolico et Pylaico concilio ageretur, decernerent extemplo ut praetor sine fraude, cum de bello et pace agere uelit, aduocet concilium et quod tum referatur decernaturque ut perinde ius ratumque <sit> ac si in Panaetolico aut Pylaico concilio actum esset. dimissis ita suspensa re legatis egregie consultum genti aiebat: nam utrius partis melior fortuna belli esset, ad eius societatem inclinaturos.
[32] When these things had been said by the Roman, and all minds were inclined toward the Romans, Damocritus, praetor of the Aetolians—having, as report has it, received money from the king—assenting to neither this party nor that, said that for counsels in a matter of great crisis nothing is so inimical as celerity: for swift repentance follows, but that same repentance is late and unprofitable, since headlong, hurried counsels can neither be revoked nor restored to an unimpaired state. As for the deliberation whose maturity he himself thought ought to be awaited, the time for it, he said, could even now be fixed thus: since it was provided by the laws that there be no dealing about peace and war except in the Pan-Aetolian and Pylaean council, let them decree forthwith that the praetor, without penalty, when he wishes to deal with war and peace, convene a council, and that whatever is then proposed and decreed should be as lawful and ratified as if it had been transacted in the Pan-Aetolian or Pylaean council. With the envoys thus dismissed and the matter held in suspense, he said that excellent provision had been made for the nation: for they would incline to the alliance of whichever party had the better fortune in war.
[33] Philippus impigre terra marique parabat bellum. nauales copias Demetriadem in Thessaliam contrahebat; Attalum Romanamque classem principio ueris ab Aegina ratus moturos, nauibus maritimaeque orae praefecit Heraclidam, quem et ante praefecerat; ipse terrestres copias comparabat, magna se duo auxilia Romanis detraxisse credens, ex una parte Aetolos, ex altera Dardanos, faucibus ad Pelagoniam a filio Perseo interclusis. ab consule non parabatur sed gerebatur iam bellum.
[33] Philip, energetically, was preparing war by land and sea. He was concentrating his naval forces at Demetrias in Thessaly; thinking that Attalus and the Roman fleet would move from Aegina at the beginning of spring, he placed Heraclidas—whom he had put in command before as well—in command of the ships and of the maritime coast; he himself was getting the land forces ready, believing that he had taken from the Romans two great auxiliaries, on one side the Aetolians, on the other the Dardani, the passes to Pelagonia having been blocked by his son Perseus. By the consul the war was not being prepared, but was already being carried on.
he led the army through the borders of the Dassaretii, carrying intact the grain which he had brought out from the winter quarters, since the fields supplied enough for the soldiers’ use. towns and villages alike surrendered, partly by good will, partly from fear; some were taken by force, some were found deserted, as the barbarians fled back into the nearby mountains. at Lyncus he pitched a standing camp near the river Beus; from there he sent parties to forage for grain around the granaries of the Dassaretii.
Philip indeed perceived that everything around was in consternation and that there was a huge panic among the men; but being little informed as to what quarter the consul had taken, he sent a wing of cavalry to explore to what place the enemies had directed their march. The same error was with the consul: he knew that the king had moved from his winter quarters, but, ignorant of what region he had sought, he too had sent horsemen to reconnoiter.
These two wings, from opposite directions, after long having wandered by uncertain routes through the Dassaretii, at last converged onto one road. It escaped neither side, when the distant roar of men and horses was heard, that the enemy was approaching. And so, before they came into sight, they had made ready their horses and arms; no delay— as soon as they saw the enemy, the charge was joined.
By chance, both in number and in virtue, as being chosen on both sides, they, not unequal and with equal forces, fought for several hours. Fatigue of themselves and of the horses, with victory undecided, broke off the battle; forty horsemen of the Macedonians fell, thirty-five of the Romans. Nor for that did the scouts report anything more as to in what region the enemy’s camp was, either those to the king or these to the consul; it was learned through deserters, whom the levity of minds supplies for discovering the enemy’s affairs in all wars.
[34] Philippus aliquid et ad caritatem suorum et ut promptius pro eo periculum adirent ratus profecturum se, si equitum qui ceciderant in expeditione sepeliendorum curam habuisset, adferri eos in castra iussit, ut conspiceretur ab omnibus funeris honos. nihil tam incertum nec tam inaestimabile est quam animi multitudinis. quod promptiores ad subeundam omnem dimicationem uidebatur facturum, id metum pigritiamque incussit; nam qui hastis sagittisque et rara lanceis facta uolnera uidissent, cum Graecis Illyriisque pugnare adsueti, postquam gladio Hispaniensi detruncata corpora bracchiis cum humero abscisis aut tota ceruice desecta diuisa a corpore capita patentiaque uiscera et foeditatem aliam uolnerum uiderunt, aduersus quae tela quosque uiros pugnandum foret pauidi uolgo cernebant.
[34] Philip, thinking he would gain something both toward the affection of his own and that they would more promptly undergo danger for him, if he had had care for the burying of the horsemen who had fallen in the expedition, ordered them to be brought into the camp, so that the honor of the funeral might be beheld by all. Nothing is so uncertain nor so inestimable as the spirit of a multitude. The very thing which seemed likely to make them readier for undergoing any combat instilled fear and sluggishness; for those who had seen wounds made by spears and arrows and, more rarely, by lances—accustomed as they were to fight with Greeks and Illyrians—after they saw, by the Spanish sword, bodies hewn down, arms cut off together with the shoulder, or whole necks lopped, heads separated from the body, gaping entrails, and other foulness of wounds, in fear they generally perceived what weapons and what men they must fight against.
Fear seized the king himself also, not yet having engaged with the Romans in a just (set) battle. Therefore, with his son recalled and the garrison which was in the defiles of Pelagonia, in order to augment his forces with these, he laid open a route into Macedonia for Pleuratus and the Dardanians. He himself, with 20,000 infantry and 2,000 cavalry, setting out against the enemy with deserter guides, fortified with a ditch and rampart a hill a little more than 1,000 paces from the Roman camp, near the Ataeus; and, seeing the Roman camp lying below, he is said to have marveled both at the entire aspect of the camp and at each thing apportioned to its own parts, with both the order of those pitching and the intervals of the streets, and to have denied that that camp could seem to belong to any barbarians.
