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[1] Haec per hiemem gesta. initio autem ueris Quinctius Attalo Elatiam excito Boeotorum gentem incertis ad eam diem animis fluctuantem dicionis suae facere cupiens, profectus per Phocidem quinque milia ab Thebis, quod caput est Boeotiae, posuit castra. inde postero die <cum> unius signi militibus et Attalo legationibusque quae frequentes undique conuenerant pergit ire ad urbem, iussis legionis hastatis—ea duo milia militum erant—sequi se mille passuum interuallo distantibus.
[1] These things were done during the winter. But at the beginning of spring, Quinctius, with Attalus summoned to Elatia, wishing to make the nation of the Boeotians—wavering with minds uncertain up to that day—of his dominion, set out through Phocis and pitched camp five miles from Thebes, which is the capital of Boeotia. Thence on the next day he proceeds to go to the city with the soldiers of a single standard and with Attalus and with legations which, numerous, had assembled from all sides, after ordering the hastati of the legion—these were two thousand soldiers—to follow him at an interval of a thousand paces.
about the middle of the way the praetor of the Boeotians, Antiphilus, met him; the rest of the multitude from the walls were watching the arrival of the Roman commander and the king. rare weapons and few soldiers were visible around them; the hastati following were at a distance concealed by the windings of the roads and the valleys interposed. when he was now approaching the city, he advanced more slowly, as though saluting the crowd going out to meet him; the cause of the delay was that the hastati might catch up.
The townspeople, the crowd driven before the lictor, did not catch sight of the column of armed men following immediately until they had come to the commander’s lodging. Then, as if the city had been betrayed by the deceit of Antiphilus the praetor and captured, all were astonished; and it was apparent that nothing of free deliberation had been left to the council which had been proclaimed to the Boeotians for the following day. They veiled the grief which they would have shown both in vain and not without danger.
[2] In concilio Attalus primus uerba fecit. orsus a maiorum suorum suisque et communibus in omnem Graeciam et propriis in Boeotorum gentem meritis, senior iam et infirmior quam ut contentionem dicendi sustineret, obmutuit et concidit; et dum regem auferunt reficiuntque parte membrorum captum, paulisper contio intermissa est. Aristaenus inde Achaeorum praetor eo cum maiore auctoritate auditus quod non alia quam quae Achaeis suaserat Boeotis suadebat.
[2] In the council Attalus was the first to make words. Beginning from the merits of his forefathers and his own, both common toward all Greece and particular toward the Boeotian nation, now older and too infirm to sustain the contention of speaking, he fell mute and collapsed; and while they carry off the king and refit him, seized in part of his limbs, the assembly was for a little while interrupted. Then Aristaenus, praetor of the Achaeans, was heard with the greater authority because he was recommending to the Boeotians nothing other than what he had advised the Achaeans.
to this a few things were added by Quinctius himself, with words exalting Roman good faith more than arms or resources. then a motion brought by the Plataean Dicaearchus and read out, <de societate> to be joined with the Romans, with no one daring to speak against, is accepted and ordered by the suffrages of all the cities of Boeotia. the council dismissed, Quinctius stayed at Thebes only as long as Attalus’s sudden mishap compelled; after it seemed that the force of the disease had brought not present peril to life but a debility of the limbs, leaving him for the necessary cure of the body, he returned to Elatia whence he had set out, the Boeotians too, just as earlier the Achaeans, being admitted to the alliance, and, since those regions were left safe and pacified in the rear, all thoughts now were turned to Philip and to what remained of the war.
[3] Philippus quoque primo uere, postquam legati ab Roma nihil pacati rettulerant, dilectum per omnia oppida regni habere instituit in magna inopia iuniorum. absumpserant enim per multas iam aetates continua bella Macedonas; ipso quoque regnante et naualibus bellis aduersus Rhodios Attalumque et terrestribus aduersus Romanos ceciderat magnus numerus. ita et tirones ab sedecim annis milites scribebat, et emeritis quidam stipendiis, quibus modo quicquam reliqui roboris erat, ad signa reuocabantur.
[3] Philip likewise, at the beginning of spring, after the envoys from Rome had reported nothing peaceable, set about holding a levy through all the towns of the kingdom amid a great scarcity of youths. For through many generations now the continual wars had consumed the Macedonians; and even under his own reign, both in naval wars against the Rhodians and Attalus and in land wars against the Romans, a great number had fallen. Thus he was enrolling as soldiers even recruits from sixteen years of age, and certain men with their stipends earned out, in whom there was only any remnant of vigor, were being called back to the standards.
thus, with the army replenished, around the spring equinox he concentrated all his forces at Dium, and there, a stationary camp having been set, by exercising the soldiery daily he awaited the enemy. And Quinctius about the same days, setting out from Elatia, came to Thermopylae, passing by Thronium and Scarpheia. There he held the council of the Aetolians convened at Heraclea, consulting as to with how great an auxiliary force they would follow the Roman to the war.
with the decrees of the allies learned, on the third day from Heraclea he went on ahead to Xynias, and, the camp being pitched on the confine of the Aenianians and the Thessalians, he was awaiting the Aetolian auxiliaries. The Aetolians did not delay at all: with Phaeneas as leader, six thousand infantry came with four hundred horsemen. Lest it be doubtful what he had been awaiting, Quinctius immediately moved camp.
Philippus cognita profectione ab Elatia Romanorum, ut cui de summa rerum adesset certamen, adhortandos milites ratus, multa iam saepe memorata de maiorum uirtutibus simul de militari laude Macedonum cum disseruisset, ad ea quae tum maxime animos terrebant quibusque <erigi> ad aliquam spem poterant uenit.
Philip, the departure of the Romans from Elateia having been learned, as one to whom a contest about the supreme interests was at hand, thinking the soldiers should be exhorted, after he had discoursed on many things—already often recalled—about the virtues of the ancestors and at the same time about the military renown of the Macedonians, came to those points which then most terrified spirits and by which they could be
[4] Acceptae ad Aoum flumen in angustiis cladi <i>terum a Macedonum phalange ad Atragem ui pulsos Romanos opponebat: et illic tamen, ubi insessas fauces Epiri non tenuissent, primam culpam fuisse eorum qui neglegenter custodias seruassent, secundam in ipso certamine leuis armaturae mercennariorumque militum; Macedonum uero phalangem et tunc stetisse et loco aequo iustaque pugna semper mansuram inuictam. decem et sex milia militum haec fuere, robur omne uirium eius regni; ad hoc duo milia caetratorum, quos peltas<tas> appellant, Thracumque et Illyriorum—Tralles est nomen genti—par numerus, bina milia erant, et mixti ex pluribus gentibus mercede conducti auxiliares mille ferme et quingenti et duo milia equitum. cum iis copiis rex hostem opperiebatur.
[4] He set over against the defeat received in the narrows at the river Aous the fact that the Romans had again been driven by the Macedonian phalanx in force to Atrax; and there too, although they had not held the seized passes of Epirus, the first fault, he said, had been theirs who had kept the watches negligently, the second in the very contest that of the light-armed and the mercenary soldiers; but that the Macedonian phalanx both then had stood fast, and on level ground and in a fair fight would remain forever unconquered. These were 16,000 soldiers, the whole strength of the forces of that kingdom; to this were added 2,000 caetrati, whom they call peltasts, and of Thracians and Illyrians—Tralles is the name of the people—an equal number, they were 2,000; and auxiliaries hired for pay, mixed from several nations, about 1,500; and 2,000 horse. With these forces the king was awaiting the enemy.
[5] Quinctius ad Thebas Phthioticas castra cum mouisset, spem nactus per Timonem principem ciuitatis prodi urbem, cum paucis equitum leuisque armaturae ad muros successit. ibi adeo frustrata spes est ut non certamen modo cum erumpentibus sed periculum quoque atrox subiret, ni castris exciti repente pedites equitesque in tempore subuenissent. et postquam nihil conceptae temere spei succedebat, urbis quidem amplius temptandae in praesentia conatu absistit; ceterum satis gnarus iam in Thessalia regem esse, nondum comperto quam in regionem uenisset, milites per agros dimissos uallum caedere et parare iubet.
[5] When Quinctius had shifted camp to Phthiotic Thebes, having gotten the hope, through Timon, the leading man of the city, that the city would be betrayed, he advanced to the walls with a few horsemen and light-armed troops. There his hope was so frustrated that he not only engaged in combat with those bursting out, but also ran into a dire peril, had not infantry and cavalry, suddenly roused from the camp, come up in time to help. And after nothing of the rashly conceived hope was succeeding, he desisted for the present from any further attempt upon the city; but, being now quite aware that the king was in Thessaly, though not yet having learned into what region he had come, he orders the soldiers, dispatched through the fields, to cut and make ready the palisade.
Vallo et Macedones et Graeci usi sunt, sed usum nec ad commoditatem ferendi nec ad ipsius munitionis firmamentum aptauerunt; nam et maiores et magis ramosas arbores caedebant quam quas ferre cum armis miles posset, et cum castra his ante obiectis saepsissent, facilis molitio eorum ualli erat. nam et quia rari stipites magnarum arborum eminebant multique et ualidi rami praebebant quod recte manu caperetur, duo aut summum tres iuuenes conixi arborem unam euellebant, qua euulsa portae instar extemplo patebat, nec in promptu erat quod obmolirentur. Romanus leues et bifurcos plerosque et trium aut cum plurimum quattuor ramorum uallos caedit, ut et suspensis ab tergo armis ferat plures simul apte miles; et ita densos obfigunt implicantque ramis ut neque <quis cuiusque palmae stipes neque> quae cuiusque stipitis palma sit peruideri possit; et adeo acuti aliusque per alium immissi rami locum ad inserendam manum non relinquunt ut neque prehendi quod trahatur neque trahi, cum inter se innexi rami uinculum in uicem praebeant, possit; et si euulsus forte est unus, nec loci multum aperit et alium reponere perfacile est.
Both Macedonians and Greeks used a palisade, but they adapted its use neither to the convenience of carrying nor to the strengthening of the fortification itself; for they used to cut trees both larger and more branch-laden than a soldier could carry along with his arms; and when they had fenced their camp with these set up in front, the working at that palisade was easy. For both because the spars of the large trees stood far apart and the many sturdy branches furnished a good handhold, two or at most three young men, straining together, would wrench out a single tree; when that was torn up, an opening like a gate at once lay open, nor was anything ready at hand with which they might block it up. The Roman cuts light stakes, for the most part bifurcate and with three branches, or at the most four, so that, with his arms hung on his back, the soldier may suitably carry several at once; and they set them up so close and entangle them with branches in such a way that neither <which trunk belongs to which palm nor> which palm belongs to which trunk can be made out; and the branches, so sharp and thrust one through another, leave no place for inserting a hand, so that neither can anything be grasped to be dragged, nor dragged when the branches, linked among themselves, furnish a bond for one another; and if by chance one is torn out, it both does not open much space and it is very easy to put another in its place.
[6] Quinctius postero die uallum secum ferente milite ut paratus omni loco castris ponendis esset, progressus modicum iter sex ferme milia a Pheris cum consedisset, speculatum in qua parte Thessaliae hostis esset quidue pararet misit. circa Larisam erat rex. certior iam factus Romanum ab Thebis Pheras mouisse, defungi quam primum et ipse certamine cupiens ducere ad hostem pergit et quattuor milia fere a Pheris posuit castra.
[6] On the next day Quinctius, with the soldiers carrying the palisade with them so that he might be prepared in every place for pitching camp, after a modest march, when he had encamped about six miles from Pherae, sent out to reconnoiter in what part of Thessaly the enemy was and what he was preparing. The king was around Larisa. Once informed that the Roman had moved from Thebes to Pherae, eager himself too to have done with the contest as soon as possible, he marched toward the enemy and pitched camp about four miles from Pherae.
thence, on the next day, when on both sides the lightly equipped had advanced to seize the hills above the city, being at almost equal interval from the ridge that had to be taken, when they had caught sight of one another they halted, sending messengers back to the camp to consult what should be done for them, since, contrary to expectation, the enemy had met them, and they waited quietly. and on that day indeed, with no contest begun, they were recalled to camp; on the following day, about the same hills there was a cavalry battle, in which, not a little by the agency of the Aetolians, the royal troops were routed and driven into their camp. a great impediment to the conduct of the affair for both sides was the country planted thick with trees and the gardens, as in suburban places, and the routes constricted by dry-stone walls and in certain places cut off.
And so alike the commanders’ counsel was to withdraw from that region, and, as if by prior appointment, both made for Scotusa—Philip in the hope of foraging grain from there, the Roman so that, having gone ahead, he might spoil the enemy’s grain. Through the whole day, because hills with a continuous ridge intervened, the columns marched not seen by one another anywhere. The Romans <ad> Eretria of the Phthiotic country, Philip pitched camp above the river Onchestus.
not even on the following day, when Philip had pitched camp at Melambium, which they call in the territory of Scotusa<i>, and Quinctius around the Thetideum in the land of Pharsalus, did either side have it sufficiently ascertained where the enemy was. On the third day, first a downpour was poured out, then a fog very like night held the Romans in fear of ambushes.
[7] Philippus maturandi itineris causa, post imbrem nubibus in terram demissis nihil deterritus, signa ferri iussit; sed tam densa caligo occaecauerat diem ut neque signiferi uiam nec signa milites cernerent, agmen ad incertos clamores uagum uelut errore nocturno turbaretur. supergressi tumulos qui Cynoscephalae uocantur, relicta ibi statione firma peditum equitumque, posuerunt castra. Romanus iisdem ad Thetideum castris cum se tenuisset, exploratum tamen ubi hostis esset decem turmas equitum et mille pedites misit monitos ut ab insidiis, quas dies obscurus apertis quoque locis tecturus esset, praecauerent.
[7] Philip, for the sake of hastening the march, after the shower, with the clouds let down to the earth, undeterred, ordered the standards to be carried; but so dense a fog had blinded the day that neither could the standard-bearers see the way nor the soldiers the standards, and the column, wandering at uncertain shouts, was thrown into confusion as if by nocturnal error. Having crossed the knolls which are called Cynoscephalae, leaving there a firm outpost of infantry and cavalry, they pitched camp. The Roman, since he had kept himself in the same camp at Thetideum, nevertheless sent ten squadrons of cavalry and one thousand infantry to reconnoiter where the enemy was, with instructions to guard against ambushes, which the dark day would cover even in open places.
when they came to the occupied hills, with mutual fear injected they grew quiet as if torpid; then, messengers having been sent back to the camp to the leaders, when the first terror from the unanticipated sight subsided, they no longer abstained from contest. At the beginning the fight was provoked by a few running forward, then it grew when reserves came up to cover those who had been driven back. In this, as the Romans, by no means equal, were sending messengers to the commander one after another that they were being pressed, five hundred cavalry and two thousand infantry, chiefly Aetolians, sent quickly with two military tribunes, restored the matter that was inclining; and with fortune turned, the Macedonians, laboring, were imploring the king’s aid through messengers.
the king, as one who on that day, because of the overcast gloom, had expected nothing less than a battle, with a great part of men of every kind sent out to forage, for some time, destitute of counsel, was in trepidation; then, after the messengers kept pressing, and now the fog had unveiled the ridges of the mountains, and the Macedonians were in sight, forced among others onto a mound most elevated, protecting themselves by the place rather than by arms, thinking that the sum of affairs must in any case be committed to hazard, lest there be a loss of the undefended part, he sends Athenagoras, commander of the mercenaries, with all the auxiliaries except the Thracians and with the cavalry of the Macedonians and Thessalians. At their arrival the Romans, driven from the ridge, did not make a stand before they had come into a more level valley. That they might not be thrust down in a disordered rout, the Aetolian cavalry was the greatest safeguard.