[35] Rex non tam celerem aleam uniuersi certaminis timens quadringentos Tralles—Illyriorum id, sicut alio diximus loco, est genus—et Cretenses trecentos, addito his peditibus pari numero equitum, cum duce Athenagora, uno ex purpuratis, ad lacessendos hostium equites misit. ab Romanis autem—aberat acies eorum paulo plus quingentos passus—uelites et equitum duae ferme alae emissae, ut numero quoque eques pedesque hostem aequarent. credere regii genus pugnae quo adsueuerant fore, ut equites in uicem insequentes refugientesque nunc telis uterentur, nunc terga darent, Illyriorum uelocitas ad excursiones et impetus subitos usui esset, Cretenses in inuehentem se effuse hostem sagittas conicerent.
[35] The king, not so much fearing the swift hazard of a general engagement, sent four hundred Trallians—this, as we said elsewhere, is a kind of Illyrians—and three hundred Cretans, adding to these foot-soldiers an equal number of horse, with Athenagoras as leader, one of the purpurati, to provoke the enemy cavalry. But from the Romans—their battle line was a little more than five hundred paces distant—the velites and about two wings of cavalry were sent out, so that horse and foot alike might also match the enemy in number. The king’s men believed the kind of fight to which they were accustomed would ensue: that the horsemen, in turn pursuing and retreating, would now use missiles, now turn their backs; that the speed of the Illyrians would be of use for sorties and sudden onsets; that the Cretans would shoot arrows into an enemy pouring in upon them in loose order.
This order of fighting was thrown into confusion by an onset of the Romans not so much fiercer as more pertinacious; for, just as if they were fighting with the whole battle line, both the velites, after launching their spears, carried on the affair at close quarters with swords, and the cavalry, once they had ridden out at the enemy, with their horses standing, fought—partly from the very horses, partly dismounting and mingling themselves with the foot. Thus neither was the royal horseman a match for the Roman horseman, being unaccustomed to steady combat, nor was the foot-soldier—a scurrier, wandering, and almost half-naked in his kind of arms—a match for the Roman velite who had a parma and a sword, and was armed equally both for protecting himself and for assailing the foe. Therefore they did not endure the contest, and, shielding themselves by nothing other than speed, fled back into the camp.
[36] Uno deinde intermisso die, cum omnibus copiis equitum leuisque armaturae pugnaturus rex esset, nocte caetratos, quos peltas<tas> uocant, loco opportuno inter bina castra in insidiis abdiderat praeceperatque Athenagorae et equitibus ut si aperto proelio procederet res, uterentur fortuna, si minus, cedendo sensim ad insidiarum locum hostem pertraherent. et equitatus quidem cessit, duces caetratae cohortis non satis expectato signo ante tempus excitatis suis occasionem bene gerendae rei amisere. Romanus et aperto proelio uictor et tutus a fraude insidiarum in castra sese recepit.
[36] After one day then intermitted, when the king was about to fight with all his forces of cavalry and light-armed troops, during the night he had concealed the caetrati, whom they call peltasts, in ambush in a suitable place between the two camps, and had instructed Athenagoras and the cavalry that, if the affair should proceed as an open battle, they should make use of Fortune; if not, by yielding little by little they should draw the enemy to the place of the ambush. And indeed the cavalry gave way; but the leaders of the caetrate cohort, the signal not having been sufficiently awaited, having roused their men before the time, lost the opportunity of conducting the matter well. The Roman, both victor in open battle and safe from the fraud of the ambush, withdrew into his camp.
On the next day the consul descended into the battle line with all his forces, the elephants having been stationed before the foremost standards, an assistance which the Romans then for the first time made use of, since they had several captured in the Punic War. When he saw the enemy lurking within the rampart, he advanced also onto the mounds and right up under the rampart itself, upbraiding their fear. After not even then was a power of fighting granted—because from encampments so close at hand the foraging was insufficiently safe, the soldiers being scattered through the fields, and the cavalry ready at once to make an inroad—he moved the camp about eight miles from there, in order, by the interval, to have safer foraging, to Ottolobus—that is the name of the place.
when the Romans were foraging for grain in the neighboring field, at first the king kept his men within the rampart, so that negligence together with audacity might grow in the enemy. when he saw them poured out, with all the cavalry and the Cretan auxiliaries, and with as many of the swiftest foot as could match the horsemen at a run, setting out at a rapid march he planted his standards between the Roman camp and the foragers. then, his forces divided, he sent a part to chase down the wandering foragers, the signal having been given to leave no one alive, while with a part he himself halted and blocked the routes by which the enemy seemed likely to run back to the camp.
Already everywhere there was slaughter and flight, and not yet had any messenger of the disaster reached the Roman camp, because those fleeing ran into the king’s picket, and more were being killed by those besetting the roads than by those sent out for the slaughter. At length certain men, having slipped through the midst of the enemy posts, in trepidation brought into the camp a tumult rather than a definite message.
[37] Consul equitibus iussis qua quisque posset opem ferre laborantibus ipse legiones e castris educit et agmine quadrato ad hostem ducit. dispersi equites per agros quidam aberrarunt decepti clamoribus aliis ex alio existentibus loco, pars obuios habuerunt hostes. pluribus locis simul pugna coepit.
[37] The consul, having ordered the cavalry to bring aid to those hard-pressed wherever each could, himself leads the legions out of the camp and, in a square formation, leads them against the enemy. The cavalry, dispersed through the fields, some went astray, deceived by clamors arising now here now there from one place and another; part had the enemy meeting them head-on. In several places at once the battle began.