[8] Laetior res quam pro successu pugnae nuntiata, cum alii super alios recurrentes ex proelio clamarent fugere pauidos Romanos, inuitum et cunctabundum et dicentem <Philippum> temere fieri, non locum sibi placere, non tempus, perpulit ut educeret omnes copias in aciem. idem et Romanus, magis necessitate quam occasione pugnae inductus, fecit. dextrum cornu elephantis ante signa instructis in subsidiis reliquit; laeuo cum omni leui armatura in hostem uadit, simul admonens cum iisdem Macedonibus pugnaturos quos ad Epiri fauces, montibus fluminibusque saeptos, uicta naturali difficultate locorum expulissent acieque expugnassent, cum iis quos P. Sulpicii prius ductu obsidentes in Eordaeam aditum uicissent: fama stetisse, non uiribus Macedoniae regnum; eam quoque famam tandem euanuisse.
[8] A report more cheerful than the success of the battle warranted, as men, running back from the fight one upon another, shouted that the Romans were fleeing in panic, forced
He had now come up to his own men standing in the lowest part of the valley; at the arrival of the army and the commander they renew the fight and, making a charge, again turn the enemy away. Philip, with the caetrati and the right wing of the infantry—the strength of the Macedonian army, which they called the phalanx—goes almost at a run toward the foe; he orders Nicanor, one of the “purpurates,” to follow at once with the remaining forces. At first, when he gained the ridge and from the few arms and bodies of the enemy lying there saw that there had been a battle in that place and that the Romans had been driven from it, and that fighting was going on near the enemy’s camp, he was uplifted with immense joy; soon, as his own were in flight and terror had changed sides, for a brief space, uncertain whether to withdraw his forces into the camp, he wavered; then, as the enemy was drawing near and, besides the fact that his men, turned in retreat, were being cut down and could not be saved unless they were defended, he himself was now not even in a safe position, he was forced, with part of his own not yet come up, to stake the peril of the whole affair: he places the cavalry and the light-armed troops who had been in the battle on the right wing next to the caetrati, and he orders the Macedonian phalanx, laying down their spears—whose length was a hindrance—to conduct the fight with swords.
[9] Quinctius iis qui in proelio fuerant inter signa et ordines acceptis tuba dat signum. raro alias tantus clamor dicitur in principio pugnae exortus; nam forte utraque acies simul conclamauere nec solum qui pugnabant sed subsidia etiam quique tum maxime in proelium ueniebant. dextero cornu rex loci plurimum auxilio, ex iugis altioribus pugnans, uincebat; sinistro tum cum maxime adpropinquante phalangis parte quae nouissimi agminis fuerat, sine ullo ordine trepidabatur; media acies, quae propior dextrum cornu erat, stabat spectaculo uelut nihil ad se pertinentis pugnae intenta.
[9] Quinctius, after receiving back among the standards and ranks those who had been in the battle, gives the signal by the trumpet. It is said that so great a clamor has rarely arisen at the beginning of a fight; for by chance both battle-lines shouted at once, and not only those who were fighting, but also the reserves and those who were just then coming into the battle. On the right wing the king, with the place very much to his aid, fighting from the higher ridges, was winning; on the left, just when the part of the phalanx which had been the rearmost of the column was most nearly approaching, there was panic without any order; the center, which was nearer the right wing, stood intent upon the spectacle, as if of a battle that pertained in no way to themselves.
the phalanx, which had come as a column rather than a battle-line and was more apt for marching than for fighting, had scarcely yet gained the ridge. Against these in disorder Quinctius, although he saw his men on the right wing giving ground, first drove the elephants against the enemy and made an attack, thinking that once one part was routed it would drag the rest along. The issue was not in doubt; at once the Macedonians turned their backs, driven by the first terror of the beasts.
and the rest indeed were pursuing those who had been routed; one of the military tribunes, with a plan caught ex tempore, with soldiers of twenty standards, leaving that part of his men which was without doubt winning, by a short circuit assails the enemy’s right wing, turned away. having attacked any battle-line from the rear, he would have thrown it into confusion; moreover, to the common trepidation of all in such a matter there was added this: that the Macedonian phalanx, heavy and immobile, could neither wheel itself around, nor did those allow this who a little before from the front had been giving ground, then in turn pressed upon the terrified. in addition they were also pressed by the place, because the ridge from which they had fought, while in pursuing the routed down the slope, they had surrendered to the enemy who had been led around to their backs.
[10] Philippus cum paucis peditum equitumque primo tumulum altiorem inter ceteros cepit <unde> specularetur quae in laeua parte suorum fortuna esset; deinde postquam fugam effusam animaduertit et omnia circa iuga signis atque armis fulgere, tum et ipse acie excessit. Quinctius cum institisset cedentibus, repente quia erigentes hastas Macedonas conspexerat, quidnam pararent incertus paulisper nouitate rei constituit signa; deinde, ut accepit hunc morem esse Macedonum tradentium sese, parcere uictis in animo habebat. ceterum ab ignaris militibus omissam ab hoste pugnam et quid imperator uellet impetus in eos est factus et primis caesis ceteri in fugam dissipati sunt.
[10] Philip, with a few foot and horse, at first seized a hill higher than the rest, <whence> he might reconnoiter what the fortune was on the left part of his men; then, after he observed a headlong flight and that all the ridges around were gleaming with standards and arms, then he too withdrew from the battle-line. Quinctius, when he had pressed upon those yielding, suddenly—because he had caught sight of Macedonians raising their spears—uncertain what they were preparing, halted the standards for a little at the novelty of the affair; then, when he learned that this is the custom of Macedonians surrendering themselves, he intended to spare the vanquished. However, by soldiers unaware that the fight had been dropped by the enemy and what the commander wished, a charge was made upon them, and when the first were cut down, the rest were scattered in flight.
on that day eight thousand of the enemy were cut down, <five> captured; of the victors nearly seven hundred fell. if one believes Valerius, who immoderately augments the number of all things, forty thousand of the enemy were killed that day, captured—there the lie is more modest—five thousand seven hundred, military standards two hundred forty-nine. Claudius also writes that thirty-two thousand of the enemy were cut down, four thousand three hundred captured.
[11] Philippus collectis ex fuga qui uariis casibus pugnae dissipati uestigia eius secuti fuerant missisque Larisam ad commentarios regios comburendos ne in hostium uenirent potestatem, in Macedoniam concessit. Quinctius captiuis praedaque <partim> uenumdatis partim militi concessis Larisam est profectus, hauddum satis gnarus quam regionem petisset rex quidue pararet. caduceator eo regius uenit, specie ut indutiae essent donec tollerentur ad sepulturam qui in acie cecidissent, re uera ad petendam ueniam legatis mittendis.
[11] Philip, having gathered from the rout those who, scattered by the various chances of the battle, had followed in his footsteps, and having sent men to Larisa to burn the royal records, lest they come into the power of the enemy, withdrew into Macedonia. Quinctius, the captives and the booty <partly> sold, partly granted to the soldiers, set out for Larisa, not yet sufficiently aware what region the king had made for or what he was preparing. A royal herald came there, under the pretext that there should be a truce until those who had fallen in the line of battle were taken up for burial, but in reality to ask permission for the sending of envoys.
both were obtained from the Roman. There was added also this word, that the king should be of good courage—as he was bidden—which most offended the Aetolians, already swelling and complaining that by victory the commander had been changed: before the battle he was wont to communicate everything, great and small, with the allies, now they were without part in all counsels, doing everything by his own arbitrament; that he was now seeking a place for private gratia with Philip, so that, after the Aetolians had exhausted the hard and harsh things of the war, the Roman might turn to himself the grace and fruit of peace. And without doubt some honor had departed from them; but why they were being neglected they did not know.
they believed the man, with a spirit unconquered by that desire, to be unassailable by the king’s gifts; but he also was incensed, not without cause, at the Aetolians for their insatiable avidity for plunder and their arrogance, snatching the glory of the victory to themselves, which by their vanity offended the ears of all; and, with Philip removed and the resources of the Macedonian kingdom broken, he discerned that the Aetolians would have to be held the masters of Greece. for these causes he was diligently doing many things so that they might be viler and of less weight in the eyes of all, and seem so.