The royal station was exhibiting a most atrocious battle; for both by its very multitude of horse and foot it was nearly a proper battle-line, and very many of the Romans, because it had occupied the middle of the way, were being borne into it. There too the Macedonians were superior, because the king himself was present as exhorter, and the Cretan auxiliaries were wounding many by surprise, packed and prepared against foes fighting dispersed and spread out. If only they had kept measure in pursuing, there would have been not only glory from the present contest but advancement even toward the sum total of the war; now, following too intemperately in an avidity for slaughter, they ran into Roman cohorts that had gone on ahead with the military tribunes, and the fleeing cavalry, the moment they first saw their own standards, turned their horses against the disordered enemy, and in a moment of time the fortune of the fight was reversed, those who just now had been pursuing turning tail.
many, having met at close quarters, many, as they fled, were slain; nor did they perish by iron only, but some, hurled into the marshes, were sucked down with their very horses by the deep slime. the king too was in peril; for as his wounded horse collapsed, he was cast headlong to the ground and was not far from being overwhelmed as he lay. a horseman was his salvation, who quickly leapt down himself and set the frightened king upon his horse; he himself, since on foot he could not equal in speed the horsemen who were fleeing, was run through and perished by enemies incited by the king’s fall.
the king, having ridden around the marshes through roads and roadless places in a trembling flight, at last reached the camp, when by this time most were despairing that he would escape unharmed. two hundred of the Macedonian horsemen perished in that battle, about one hundred were captured; fully eighty richly adorned horses were led away, and the spoils, together with the arms, were brought back.
[38] Fuere qui hoc die regem temeritatis, consulem segnitiae accusarent: nam et Philippo quiescendum fuisse, cum paucis diebus hostes exhausto circa omni agro ad ultimum inopiae uenturos sciret, et consulem, cum equitatum hostium leuemque armaturam fudisset ac prope regem ipsum cepisset, protinus ad castra hostium ducere debuisse; nec enim mansuros ita perculsos hostes fuisse debellarique momento temporis potuisse. id dictu quam re, ut pleraque, facilius erat. nam si omnibus peditum quoque copiis congressus rex fuisset, forsitan inter tumultum, cum omnes uicti metuque perculsi ex proelio intra uallum, protinus inde superuadentem munimenta uictorem hostem fugerent, exui castris potuerit rex; cum uero integrae copiae peditum in castris mansissent, stationes ante portas praesidiaque disposita essent, quid nisi ut temeritatem regis effuse paulo ante secuti perculsos equites imitaretur, profecisset?
[38] There were those who on this day accused the king of temerity, the consul of sluggishness: for that Philip too ought to have kept quiet, since he knew that within a few days the enemies, with all the land round about exhausted, would come to the last extremity of want; and that the consul, when he had routed the enemy cavalry and light-armed and had almost taken the king himself, ought at once to have led against the enemy’s camp; for the enemies, so panic-struck, would not have stood fast and could have been finished off in a moment of time. That was easier to say than to do, as most things. For if the king had engaged also with all the forces of infantry, perhaps amid the tumult, when all, defeated and smitten with fear, from the battle would flee within the rampart, and from there straightway would flee the victorious enemy overleaping the fortifications, the king might have been stripped of his camp; but since the intact forces of infantry had remained in the camp and pickets before the gates and garrisons had been posted, what would he have accomplished except to imitate the panic-stricken horsemen who, having followed the king’s temerity with reckless abandon a little before, had been routed?
nor indeed would even the king’s first plan, by which he made an assault upon the grain-gatherers scattered through the fields, have been blameworthy, if he had put a limit upon a prosperous fight. All the less is it a wonder that he tried his fortuna, because there was a report that Pleuratus and the Dardanians, with huge forces, had set out from home and had now crossed into Macedonia; by whose forces, if he were surrounded on all sides, it could be believed that he would debellate the Roman while he sat. Therefore, after two adverse cavalry battles, Philip, thinking that delay in the same standing-camp would be much less safe, since he wished to depart from there and, in departing, to deceive the enemy, with a herald sent toward sunset to the consul to seek a truce for burying the horsemen, having outwitted the enemy, at the second watch, with many fires left throughout the whole camp, departed in a silent column.
[39] Corpus iam curabat consul cum uenisse caduceatorem et quid uenisset nuntiatum est. responso tantum dato mane postero die fore copiam conueniendi, id quod quaesitum erat, nox dieique insequentis pars ad praecipiendum iter Philippo data est. montes quam uiam non ingressurum graui agmine Romanum sciebat petit.
[39] The consul was already tending to the bodies when it was announced that a caduceator had come and for what he had come. With only this reply given—that in the morning of the next day there would be opportunity to confer—what had been sought, the night and part of the following day were granted to Philip to get the start in his march. He makes for the mountains, a route which he knew the Roman, with his heavy column, would not enter.
At first light, the consul, after the caduceator had been dismissed with a truce granted, when he realized not much later that the enemy had departed, being unaware where to pursue, spent several days in the same standing camp foraging for grain. Then he made for Stuberra and brought in from Pelagonia the grain that was in the fields; thence he advanced to Pluinna, not yet having discovered what region the enemies had sought. Philip, after at first having his camp at Bruanium, set out from there by transverse routes and caused sudden terror to the enemy.
So the Romans moved out from Pluinna and pitched camp at the river Osphagus. The king, not far from there, likewise, with a rampart drawn along above the bank of the stream—the inhabitants call it Erigonus—took up position. Then, having learned well enough that the Romans were going to aim for Eordaea, he went on ahead to occupy the narrows, lest the enemy be able to pass the approach enclosed in tight defiles.
there he fortified some places with a rampart, others with a ditch, others with a heap of stones so that they might serve in place of a wall, others with trees thrown across—just as either the terrain demanded or the material supplied—<pr> he thoroughly strengthened the works; and, as he himself reckoned, he made the road, difficult by its very nature, impregnable by works thrown up across every pass. most of the surroundings were woodland, a disadvantage above all to the Macedonian phalanx, which—unless it sets, with very long spears, as it were a palisade before the shields, a thing that requires an open field—is of scarcely any use at all. the Thracians too were hindered by their huge rhomphaeae, and by their very length, among the branches thrown in their way on every side.
One cohort of Cretans was not useless; but even that force itself—though, if anyone made a charge, in open ground it could hurl arrows to wound horse and horseman—yet against the Roman shields had neither strength great enough for transfixing, nor was there anything exposed that they could aim at. Accordingly, when they perceived that kind of missile to be vain, they began assailing the enemy with stones lying everywhere throughout the whole valley. That beating upon the shields, with greater noise than with any wound, held the Romans back for a little while as they were advancing; then, those too being scorned, some, a testudo having been formed, go forward against the opposing foes, others, by a short detour, when they had gained the ridge of the hill, dislodge the Macedonians, panic-stricken, from their defenses and pickets, and—since in obstructed places flight is difficult—cut down very many besides.