[12] Indutiae quindecim dierum datae hosti erant et cum ipso rege constitutum conloquium; cuius priusquam tempus ueniret, in consilium aduocauit socios. rettulit quas leges pacis placeret dici. Amynander Athamanum rex paucis sententiam absoluit: ita componendam pacem esse ut Graecia etiam absentibus Romanis satis potens tuendae simul pacis libertatisque esset.
[12] A truce of fifteen days had been granted to the enemy, and a conference had been arranged with the king himself; before the time for this arrived, he summoned the allies into council. He laid before them what terms of peace it pleased him should be proposed. Amynander, king of the Athamanians, delivered his judgment in few words: that peace should be composed in such a way that Greece, even with the Romans absent, would be sufficiently potent to defend both peace and liberty at once.
The Aetolians’ speech was harsher, who, after a brief preface, said that the Roman imperator was acting rightly and in due order in that he shared the counsels of peace with those whom he had had as allies in war; they say he is deceived in the whole matter if he believes that he will leave either for the Romans a peace or for Greece a liberty sufficiently secure unless Philip is either slain or driven from his kingdom; and that both alternatives were easy of achievement if fortune were willing to be used. To this Quinctius said that the Aetolians had spoken a view neither mindful of Roman custom nor consistent with themselves; that they, in all previous councils and conferences [and] about the conditions of peace, had always argued, <not> that war should be waged to extermination; and that the Romans, beyond their most ancient custom of sparing the conquered, had given a chief proof of clemency by the peace granted to Hannibal and the Carthaginians. He was omitting the Carthaginians: how many times had it come to a conference with Philip himself?
the kings of the Macedonians seemed grievous to the liberty of Greece: if the kingdom and the nation were removed, the Thracians, the Illyrians, and then the Gauls—peoples feral and indomitable—would pour themselves into Macedonia and into Greece. let them not, by removing each nearest danger, make an approach for greater and graver ones to themselves. then, as Phaeneas, praetor of the Aetolians, was interrupting and attesting that, if Philip had slipped away at that time, he would soon revolt more seriously, he said: 'desist from tumultuating where deliberation is needed: the king will be bound by such conditions that he cannot set war in motion.'
[13] Hoc dimisso concilio postero die rex ad fauces quae ferunt in Tempe—is datus erat locus conloquio—uenit; tertio die datur ei Romanorum ac sociorum frequens concilium. ibi Philippus perquam prudenter iis sine quibus pax impetrari non poterat sua potius uoluntate omissis quam altercando extorquerentur, quae priore conloquio aut imperata a Romanis aut postulata ab sociis essent omnia se concedere, de ceteris senatui permissurum dixit. quamquam uel inimicissimis omnibus praeclusisse uocem uidebatur, Phaeneas tamen Aetolus cunctis tacentibus 'quid?
[13] With this council dismissed, on the next day the king came to the passes which lead into Tempe—the place had been assigned for the conference; on the third day a numerous council of Romans and allies was granted to him. There Philip, very prudently, said that he would, of his own accord, give up—rather than have them wrung out by wrangling—those points without which peace could not be obtained: namely, whatever at the earlier conference had either been commanded by the Romans or demanded by the allies; that he granted all these, and would refer the rest to the Senate. Although he seemed to have precluded speech even for all the most hostile, nevertheless Phaeneas the Aetolian, while all were silent, said, ‘What?
'to us,' he says, 'Philip, do you at last restore Pharsalus and Larisa Cremaste and Echinus and Thebes of Phthia?' When Philip said he had no delay so that they should recover them, a disputation arose between the Roman commander and the Aetolians about Thebes; for Quinctius said that they had been made the Roman people’s by right of war, because, with matters still intact, when an army had been brought up by him and they were called into amicitia, when there was a free power of seceding from the king, they preferred the royal societas to the Roman; but Phaeneas judged it equitable that, in accordance with the societas belli which they had had before the war, they be restored to the Aetolians, and that it had been so provided in the first foedus: that the praeda of war—things which could be carried and driven—should belong to the Romans, but the land and captured cities should fall to the Aetolians. 'You yourselves,' says Quinctius, 'broke the laws of that societas at the time when, leaving us, you made peace with Philip. Even if that remained, nevertheless that law about captured cities would hold: the cities of Thessaly came into our dominion by their own will.' These things, spoken with the assent of all the allies, were to the Aetolians grievous to hear not
it was agreed with Philip that he should give his son Demetrius and certain men from the number of his friends as hostages, and two hundred talents, and that he should send legates to Rome concerning the rest: for that purpose there should be a truce of four months. If peace were not obtained from the senate, it was accepted that the hostages and the money be returned to Philip. It is said that for the Roman commander no other greater cause existed for hastening the peace than that it was established that Antiochus was engineering a war and a crossing into Europe.
[14] Eodem tempore atque, ut quidam tradidere, eodem die ad Corinthum Achaei ducem regium Androsthenem iusto proelio fuderunt. eam urbem pro arce habiturus Philippus aduersus Graeciae ciuitates et principes inde euocatos per speciem conloquendi quantum equitum dare Corinthii ad bellum possent retinuerat pro obsidibus, et praeter quingentos Macedonas mixtosque ex omni genere auxiliorum octingentos, quot iam ante ibi fuerant, mille Macedonum eo miserat et mille ac ducentos Illyrios Thracasque et Cretenses, qui in utraque parte militabant, octingentos. his additi Boeoti Thessalique et Acarnanes mille, scutati omnes, et <septingenti ex> ipsorum Corinthiorum iuuentute, impleta ut essent sex milia armatorum, fiduciam Androstheni fecerunt acie decernendi.
[14] At the same time, and, as some have transmitted, on the same day, at Corinth the Achaeans routed the royal commander Androsthenes in a pitched battle. Philip, intending to hold that city as a citadel against the cities of Greece, had detained as hostages the leaders summoned from there, under the appearance of conference, on the question of how many horse the Corinthians could furnish for the war; and, besides the 500 Macedonians and 800 mixed auxiliaries of every sort which had already been there before, he had sent thither 1,000 Macedonians, and 1,200 Illyrians, and Thracians and Cretans—who were serving on both sides—800. To these were added Boeotians, Thessalians, and Acarnanians, 1,000 in all, all shield-bearers, and <seven hundred from> the Corinthians’ own youth; so that 6,000 armed men might be made up, they gave Androsthenes the confidence to decide the matter by battle.
Nicostratus, praetor of the Achaeans, was at Sicyon with two thousand infantry and one hundred cavalry; but seeing himself unequal both in number and in the kind of troops, he did not go out beyond the walls. The king’s forces, infantry and cavalry, roving, were ravaging the Pellenene and Phliasian and Cleonaean territory; finally, taunting the enemy with fear, they crossed into the borders of the Sicyonians, and, having also been carried around by ships, they were devastating the whole coast of Achaia. When the enemies did this more unrestrainedly and, as happens from excessive confidence, more negligently as well, Nicostratus, having found hope of attacking them unawares, sends a secret messenger around the neighboring cities to appoint on what day and how many armed men from each city should assemble at Apelaurus—the place is in the land of Stymphalia.
with everything prepared for the day appointed by edict, having set out thence immediately, he came by night through the borders of the Phliasians to Cleonae, all being unaware of what he was preparing. now there were with him five thousand foot soldiers, of whom ~ of light-armed troops, and three hundred horsemen. with these forces, having sent out men to reconnoiter toward which quarter the enemy were pouring themselves, he was waiting.
[15] Androsthenes omnium ignarus Corintho profectus ad Nemeam—amnis est Corinthium <et> Sicyonium interfluens agrum—castra locat. ibi partem dimidiam exercitus dimissam—trifariam diuisit—et omnes equites discurrere ad depopulandos simul Pellenensem Sicyoniumque agros et Phliasium iubet. haec tria diuersa agmina discessere.
[15] Androsthenes, ignorant of everything, set out from Corinth to Nemea—a river that flows between the Corinthian
When this was reported at Cleonae to Nicostratus, immediately a strong band of mercenaries was sent ahead to seize the pass through which there is a transit into the Corinthian territory, with the horsemen posted before the standards so that they might go on ahead; he himself at once follows with a double column. In the one part the mercenary soldiers went with light armature, in the other the shield-bearers; that was the strength in the armies of those nations. Now the infantry and cavalry were not far from the camp, and certain Thracians had made an attack upon the enemies wandering and dispersed through the fields, when sudden terror is borne into the camp.
the leader began to tremble, as one who had seen the enemy nowhere except a few on the hills before Sicyon, not daring to let their column descend into the plains, and would never have believed that they would come from Cleonae. He orders by trumpet that the stragglers who had slipped away from the camp be recalled; he himself, after ordering the soldiers to seize their arms in haste, having gone out by the gate with an infrequent column, arrays his line
The Macedonians, above all the most numerous about the standards, long made the hope of victory hang in the balance; at last, stripped by the flight of the rest, when now two enemy battle-lines from opposite directions pressed them—light-armed from the flank, shield-bearers and targeteers from the front—they too, the situation having tilted, at first gave ground, then, driven, turned their backs; and most, throwing away their arms, with no hope left of holding the camp, made for Corinth. Nicostratus, sending mercenary soldiers to pursue these men, and dispatching the cavalry and Thracian auxiliaries against the ravagers of Sicyonian territory, wrought great slaughter in both quarters, almost greater than in the battle itself. Of those also who had plundered Pellene and Phlius, some, returning to camp in disorder and ignorant of everything, were borne into the enemy’s outposts as though into their own; others, from the commotion suspecting the truth, scattered themselves in flight so widely that, wandering, they were surrounded by the rustics themselves.
[16] Priusquam dimicaretur ad Cynoscephalas, L. Quinctius Corcyram excitis Acarnanum principibus, quae sola Graeciae gentium in societate Macedonum manserat, initium quoddam ibi motus fecit. duae autem maxime causae eos tenuerant in amicitia regis, una fides insita genti, altera metus odiumque Aetolorum. concilium Leucadem indictum est.
[16] Before it came to blows at Cynoscephalae, L. Quinctius, at Corcyra, after calling up the chiefs of the Acarnanians—the only people of Greece who had remained in alliance with the Macedonians—there made a kind of beginning of a movement. But two chief causes had held them in the king’s friendship: one, a faith/loyalty inborn in the nation, the other, fear and hatred of the Aetolians. An assembly was proclaimed at Leucas.
there neither did all the peoples of the Acarnanians convene there nor did the same thing please [in] those who had convened; but two chiefs and the magistrates prevailed that a private decree of Roman alliance be made. All who had been absent took that ill; and amid this rumbling of the nation, two chiefs of the Acarnanians, Androcles and Echedemus, sent by Philip, were able not only to remove the decree of Roman alliance, but also to have Archelaus and Bianor, both chiefs of the nation, because they had been the authors of that opinion, condemned of treason in the council, and that the praetor Zeuxidas, because he had brought the matter forward, should have his imperium abrogated. A rash thing, but prosperous in its outcome, the condemned men did.
with their friends advising that they yield to the times and depart to the Romans at Corcyra, they resolved to present themselves to the multitude and either by that very act to soften the angers or to suffer what chance might bring. when they had entered a crowded council, at first there was a murmur and rumbling of those marveling; soon silence arose from a sense of shame, from respect for their former dignity together with pity for their present fortune. when leave to speak also had been granted, at the beginning they spoke humbly; but as the oration advanced, when it came to washing away the charges, they argued with as much confidence as their innocence afforded; finally, even venturing moreover to complain somewhat and to chastise the iniquity and the cruelty at once against themselves, they so affected minds that, in full assembly, all the decrees which had been passed against them were rescinded; nor for all that did they fail to vote that there must be a return into alliance with Philip and that friendship with the Romans must be refused.
[17] At Leucas these decrees were enacted. That was the capital of Acarnania, and to it for council all the peoples assembled. And so, when this sudden change had been reported to Corcyra to the legate Flamininus, he immediately set out with the fleet and brought his ships in to Leucas, to the sanctuary of Hera which they call the Heraeum.
Acarnania uniuersa inter Aetoliam atque Epirum posita solem occidentem et mare Siculum spectat. Leucadia nunc insula est, uadoso freto quod perfossum manu est ab Acarnania diuisa; tum paeninsula erat, occidentis regione artis faucibus cohaerens Acarnaniae; quingentos ferme passus longae eae fauces erant, latae haud amplius centum et uiginti. in iis angustiis Leucas posita est, colli adplicata uerso in orientem et Acarnaniam; ima urbis plana sunt, iacentia ad mare, quo Leucadia ab Acarnania diuiditur.
Acarnania as a whole, set between Aetolia and Epirus, looks toward the setting sun and the Sicilian sea. Leucadia is now an island, separated from Acarnania by a shallow strait which was dug through by hand; then it was a peninsula, clinging to Acarnania on the western side by narrow throats; those throats were about five hundred paces long, and not more than one hundred and twenty wide. In that narrowness Leucas is situated, attached to a hill facing toward the east and toward Acarnania; the lowest parts of the city are level, lying toward the sea, by which Leucadia is divided from Acarnania.
thence it is assailable by land and by sea; for the shallows are more like a stagnant pool than the sea, and the whole terrene plain is easy for works. therefore in many places at once the walls were collapsing, either undermined or struck down by the ram; but as opportune as the city itself was to the assailants, so inexpugnable were the spirits of the enemy. day and night they were intent to repair the battered portions of the wall, to block what had been laid open by the ruins, to enter combats vigorously, and with arms to protect the walls rather than themselves by the ramparts; and they would have prolonged that siege beyond the Romans’ expectation, had not certain exiles of Italian stock, dwelling at Leucas, admitted soldiers from the citadel.
Nevertheless, the Leucadians held them, as they were running down from the higher ground with great tumult, for some time in a regular battle, the battle line drawn up in the forum. Meanwhile the walls were taken in many places by ladders, and a crossing was made into the city over strewn stones and ruins; and by now the legate himself, with a great column, had encircled the combatants. Then some were cut down in the midst, others, their arms thrown away, surrendered themselves to the victor.
[18] Iisdem diebus, omnia simul inclinante fortuna, Rhodii quoque ad uindicandam a Philippo continentis regionem—Peraean uocant—possessam a maioribus suis, Pausistratum praetorem cum octingentis Achaeis peditibus, mille et octingentis fere armatis ex uario genere auxiliorum collectis miserunt: Galli et Mniesutae et Pisuetae et Tarmiani et Theraei ex Peraea et Laudiceni ex Asia erant. cum iis copiis Pausistratus Tendeba in Stratonicensi agro, locum peropportunum, ignaris regiis qui Therae erant occupauit. in tempore et ad <id> ipsum excitum auxilium, mille Achaei pedites cum centum equitibus superuenerunt; Theoxenus iis praeerat.
[18] In those same days, with Fortune at the same time inclining everything, the Rhodians also, to reclaim from Philip the mainland region— they call it Peraea — possessed by their ancestors, sent Pausistratus the praetor with eight hundred Achaean foot-soldiers, and about one thousand eight hundred armed men gathered from various kinds of auxiliaries: there were Gauls and Mniesutae and Pisuetae and Tarmiani and Theraeans from Peraea and Laodiceans from Asia. With these forces Pausistratus seized Tendeba, in the territory of Stratonicea, a most opportune place, the king’s men who were at Thera being unaware. And in time, and help called out for that very purpose, one thousand Achaean foot-soldiers with one hundred horsemen arrived; Theoxenus was in command of them.
Dinocrates, the royal prefect, for the purpose of recapturing the fortress, first moves his camp to Tendeba itself, then to another fortress likewise in the Stratonicensian territory—they call it Astragon—; and, with all the garrisons which had been scattered in many quarters summoned down there, and from Stratonicea itself proceeding to lead the Thessalian auxiliaries to Alabanda, where the enemies were, he continues his march. Nor did the Rhodians decline the fight. Thus, with the camps pitched at hand, they immediately descended into battle order.