[40] Ita angustiae minore certamine quam quod animis proposuerant superatae et in Eordaeam peruentum, ubi peruastatis passim agris in Elimiam <consul> se recepit. inde impetum in Orestidem facit et oppidum Celetrum est adgressus in paeneinsula situm: lacus moenia cingit, angustis faucibus unum ex continenti iter est. primo situ ipso freti clausis portis abnuere imperium; deinde, postquam signa ferri ac testudine succedi ad portam obsessasque fauces agmine hostium uiderunt, priusquam experirentur certamen metu in deditionem uenerunt.
[40] Thus the narrows were overcome with less combat than they had set before their minds, and they came into Eordaea, where, the fields everywhere thoroughly laid waste, into Elimia <the consul> withdrew. Thence he makes an assault into Orestis and approached the town Celetrum, situated on a peninsula: a lake encircles the walls, and through narrow jaws there is a single way from the mainland. At first, relying on the very position, with the gates closed they refused obedience; then, after they saw the standards being borne and a testudo being advanced up to the gate and the straits hemmed in by the column of the enemy, before they tried a contest they came into surrender from fear.
from Celetro he advanced into the Dassaretii and took the city Pelion by force. from there he led away the slaves along with the other booty, [and] he released the free persons without price, and he restored the town to them, a strong garrison having been imposed; for the city too was opportunely sited for making attacks into Macedonia. thus, after traversing the enemy’s fields, the consul led his forces back into pacified places to Apollonia, whence he had begun the war.
Philippum auerterant Aetoli et Athamanes et Dardani et tot bella repente alia ex aliis locis exorta. aduersus Dardanos, iam recipientes ex Macedonia sese, Athenagoran cum expeditis peditibus ac maiore parte equitatus misit, iussum instare ab tergo abeuntibus et carpendo postremum agmen segniores eos ad mouendos domo exercitus efficere. Aetolos Damocritus praetor, qui morae ad decernendum bellum ad Naupactum auctor fuerat, idem proximo concilio ad arma conciuerat post famam equestris ad Ottolobum pugnae Dardanorumque et Pleurati cum Illyriis transitum in Macedoniam, ad hoc classis Romanae aduentum Oreum et super circumfusas tot Macedoniae gentes maritimam quoque instantem obsidionem.
Philip had been diverted by the Aetolians and the Athamanians and the Dardanians and by so many wars suddenly arisen from other quarters. Against the Dardanians, now withdrawing themselves from Macedonia, he sent Athenagoras with light-armed foot and the greater part of the cavalry, ordered to press upon the rear of those departing and, by harrying the hindmost column, to make them more sluggish in setting armies in motion from home. The Aetolians Damocritus the praetor—who at Naupactus had been the advocate of delay in deciding upon war—the same man, at the next council, had stirred to arms, after the report of the cavalry fight at Ottolobus and of the crossing into Macedonia of the Dardanians and of Pleuratus with the Illyrians, and, in addition, the arrival of the Roman fleet at Oreus, and, over and above so many peoples hemming Macedonia round, a maritime siege pressing as well.
[41] Hae causae Damocritum Aetolosque restituerant Romanis; et Amynandro rege Athamanum adiuncto profecti Cercinium obsedere. clauserant portas, incertum ui an uoluntate, quia regium habebant praesidium; ceterum intra paucos dies captum est Cercinium atque incensum; qui superfuerunt e magna clade liberi seruique inter ceteram praedam abducti. is timor omnes qui circumcolunt Boeben paludem relictis urbibus montes coegit petere.
[41] These causes had restored Damocritus and the Aetolians to the Romans; and, with King Amynander of the Athamanians added, they set out and besieged Cercinium. they had shut the gates—uncertain whether by force or by consent—since they had a royal garrison; nevertheless, within a few days Cercinium was captured and burned; those who survived from the great carnage, free and slave alike, were carried off among the rest of the booty. that fear compelled all who dwell around the Boebean marsh, their cities abandoned, to seek the mountains.
Averted thence by lack of booty, the Aetolians proceed to go into Perrhaebia. There they seize Cyretias by force and foully sack it; those who inhabit Maloea are received of their own will into surrender and alliance. From Perrhaebia Amynander was the adviser for attacking Gomphi, for Athamania overhangs this city, and it seemed that it could be taken by storm without great contest.
The Aetolians sought the rich fields of Thessaly for plunder, with Amynander following, although not approving either the Aetolians’ unbridled ravagings or the camp pitched, in whatever place chance had brought them, without any selection or care for fortifying. Therefore, lest their rashness and negligence be the cause of some disaster for himself and his men as well, when he saw them pitching their camp in level places, below the city of Pharcado<ni>, he himself seized a hill a little more than 1,000 paces from there, safe for his troops with although light fortification. While the Aetolians seemed to remember hardly anything save that they were pillaging, scarcely remembering that they were in the enemy’s territory—some, scattered, were roaming half-armed, others in the camp without outposts were making their days equal to their nights with sleep and wine—Philip arrived upon them unawares.
when some, panic-stricken, fleeing in from the fields reported that he was at hand, Damocritus and the other leaders grew alarmed—and it chanced to be the meridian time, when very many, heavy with food, lay sunk in sleep—: they rouse one another, they order them to take up arms, they send others to recall those who, scattered through the fields, were plundering; and so great was the trepidation that some of the horsemen went out without swords, and the majority did not put on their cuirasses. thus, drawn out in haste, when horse and foot together scarcely made up the number of 600, they fall upon the royal cavalry, preeminent in number, arms, and spirits. and so, routed at the first onset, with scarcely a trial of combat, they return to the camp in shameful flight; some were cut down and some captured, whom the horsemen, having interposed themselves, shut off from the column of the fugitives.
[42] Philippus suis iam uallo adpropinquantibus receptui cani iussit; fatigatos enim equos uirosque non tam proelio quam itineris simul longitudine, simul praepropera celeritate habebat. itaque turmatim equites, in uicem manipulos leuis armaturae aquatum ire et prandere iubet, alios in statione armatos retinet, opperiens agmen peditum tardius ductum propter grauitatem armorum. quod ubi aduenit, et ipsis imperatum ut statutis signis armisque ante se positis raptim cibum caperent binis ternisue summum ex manipulis aquandi causa missis; interim eques cum leui armatura paratus instructusque stetit, si quid hostis moueret.