Dinocrates placed five hundred Macedonians on the right wing, on the left the Agrianians; in the center he took in men gathered from the garrisons of the forts—chiefly Carians—, and he encircled the wings with cavalry and with Cretan auxiliaries and Thracians. The Rhodians had the Achaeans on the right wing, on the left mercenary soldiers, a chosen band of infantry; in the middle auxiliaries mixed from several peoples; the cavalry and light-armed troops, such as there were, were thrown around the wings. On that day both battle-lines merely stood along the bank of a torrent which was then flowing with scant water, and, after a few missiles had been sent, they withdrew to their camps.
on the next day, drawn up in the same order, they delivered a battle somewhat greater than was proportionate to the number of those fighting. for there were not more than 3,000 infantry and about 100 horsemen; yet they fought matched not only in number and in the kind of arms, but also with equal spirits and equal hope. the Achaeans, first, after the torrent had been crossed, made an attack upon the Agrianians; then nearly the whole battle-line crossed the river at a run.
For a long time the fight stood in suspense. By weight of numbers the Achaeans, themselves 1,000, drove 400 from their ground; then, when the left wing had inclined, all strove toward the right. The Macedonians, so long as their ranks and, as it were, a packed phalanx held firm, were unable to move; but after their left flank was laid bare and they tried to wheel their spears against the enemy coming from the side, being thrown into disorder they at once created a tumult among themselves, then turned their backs, and at last, with their arms cast away, poured out in headlong flight.
The opportunity for that affair was let pass while time was worn away in recovering the forts and villages of the Peraea. Meanwhile the spirits of those who were holding Stratonicea with a garrison were strengthened; soon also Dinocrates entered within the walls with the forces which had survived the battle. Thereafter the city was besieged and assaulted to no avail, nor could it be retaken except some time later by Antiochus.
[19] Philippus cum audisset Dardanos transgressos fines ab contemptu concussi tum regni superiora Macedoniae euastare, quamquam toto prope orbe terrarum undique se suosque exigente fortuna urgebatur, tamen morte tristius ratus Macedoniae etiam possessione pelli, dilectu raptim per urbes Macedonum habito cum sex milibus peditum et quingentis equitibus circa Stobos Paeoniae improuiso hostes oppressit. magna multitudo hominum in proelio, maior cupidine praedandi palata per agros caesa est. quibus fuga in expedito fuit, ne temptato quidem casu pugnae in fines suos redierunt.
[19] When Philip heard that the Dardanians, having crossed the borders, out of contempt for the realm then shaken, were devastating Upper Macedonia, although he was being pressed by fortune, which was driving him and his men out on every side almost over the whole world, nevertheless, deeming it sadder than death to be expelled even from possession of Macedonia, after a levy was held hastily through the cities of the Macedonians, with 6,000 infantry and 500 cavalry he surprised the enemies around Stobos in Paeonia. A great multitude of men was cut down in the battle; a greater, scattered through the fields by the desire of plundering, was slain. Those for whom flight lay open, without even trying the hazard of battle, withdrew into their own borders.
Non tam in tempore Punicum bellum terminatum erat, ne simul et cum Philippo foret bellandum, quam opportune iam Antiocho ex Syria mouente bellum Philippus est superatus; nam praeterquam quod facilius cum singulis quam si in unum ambo simul contulissent uires bellatum est, Hispania quoque sub idem tempus magno tumultu ad bellum consurrexit.
Not so much was the Punic war terminated in time, to the end that there might not have to be fighting with Philip at the same time, as, opportunely, Philip was overcome just when Antiochus from Syria was setting war in motion; for apart from the fact that it was easier to wage war with them singly than if both together had brought their forces into one, Spain also at this same time rose up to war with great tumult.
Antiochus cum priore aestate omnibus quae in Coele Syria sunt ciuitatibus ex Ptolomaei dicione in suam potestatem redactis in hiberna Antiochiam concessisset, nihilo quietiora ea ipsis aestiuis habuit. omnibus enim regni uiribus conixus cum ingentes copias terrestres maritimasque comparasset, principio ueris praemissis terra cum exercitu filiis duobus Ardye<que> ac Mithridate iussisque Sardibus se opperiri, ipse cum classe centum tectarum nauium, ad hoc leuioribus nauigiis cercurisque ac lembis ducentis proficiscitur, simul per omnem oram Ciliciae Lyciaeque et Cariae temptaturus urbes quae in dicione Ptolomaei essent, simul Philippum— necdum enim debellatum erat—exercitu nauibusque adiuturus.
Antiochus, when in the earlier summer, all the cities which are in Coele Syria having been reduced from Ptolemy’s dominion into his own power, he had withdrawn into winter quarters at Antioch, had that season no quieter than the summer itself. For, straining with all the forces of the kingdom, after he had prepared huge land and sea forces, at the beginning of spring he sent forward by land with an army his two sons, Ardyas and Mithridates, and ordered them to await him at Sardis; he himself sets out with a fleet of 100 decked ships, and in addition 200 lighter vessels, cercuri and lembi, at once meaning both to test the cities along the whole coast of Cilicia and Lycia and Caria which were under Ptolemy’s sway, and to aid Philip—for the war had not yet been fought to a finish—with army and ships.
[20] Multa egregie Rhodii pro fide erga populum Romanum proque uniuerso nomine Graecorum terra marique ausi sunt, nihil magnificentius quam quod ea tempestate non territi tanta mole imminentis belli legatos ad regem miserunt ne Chelidonias—promunturium Ciliciae est, inclutum foedere antiquo Atheniensium cum regibus Persarum—superaret: si eo fine non contineret classem copiasque suas, se obuiam ituros, non ab odio ullo sed ne coniungi eum Philippo paterentur et impedimento esse Romanis liberantibus Graeciam. Coracesium eo tempore Antiochus operibus oppugnabat, Zephyrio et Solis et Aphrodisiade et Coryco et superato Anemurio—promunturium id quoque Ciliciae est—Selinunte recepto. omnibus his aliisque eius orae castellis aut metu aut uoluntate sine certamine in dicionem acceptis, Coracesium praeter spem clausis portis tenebat eum.
[20] The Rhodians dared many things excellently for their loyalty toward the Roman people and for the entire name of the Greeks, by land and sea, nothing more magnificent than that at that time, not terrified by so great a mass of the impending war, they sent legates to the king that he should not pass beyond the Chelidonias—a promontory of Cilicia, renowned for the ancient treaty of the Athenians with the kings of the Persians; if he did not confine his fleet and his forces within that boundary, they would go to meet him, not from any hatred, but lest they allow him to be joined with Philip and to be an impediment to the Romans as they were liberating Greece. Coracesium at that time Antiochus was besieging with siege-works, Zephyrium and Soli and Aphrodisias and Corycus having been taken, and Anemurium overmastered—a promontory that also of Cilicia—Selinus having been recovered. With all these and the other strongholds of that coast, either by fear or by will, received into his power without contest, Coracesium, beyond expectation, with its gates shut, held him at bay.
there the legates of the Rhodians were heard. And although that embassy was one which could inflame the royal spirit, he tempered his anger and replied that he would send legates to Rhodes and would instruct them to renew the ancient rights with that city, his own and his ancestors’, and to forbid them to dread the king’s arrival: that nothing either to them or to their allies would be injurious or fraudulent; for he would not violate the friendship of the Romans, with both his own recent embassy to them and the senate’s honorific decrees and replies in his favor as evidence. Just then, by chance, the legates had returned from Rome, courteously heard and dismissed, as the time demanded, since the outcome of the war against Philip was still uncertain.
while the king’s envoys were handling these matters in the assembly of the Rhodians, a messenger came: that the war had been brought to an end at Cynoscephalae. With this news received, the Rhodians, their fear of Philip removed, abandoned the plan of going to meet Antiochus with a fleet; that other concern they did not abandon—of safeguarding the liberty of the cities allied to Ptolemy, upon which war was looming from Antiochus. For some they helped with auxiliaries, others by foreseeing and forewarning the enemy’s attempts, and they were the cause of liberty for the Caunians, Myndians, Halicarnassians, and Samians.