[42] Philip, as his men were now approaching the rampart, ordered the recall to be sounded; for he had horses and men fatigued not so much by the battle as by the length of the march and by an over-hasty speed. Accordingly, by squadrons he orders the cavalry, and in turn the maniples of the light-armed, to go for water and to take their prandium, while he keeps others armed on outpost, awaiting the column of infantry led more slowly because of the weight of their arms. When this arrived, orders were given to them also that, with the standards planted and their arms set before them, they should snatch a meal, two or three of the foremost from the maniples being sent for the purpose of fetching water; meanwhile the cavalry with the light-armed stood prepared and drawn up, in case the enemy should make any move.
Aetolians—now indeed even the multitude which had been scattered through the fields had withdrawn itself into the camp— as though to defend the fortifications they station armed men around the gates and the rampart, while from a safe position they themselves, fierce, were looking at the quiet enemy. After the standards of the Macedonians were moved and they, prepared and drawn up, began to advance to the rampart, suddenly all, their posts abandoned, through the rear part of the camp flee for refuge to a mound, to the camp of the Athamanians; many of the Aetolians too, in this so panic-stricken flight, were captured and cut down. Philip, if enough of the day had remained, did not doubt that the Athamanians also could have been stripped of their camp; but with the day consumed, first by battle, then by the direption of the camp, he encamped beneath the mound on the nearest plain, about to attack the enemy at first light of the following day.
But the Aetolians, with the same panic in which they had abandoned their camp, fled scattered in the next night. Amynander was of the greatest use: under his leadership the Athamanians, skilled in routes, led them into Aetolia by unknown paths over the highest mountains, the enemy following them. Not so many, however, in that scattered flight were brought by straying into the hands of the Macedonian cavalry, whom at first light Philip, when he saw the hill deserted, sent to harry the enemy’s column.
[43] Per eos dies et Athenagoras regius praefectus Dardanos recipientes se in fines adeptus postremum agmen primo turbauit; dein, postquam Dardani conuersis signis direxere aciem, aequa pugna iusto proelio erat. ubi rursus procedere Dardani coepissent, equite et leui armatura regii nullum tale auxilii genus habentes Dardanos oneratosque immobilibus armis uexabant; et loca ipsa adiuuabant. occisi perpauci sunt, plures uolnerati, captus nemo, quia non excedunt temere ordinibus suis sed confertim et pugnant et cedunt.
[43] During those days too Athenagoras, the royal prefect, having come up with the Dardanians as they were withdrawing into their own borders, at first threw the rearmost column into confusion; then, after the Dardanians, turning their standards, drew up the battle line, the fight was equal in a regular set-piece engagement. When the Dardanians again began to advance, the king’s troops with cavalry and light-armed, the Dardanians having no such kind of aid and being burdened with immobile arms, harassed them; and the very terrain helped. Very few were killed, more were wounded, none captured, because they do not rashly leave their ranks but in close order both fight and retreat.
thus Philip had restored the losses sustained by the Romans in the war, the two peoples having been coerced by opportune expeditions, by a bold inception, with an outcome not prosperous only. then a chance occurrence reduced for him the number of the Aetolian enemies. Scopas, the prince of the nation, sent from Alexandria by King Ptolemy with a great weight of gold, carried off to Egypt six thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry, hired for pay as mercenaries; nor would he have left anyone of the youth of the Aetolians, had not Damocritus—now admonishing them of the war which was imminent, now of the future desolation—by chastising kept part of the younger men at home, it being uncertain whether from care for the nation, or because, being too little adorned with gifts, he set himself in opposition to Scopas.
[44] Haec ea aestate ab Romanis Philippoque gesta terra; classis a Corcyra eiusdem principio aestatis cum L. Apustio legato profecta Maleo superato circa Scyllaeum agri Hermionici Attalo regi coniuncta est. tum uero Atheniensium ciuitas, cui odio in Philippum per metum iam diu moderata erat, id omne in auxilii praesentis spem effundit. nec unquam ibi desunt linguae promptae ad plebem concitandam; quod genus cum in omnibus liberis ciuitatibus tum praecipue Athenis, ubi oratio plurimum pollet, fauore multitudinis alitur.
[44] These things on land were done that summer by the Romans and Philip; the fleet, setting out from Corcyra at the beginning of the same summer with the legate L. Apustius, after rounding Malea, joined King Attalus near Scyllaeum in the territory of Hermione. Then indeed the commonwealth of the Athenians, whose hatred toward Philip had long been moderated by fear, poured all of it into the hope of present aid. Nor are there ever lacking there tongues prompt to incite the plebs; a kind which, as in all free commonwealths, so especially at Athens—where oratio has the greatest weight—is nourished by the favor of the multitude.
they immediately brought forward a bill, and the plebs enacted that all statues and images of Philip, and the names of them, likewise of his ancestors of both the male and female sex, should be removed and obliterated; and that the feast-days, sacred rites, and priesthoods which had been instituted for the honor of himself and of his ancestors should all be profaned; that the places also in which anything had been set up or inscribed for the sake of his honor should be detestable, and that it was their pleasure that nothing thereafter be set up and dedicated in them of those things which it would be lawful to set up and dedicate in a pure place; that the public priests, whenever they prayed on behalf of the Athenian people and their allies, and their armies and fleets, so often should detest and execrate Philip, his children and his kingdom, his land and naval forces, and the whole race and name of the Macedonians. It was added to the decree: if anyone thereafter should bring anything that pertained to the mark and ignominy of Philip, the Athenian people would order it all; if anyone should have spoken or done anything against the ignominy or in favor of his honor, whoever killed him would kill him with right (i.e., with impunity). Lastly it was included that all the decrees which once had been made against the Pisistratidae should be observed in the case of Philip likewise.