[21] Eodem tempore Attalus rex aeger ab Thebis Pergamum aduectus moritur altero et septuagesimo anno, cum quattuor et quadraginta annos regnasset. huic uiro praeter diuitias nihil ad spem regni fortuna dederat. iis simul prudenter, simul magnifice utendo effecit primum ut sibi deinde ut aliis non indignus uideretur regno.
[21] At the same time King Attalus, ill, conveyed from Thebes to Pergamum, died in his seventy-second year, after he had reigned forty-four years. To this man Fortune had given nothing besides riches toward the hope of a kingdom. By using these both prudently and magnificently, he brought it about that, first to himself and then to others, he seemed not unworthy of the kingdom.
then, the Gauls having been defeated in a single battle—at that time a nation more terrifying to Asia by reason of their recent advent—he assumed the royal name, and he always matched his spirit to its magnitude. He ruled his own with the highest justice, he exhibited singular fidelity to his allies, he was affable to his wife and children—he had four surviving—, mild and munificent to his friends; he left his kingdom so stable and firm that the possession of it descended to the third generation.
Cum hic status rerum in Asia Graeciaque et Macedonia esset, uixdum terminato cum Philippo bello, pace certe nondum perpetrata, ingens in Hispania ulteriore coortum est bellum. M. Heluius eam prouinciam obtinebat. is litteris senatum certiorem fecit Culcham et Luxinium regulos in armis esse: cum Culcha decem et septem oppida, cum Luxinio ualidas urbes Carmonem et Bardonem; in maritima ora Malacinos Sexetanosque <et> Baeturiam omnem et quae nondum animos nudauerant ad finitimorum motus consurrectura.
While this was the state of affairs in Asia, Greece, and Macedonia, with the war with Philip scarcely yet ended, and the peace certainly not yet fully consummated, a vast war arose in Farther Spain. M. Helvius was holding that province. He informed the senate by letters that the petty kings Culcha and Luxinius were in arms: with Culcha seventeen towns, with Luxinius the strong cities Carmo and Bardon; on the maritime coast the Malacini and Sexetani <and> all Baeturia, and those who had not yet laid bare their intentions, would rise up at the movements of their neighbors.
When these letters had been read out by Marcus Sergius, the praetor, whose jurisdiction was between citizens and foreigners, the Fathers decreed that, once the elections of the praetors were completed, the praetor to whom the province of Spain had fallen should, at the earliest opportunity, report to the Senate about the war in Spain.
[22] Sub idem tempus consules Romam uenerunt; quibus in aede Bellonae senatum habentibus postulantibusque triumphum ob res prospere bello gestas C. Atinius Labeo et C. Afranius tribuni plebis ut separatim de triumpho agerent consules postularunt: communem se relationem de ea re fieri non passuros, ne par honos in dispari merito esset. cum Q. Minucius utrique Italiam prouinciam obtigisse diceret, communi animo consilioque se et collegam res gessisse, et C. Cornelius adiceret Boios aduersus se transgredientes Padum ut Insubribus Cenomanisque auxilio essent depopulante uicos eorum atque agros collega ad sua tuenda auersos esse, tribuni res tantas bello gessisse C. Cornelium fateri ut non magis de triumpho eius quam de honore diis immortalibus habendo dubitari possit: non tamen nec illum nec quemquam alium ciuem tantum gratia atque opibus ualuisse ut, cum sibi meritum triumphum impetrasset, collegae eundem honorem immeritum impudenter petenti daret. Q. Minucium in Liguribus leuia proelia uix digna dictu fecisse, in Gallia magnum numerum militum amisisse; nominabant etiam tribunos militum T. Iuuentium Cn. Ligurium legionis quartae: aduersa pugna cum multis aliis uiris fortibus, ciuibus ac sociis, cecidisse.
[22] At about the same time the consuls came to Rome; while they were holding the senate in the Temple of Bellona and requesting a triumph for matters successfully conducted in war, Gaius Atinius Labeo and Gaius Afranius, tribunes of the plebs, demanded that the consuls take up the triumph separately: they would not allow a common report on that matter to be made, lest equal honor be in unequal desert. Since Quintus Minucius said that to both of them Italy had fallen as a province, that he and his colleague had conducted affairs with a common spirit and counsel, and Gaius Cornelius added that, the Boii crossing the Po against him to be a help to the Insubres and Cenomani, while his colleague was turned aside to protect his own, he had ravaged their villages and fields, the tribunes admitted that Gaius Cornelius had achieved deeds so great in war that one could no more doubt his triumph than the holding of an honor to the immortal gods: yet neither he nor any other citizen had so much influence and resources that, when he had obtained for himself a deserved triumph, he should grant the same honor to a colleague shamelessly seeking it without desert. Quintus Minucius, among the Ligurians, had fought light skirmishes scarcely worth telling, in Gaul had lost a great number of soldiers; they also named the military tribunes Titus Juventius and Gnaeus Ligurius of the fourth legion: in an adverse battle they had fallen with many other brave men, citizens and allies.
[23] C. Cornelio omnium consensu decretus triumphus; et Placentini Cremonensesque addiderunt fauorem consuli, gratias agentes commemorantesque obsidione sese ab eo liberatos, plerique etiam, cum apud hostes essent, seruitute exemptos. Q. Minucius temptata tantum relatione, cum aduersum omnem senatum uideret, in monte Albano se triumphaturum et iure imperii consularis et multorum clarorum uirorum exemplo dixit. C. Cornelius de Insubribus Cenomanisque in magistratu triumphauit.
[23] For Gaius Cornelius a triumph was decreed by the consensus of all; and the Placentines and the Cremonans added their favor to the consul, giving thanks and commemorating that they had been freed by him from siege, many also that, when they were among the enemy, they had been exempted from servitude. Quintus Minucius, with only the proposal tried, when he saw himself opposed by the whole senate, said that he would celebrate a triumph on the Alban Mount both by the right of consular imperium and by the example of many famous men. Gaius Cornelius, over the Insubres and Cenomani, triumphed while in magistracy.
he bore many military standards, he transported much Gallic spoil on captive wagons, many noble Gauls were led before the chariot, among whom some authorities say Hamilcar, a leader of the Carthaginians, was; but he drew the eyes more upon himself by the crowd of colonists from Cremona and Placentia, pilleus-capped, following the chariot. he carried in his triumph 237,500 of bronze, and 79,000 silver bigati; seventy asses apiece were distributed to the soldiers, double to a horseman and to a centurion. Q. Minucius the consul triumphed on the Alban Mount over the Ligurians and the Boii Gauls.
this triumph, in respect both to the venue and to the renown of the deeds, and because all knew that the expense had not been disbursed from the treasury, was the more dishonored; yet in standards, wagons, and spoils it nearly equaled. The sum of money too was almost equal: of bronze were brought over two hundred fifty-four thousand, of silver bigati fifty-three thousand two hundred; to the soldiers, centurions, and horsemen the same was given to each as his colleague had given.
Exitu ferme anni litterae a T. Quinctio uenerunt se signis conlatis cum rege Philippo in Thessalia pugnasse, hostium exercitum fusum fugatumque. hae litterae prius in senatu a <M.> Sergio praetore, deinde ex auctoritate patrum in contione sunt recitatae, et ob res prospere gestas in dies quinque supplicationes decretae. breui post legati et ab T. Quinctio et ab rege Philippo uenerunt.
About the end of the year letters came from T. Quinctius stating that, with standards joined, he had fought in Thessaly with King Philip, and that the enemy’s army had been routed and put to flight. These letters were first read in the Senate by the praetor <M.> Sergius, then, by authority of the Fathers, in a public assembly; and on account of the matters prosperously achieved, supplications for five days were decreed. Shortly after, envoys came both from T. Quinctius and from King Philip.
The Macedonians were escorted outside the city to a public villa, and there quarters and splendid hospitality were provided for them, and a meeting of the senate was granted at the temple of Bellona. There not many words were spoken, since the Macedonians said that whatever the senate had resolved, that the king would do. Ten legates, according to ancestral custom, were decreed, at whose counsel T. Quinctius, the commander, should give the terms of peace to Philip; and it was added that in that number of legates there should be P. Sulpicius and P. Villius, who, as consuls, had held the province of Macedonia.