[45] Attalus Romanique cum Piraeum primo ab Hermione petissent, paucos ibi morati dies oneratique aeque immodicis ad honores sociorum atque in ira aduersus hostem fuerant Atheniensium decretis, nauigant a Piraeo Andrum. et cum in portu quem Gaureion uocant constitissent, missis qui temptarent oppidanorum animos, si uoluntate tradere urbem quam uim experiri mallent, postquam praesidio regio arcem teneri nec se potestatis suae esse respondebant, expositis copiis apparatuque omni urbium oppugnandarum diuersis partibus rex et legatus Romanus ad urbem subeunt. plus aliquanto Graecos Romana arma signaque non ante uisa animique militum tam prompte succedentium muros terruere; itaque fuga extemplo in arcem facta est, urbe hostes potiti.
[45] Attalus and the Romans, when they had first made for the Piraeus from Hermione, after lingering there a few days and being laden with equally immoderate decrees of the Athenians—both for honors to the allies and in anger against the enemy—sail from the Piraeus to Andros. And when they had taken station in the harbor which they call Gaureion, sending men to test the minds of the townspeople—whether they preferred to hand over the city of their own will rather than to try force—after it was answered that the citadel was held by a royal garrison and that it was not within their control, with the forces put ashore and every apparatus for storming cities deployed to different quarters, the king and the Roman legate advance to the city. What frightened the Greeks considerably more were the Roman arms and standards, never seen before, and the spirit of the soldiers so promptly moving up to the walls; and so there was at once a flight into the citadel, the enemy becoming masters of the city.
and in the citadel, though for two days they had held out more by confidence in the place than in arms, on the third day, having stipulated that they themselves and the garrison be transported to Delium in Boeotia each with a single garment, they handed over the city and the citadel. these were conceded by the Romans to King Attalus; they themselves carried off the booty and the ornaments of the city. Attalus, lest he should have the island deserted, persuaded nearly all of the Macedonians and some of the Andrians to remain.
Ab Andro Cythnum traiecerunt; ibi dies aliquot oppugnanda urbe nequiquam absumpti et, quia uix operae pretium erat, abscessere. ad Prasias—continentis Atticae is locus est—Issaeorum uiginti lembi classi Romanorum adiuncti sunt. ii missi ad populandos Carystiorum agros; cetera classis Geraestum, nobilem Euboeae portum, dum ab Carysto Issaei redirent, tenuit.
From Andros they crossed over to Cythnus; there several days were spent to no purpose in besieging the city, and, since it was scarcely worth the effort, they withdrew. To Prasias—this is a place on the Attic mainland—twenty lembi of the Issaeans were joined to the Roman fleet. These were sent to ravage the fields of the Carystians; the rest of the fleet held at Geraestus, a noble port of Euboea, while the Issaeans returned from Carystus.
thence all, with sails set, put out into the deep, and in mid-sea, passing by the island of Scyrus, they reached Icus. there, detained for a few days while Boreas was raging, when the first tranquillity was granted they crossed to Sciathus, a city lately laid waste and plundered by Philip. the soldiers, scattered through the fields, brought back to the ships grain and whatever else could be of use for sustenance; there was nothing for booty, nor had the Greeks deserved to be pillaged.
thence, making for Cassandreia, at first they made Mendaeum, a maritime village of that city. From there, when, the promontory having been passed, they wished to wheel the fleet around to the very walls of the city, a savage storm having arisen, they were nearly overwhelmed by the waves; scattered, with their armament/rigging for the most part lost, they fled to land. That maritime storm too was an omen for conducting the affair on land.
for when the ships had been gathered into one and the troops disembarked, they attacked the city and, with many wounds, were repulsed—and there was a strong royal garrison there- with the attempt frustrated they returned and crossed over to Canastraeum in Pallene. Thence, after rounding the promontory of Torone, sailing they made for Acanthus. There first the countryside was ravaged, then the city itself was taken by force and sacked; and they did not advance further—for already they had ships heavy with booty—back by the route whence they had come they return to Sciathus, and from Sciathus they make again for Euboea.
[46] Ibi relicta classe decem nauibus expeditis sinum Maliacum intrauere ad conloquendum cum Aetolis de ratione gerendi belli. Pyrrhias Aetolus princeps legationis eius fuit quae ad communicanda consilia Heracleam cum rege et cum Romano legato uenit. petitum ex foedere ab Attalo est ut mille milites <mitteret>; tantum enim numerum bellum gerentibus aduersus Philippum debebat.
[46] There, leaving the fleet behind, with ten swift ships they entered the Malian Gulf to confer with the Aetolians about the plan of conducting the war. Pyrrhias the Aetolian was the chief of that embassy which came to Heraclea to communicate counsels with the king and with the Roman legate. It was requested from Attalus, under the treaty, that he send 1,000 soldiers; for he owed only that number to those prosecuting war against Philip.
that was denied to the Aetolians, because they too had previously been reluctant to go out to devastate Macedonia, at the time when Philip, burning around Pergamum and carrying off sacred and profane things, could have been drawn away from there by respect for his own affairs. Thus the Aetolians were dismissed with hope rather than with help, the Romans promising them everything; Apustius returned with Attalus to the fleet.
Inde agitari de Oreo oppugnando coeptum. ualida ea ciuitas et moenibus et, quia ante fuerat temptata, firmo erat praesidio: coniunxerant se iis post expugnationem Andri cum praefecto Acesimbroto uiginti Rhodiae naues, tectae omnes. eam classem in stationem ad Zelasium miserunt—Phthiotidis super Demetriadem promunturium est peropportune obiectum—ut, si quid inde mouerent Macedonum naues, in praesidio essent.
From there they began to take in hand the assault on Oreus. That city was strong both in its walls and, because it had been attempted before, it had a firm garrison: after the capture of Andros, twenty Rhodian ships, all decked, had joined them with the prefect Acesimbrotus. They sent that fleet to a station at Zelasium— a promontory of Phthiotis above Demetrias, very opportunely thrust out— so that, if the ships of the Macedonians should make any move from there, they would be on guard.
Heraclides, the royal prefect, kept the fleet there more for the chance, if any negligence of the enemy should have afforded it, than intending to venture anything by open force. Oreus was being assailed by the Romans and King Attalus in different quarters: the Romans from the sea‑ward citadel, the king’s troops against the valley lying between the two citadels, by which also the city is partitioned with a wall. And as the positions were different, so too they were attacking in a different manner: the Roman with testudines and vineae and a battering‑ram to move the walls; the king’s men, hurling missiles with ballistae and catapults and with every other kind of engine, and stones of enormous weight; they were also making mines and whatever else, having been tried in the earlier assault, had proved advantageous.
however, the Macedonians were defending the city and the citadels not in greater numbers than before, but also with readier spirits, mindful both of the king’s chastisement for the fault committed and, at the same time, of both the threats and the promises for the future. and so, since contrary to expectation time was being dragged out there, and there was more hope in besieging and in the works than in a swift assault, meanwhile the legate, thinking that something else too could be done, with ~<soldiers> left behind, which seemed enough for completing the works, crosses over to the nearest part of the mainland and took Larisa— not that noble city in Thessaly, but the other which they call Cremaste— by a sudden arrival, the citadel excepted. Attalus likewise crushed Pteleon, its people suspecting nothing of the sort while the assault on the other city was in progress.
and now when the siege-works were at their completion around Oreus, the praesidium that was inside had been exhausted by assiduous labor, by vigils by day and equally by night, and by wounds. A part of the wall too, the ram having been driven against it and undermined in many places, had already collapsed, and through the way opened by the ruin the Romans by night broke through into the citadel which is above the harbor. At first light, a signal having been given from the citadel by the Romans, Attalus also himself assaulted the city, the walls for the most part laid low: the garrison and the townspeople fled for refuge into the other citadel, whence, two days later, a surrender was made.
[47] Iam autumnale aequinoctium instabat, et est sinus Euboicus quem Coela uocant suspectus nautis; itaque ante hiemales motus euadere inde cupientes Piraeum, unde profecti ad bellum erant, repetunt. Apustius triginta nauibus ibi relictis super Maleum nauigat Corcyram. regem statum initiorum Cereris ut sacris interesset tenuit; secundum initia et ipse in Asiam se recepit Acesimbroto et Rhodiis domum remissis.
[47] Already the autumnal equinox was at hand, and there is a Euboean bay which they call Coela, regarded with suspicion by sailors; and so, wishing to evade thence before the hiemal storms, they made again for the Piraeus, whence they had set out to the war. Apustius, leaving thirty ships there, sailed past Malea to Corcyra. The fixed date of the Initiations of Ceres kept the king, that he might be present at the sacred rites; after the Initiations, he too withdrew into Asia, Acesimbrotus and the Rhodians having been sent home.
Consul alter C. Aurelius ad confectum bellum cum in prouinciam uenisset, haud clam tulit iram aduersus praetorem quod absente se rem gessisset. misso igitur eo in Etruriam ipse in agrum hostium legiones induxit populandoque cum praeda maiore quam gloria bellum gessit. L. Furius simul quod in Etruria nihil erat rei quod gereret, simul Gallico triumpho imminens quem absente consule irato atque inuidente facilius impetrari posse ratus <est>, Romam inopinato cum uenisset, senatum in aede Bellonae habuit expositisque rebus gestis ut triumphanti sibi in urbem inuehi liceret petit.
The other consul, Gaius Aurelius, when he had come into the province with the war finished, did not keep back his anger against the praetor because he had conducted the affair in his absence. Therefore, with him sent into Etruria, he himself led the legions into the enemy’s territory, and by ravaging he waged a war with booty greater than glory. Lucius Furius, both because in Etruria there was no business to conduct, and also being on the point of a Gallic triumph, which he thought could be obtained more easily with the consul absent, angry, and envious, when he had come unexpectedly to Rome, held the senate in the Temple of Bellona, and, having set forth the deeds done, sought that it be permitted him to be carried in triumph into the city.
[48] Apud magnam partem senatus et magnitudine rerum gestarum ualebat et gratia. maiores natu negabant triumphum et quod alieno exercitu rem gessisset et quod prouinciam reliquisset cupiditate rapiendi per occasionem triumphi: id uero eum nullo exemplo fecisse. consulares praecipue expectandum fuisse consulem censebant—potuisse enim castris prope urbem positis tutanda colonia ita ut acie non decerneret in aduentum eius rem extrahere—et quod praetor non fecisset, senatui faciendum esse ut consulem expectaret: ubi coram disceptantes consulem et praetorem audissent uerius de causa existimaturos esse.
[48] With a great part of the senate he prevailed both by the magnitude of his deeds and by favor. The elders refused a triumph, both because he had conducted the affair with another’s army and because he had abandoned his province out of a cupidity of seizing the occasion for a triumph: and that, indeed, he had done without any precedent. The men of consular rank especially judged that the consul ought to have been waited for—for he could, with a camp pitched near the city, protect the colony, and, without deciding by a pitched battle, prolong the matter until his arrival—and that, what the praetor had not done, the senate ought to do, namely to wait for the consul: when they had heard the consul and the praetor disputing in person, they would form a truer judgment about the case.
A great part of the senate held that the senate ought to regard nothing except the deeds accomplished and whether a man had conducted them in magistracy under his own auspices: from the two colonies, which had been set as if barriers to restrain Gallic tumults, since one had been plundered and burned, and that conflagration was about to cross over, as from contiguous roofs, into the other colony so near, what, pray, ought the praetor to have done? For if nothing ought to be conducted without the consul, either the senate erred in that it gave an army to the praetor—for it could, just as it wished the matter to be conducted not by the praetor’s but by the consul’s army, so have determined by a senatorial decree that it be conducted not by the praetor but by the consul—or the consul erred, in that, when he had ordered the army to cross from Etruria into Gaul, he himself did not meet it at Ariminum so as to take part in the war, which it would not be lawful to conduct without him. War does not await its seasons for the delays and deferments of commanders, and one must sometimes fight not because you wish, but because the enemy compels.
that the battle itself and the outcome of the battle ought to be considered: that the enemies were routed and cut down, the camp captured and sacked, the colony freed from siege, the captives of the other colony recovered and restored to their own, that the war had been brought to an end in a single engagement. not men only rejoiced at that victory, but to the immortal gods as well supplications were held for three days, because the commonwealth had been managed well and felicitously, not because it had been managed badly and rashly by L. Furius the praetor. that the Gallic wars were given, by a certain fate, even to the Furian house.
[49] Huius generis orationibus ipsius amicorumque uicta est praesentis gratia praetoris absentis consulis maiestas triumphumque frequentes L. Furio decreuerunt. triumphauit de Gallis in magistratu L. Furius praetor et in aerarium tulit trecenta uiginti milia aeris, argenti <bigati> centum septuaginta milia mille quingentos. neque captiui ulli ante currum ducti neque spolia praelata neque milites secuti: omnia praeter uictoriam penes consulem esse apparebat.
[49] By speeches of this kind, his own and his friends’, the influence of the present praetor overcame the majesty of the absent consul, and, in full numbers, they decreed a triumph to L. Furius. L. Furius, the praetor, triumphed over the Gauls while in office and brought into the treasury 320,000 of bronze, and of silver
Ludi deinde a P. Cornelio Scipione quos consul in Africa uouerat magno apparatu facti. et de agris militum eius decretum ut quot quisque eorum annos in Hispania aut in Africa militasset, in singulos annos bina iugera agri acciperet: eum agrum decemuiri adsignarent. triumuiri item creati ad supplendum Venusinis colonorum numerum, quod bello Hannibalis attenuatae uires eius coloniae erant, C. Terentius Varro T. Quinctius Flamininus P. Cornelius Cn. f. Scipio; hi colonos Venusiam adscripserunt.
Games were then held by P. Cornelius Scipio, which the consul had vowed in Africa, with great display. And concerning the fields for his soldiers it was decreed that, however many years each of them had served in Spain or in Africa, for each single year he should receive two iugera of land: that land the decemvirs should assign. Triumvirs likewise were created to replenish the number of colonists at Venusia, because in the war of Hannibal the strength of that colony had been diminished—C. Terentius Varro, T. Quinctius Flamininus, P. Cornelius Scipio, son of Cn.; these enrolled colonists to Venusia.
Eodem anno C. Cornelius Cethegus, qui proconsul Hispaniam obtinebat, magnum hostium exercitum in agro Sedetano fudit. quindecim milia Hispanorum eo proelio dicuntur caesa, signa militaria capta octo et septuaginta. C. Aurelius consul cum ex prouincia Romam comitiorum causa uenisset, non id quod animis praeceperant questus est, non expectatum se ab senatu neque disceptandi cum praetore consuli potestatem factam, sed ita triumphum decresse senatum ut nullius nisi eius qui triumphaturus esset et <non> eorum qui bello interfuissent uerba audiret: maiores ideo instituisse ut legati tribuni centuriones milites denique triumpho adessent, ut testes rerum gestarum eius cui tantus honos haberetur populus Romanus uideret.
In the same year C. Cornelius Cethegus, who as proconsul was holding Spain, routed a great army of the enemy in the Sedetan territory. Fifteen thousand Spaniards are said to have been slain in that battle, and seventy-eight military standards were taken. When C. Aurelius the consul had come from his province to Rome for the sake of the elections, he did not complain of that which they had anticipated in their minds—that he had not been awaited by the senate, nor that power had been given to the consul of arguing with the praetor—but that the senate had decreed the triumph on this footing: that it should hear the words of no one except of him who was going to triumph, and <not> of those who had taken part in the war; the ancestors had for that reason established that the legates, tribunes, centurions, and finally the soldiers be present at the triumph, so that the Roman people might see the witnesses of the deeds of him upon whom so great an honor was being conferred.
Was there anyone from that army which had fought with the Gauls—if not a soldier, at least a camp‑follower (a sutler)—whom the senate could question as to whether the praetor was bringing truth or vanity? Then he proclaimed a day for the elections, at which were created consuls Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and Publius Villius Tappulus. Thereupon were made praetors Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, Lucius Villius Tappulus, Gnaeus Baebius Tamphilus.
[50] Annona quoque eo anno peruilis fuit; frumenti uim magnam ex Africa aduectam aediles curules M. Claudius Marcellus et Sex. Aelius Paetus binis aeris in modios populo diuiserunt. et ludos Romanos magno apparatu fecerunt; diem unum instaurarunt; signa aenea quinque ex multaticio argento in aerario posuerunt.
[50] The grain-supply too that year was very cheap; a great quantity of grain brought in from Africa the curule aediles, M. Claudius Marcellus and Sextus Aelius Paetus, distributed to the people at two asses per modius. And they put on the Roman Games with great display; they renewed one day; they set up five bronze statues in the Aerarium, from silver derived from fines.
the Plebeian games by the aediles Lucius Terentius the Massiliote and Gnaeus Baebius Tamphilus, who had been praetor-designate, were restored three times in their entirety. And funeral games that year for four days in the Forum, on account of the death of
Comitiis aediles curules creati sunt forte ambo qui statim occipere magistratum non possent. nam C. Cornelius Cethegus absens creatus erat, cum Hispaniam obtineret prouinciam; C. Valerius Flaccus, quem praesentem creauerant, quia flamen Dialis erat iurare in leges non poterat; magistratum autem plus quinque dies, nisi qui iurasset in leges, non licebat gerere. petente Flacco ut legibus solueretur, senatus decreuit ut si aedilis qui pro se iuraret arbitratu consulum daret, consules si iis uideretur cum tribunis plebis agerent uti ad plebem ferrent.
At the elections the curule aediles were created—by chance both were such as could not immediately enter upon the magistracy. For Gaius Cornelius Cethegus had been elected in absentia, since he was holding Spain as his province; Gaius Valerius Flaccus, whom they had elected while present, because he was the flamen Dialis, could not swear to the laws; moreover, it was not permitted to hold a magistracy for more than five days unless one had sworn to the laws. On Flaccus’s petition to be released from the laws, the senate decreed that, if he should provide an aedile to swear on his behalf at the discretion of the consuls, the consuls, if it seemed good to them, should deal with the tribunes of the plebs so that they might bring it before the plebs.
L. Valerius Flaccus, praetor-designate, was appointed to swear on behalf of his brother; the tribunes brought it before the plebs, and the plebs enacted that it should be the same as if the aedile himself had sworn. And concerning the other aedile a plebiscite was passed: with the tribunes asking which two they should order to go to Spain with imperium to the armies, that C. Cornelius, the curule aedile, should come to conduct his magistracy, and that L. Manlius Acidinus should depart from the province after many years, the plebs ordered that Gn. Cornelius Lentulus and L. Stertinius should have imperium in Spain as proconsuls.