[25] ludi Romani eo anno in circo scaenaque ab aedilibus curulibus P. Cornelio Scipione et Cn. Manlio Uolsone et magnificentius quam alias facti et laetius propter res bello bene gestas spectati totique ter instaurati. plebei septiens instaurati; M'. Acilius Glabrio et C. Laelius eos ludos fecerunt, et de argento multaticio tria signa aenea, Cererem Liberumque et Liberam, posuerunt.
[25] the Roman Games that year, in the circus and on the stage, were held by the curule aediles P. Cornelius Scipio and Cn. Manlius Volso both more magnificently than at other times and were watched more joyfully on account of exploits well conducted in war, and as a whole they were renewed three times. the Plebeian [Games] were renewed seven times; M'. Acilius Glabrio and C. Laelius celebrated those games, and from the silver of fines they set up three bronze statues—Ceres, Liber, and Libera.
L. Furius et M. Claudius Marcellus consulatu inito, cum de prouinciis ageretur et Italiam utrique prouinciam senatus decerneret, ut Macedoniam cum Italia sortirentur tendebant. Marcellus, prouinciae cupidior, pacem simulatam ac fallacem dicendo et rebellaturum si exercitus inde deportatus esset regem, dubios sententiae patres fecerat; et forsitan obtinuisset consul, ni Q. Marcius Ralla et C. Atinius Labeo tribuni plebis se intercessuros dixissent ni prius ipsi ad plebem tulissent uellent iuberentne cum rege Philippo pacem esse. ea rogatio in Capitolio ad plebem lata est: omnes quinque et triginta tribus 'uti rogas' iusserunt.
With the consulship entered upon by L. Furius and M. Claudius Marcellus, when the matter of the provinces was being handled and the senate was assigning Italy as the province to each, they pressed that they should draw lots for Macedonia along with Italy. Marcellus, more desirous of the province, by saying that the peace was simulated and fallacious and that the king would rebel if the army were carried off from there, had made the senators doubtful in their judgment; and perhaps the consul would have prevailed, had not the tribunes of the plebs Q. Marcius Ralla and C. Atinius Labeo said that they would intercede unless they themselves had first brought before the plebs whether they wished and ordered that there be peace with King Philip. That proposal was brought before the plebs on the Capitol: all five-and-thirty tribes ordered, “as you ask.”
And just as the multitude were the more rejoicing that the peace in Macedonia was ratified, a sad message brought from Spain put a check to it; and circulated letters reported that Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus, proconsul in Hither Spain, had been defeated in battle, his army routed and put to flight, many illustrious men had fallen in the battle-line, and that Tuditanus, carried back from the battle with a grave wound, not very long afterward expired. For both consuls Italy was decreed as their province, with those legions which the previous consuls had had, and that they should enroll four new legions—two urban, and two which should be sent wherever the senate should have decreed; and Titus Quinctius Flamininus [with two legions] was ordered to hold the province with the same army: it seemed that his imperium had already before been prolonged sufficiently.
[26] Praetores deinde prouincias sortiti, L. Apustius Fullo urbanam iurisdictionem, M'. Acilius Glabrio inter ciues et peregrinos, Q. Fabius Buteo Hispaniam ulteriorem, Q. Minucius Thermus citeriorem, C. Laelius Siciliam, Ti. Sempronius Longus Sardiniam. Q. Fabio Buteoni et Q. Minucio, quibus Hispaniae prouinciae euenerant, consules legiones singulas ex quattuor ab se scriptis quas uideretur ut darent decretum est et socium ac Latini nominis quaterna milia peditum, trecenos equites; iique primo quoque tempore in prouincias ire iussi. bellum in Hispania quinto post anno motum est quam simul cum Punico bello fuerat finitum.
[26] Then the praetors drew lots for their provinces: L. Apustius Fullo the urban jurisdiction, M'. Acilius Glabrio jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners, Q. Fabius Buteo Farther Spain, Q. Minucius Thermus Nearer Spain, C. Laelius Sicily, Ti. Sempronius Longus Sardinia. For Q. Fabius Buteo and Q. Minucius, to whom the Spanish provinces had fallen, it was decreed that the consuls should give to each one legion from the four enrolled by themselves, as should seem proper, and, of the allies and of the Latin name, four thousand infantry apiece and three hundred horsemen apiece; and they were ordered to go to their provinces at the earliest possible time. War in Spain was stirred up in the fifth year after it had been ended together with the Punic War.
before either these praetors should set out to a nearly new war—for then for the first time in their own name, without any Punic army or leader, they had gone to arms—or the consuls themselves should move from the city, they were ordered to procure, as is customary, the prodigies that were being reported. P. Villius, a Roman knight, while setting out into the Sabine country, he and his horse had been struck dead by lightning; the temple of Feronia in the Capenate had been struck from the sky; at the Temple of Moneta the tips of two spears blazed; a wolf, having entered by the Esquiline Gate, when it had run down into the forum, the most frequented part of the city, through the Vicus Tuscus and thence the Cermalus, through the Capena Gate escaped nearly unharmed. these prodigies were expiated with greater victims.
[27] Isdem diebus Cn. Cornelius Blasio, qui ante C. Sempronium Tuditanum citeriorem Hispaniam obtinuerat, ouans ex senatus consulto urbem est ingressus. tulit prae se auri mille et quingenta quindecim pondo, argenti uiginti milia, signati denarium triginta quattuor milia et quingentos. L. Stertinius ex ulteriore Hispania, ne temptata quidem triumphi spe, quinquaginta milia pondo argenti in aerarium intulit, et de manubiis duos fornices in foro bouario ante Fortunae aedem et matris Matutae, unum in maximo circo fecit et his fornicibus signa aurata imposuit.
[27] In the same days Gnaeus Cornelius Blasio, who before Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus had held Hither Spain, entered the city in an ovation by decree of the senate. He carried before him 1,515 pounds of gold, 20,000 of silver, and 34,500 coined denarii. Lucius Stertinius, from Farther Spain, without even attempting the hope of a triumph, brought 50,000 pounds of silver into the treasury, and from the spoils he made two arches in the Forum Boarium before the temple of Fortuna and of Mater Matuta, and one in the Circus Maximus, and he set gilded statues upon these arches.
These things were transacted for the most part during the winter. At that time T. Quinctius was wintering at Elateia, from whom, as the allies were asking many things, the Boeotians asked and obtained that those of their own nation who had served with Philip be restored to them. This was easily obtained from Quinctius, not because he thought them sufficiently worthy, but because, with King Antiochus already suspect, favor had to be conciliated for the Roman name among the cities.
With them restored, it straightway appeared how no favor had been entered into among the Boeotians; for they sent ambassadors to Philip, giving thanks to him for the men returned, just as though it had been granted to themselves and not by Quinctius and the Romans; and at the next comitia they made as Boeotarch—for no other cause—a certain Brachylles, than that he had been prefect/commander of the Boeotians serving with the king, passing over Zeuxippus and Pisistratus and others who had been authors of alliance with Rome. This these men both hardly endured for the present and also conceived fear for the future: when these things were happening with the Roman army sitting almost at the gates, what, pray, would be their lot when the Romans had set out for Italy, Philip from close by aiding his allies and being hostile to those who had been of the adverse party?
[28] Dum Romana arma in propinquo haberent, tollere Brachyllem principem fautorum regis statuerunt. et tempore ad eam rem capto, cum in publico epulatus reuerteretur domum temulentus prosequentibus mollibus uiris qui ioci causa conuiuio celebri interfuerant, ab sex armatis, quorum tres Italici, tres Aetoli erant, circumuentus occiditur. fuga comitum et quiritatio facta et tumultus per totam urbem discurrentium cum luminibus; percussores proxima porta euaserunt.
[28] While Roman arms were close at hand, they resolved to remove Brachylles, the leader of the king’s supporters. And, seizing an opportunity for that purpose, when, after feasting in public, he was returning home drunk, accompanied by effeminate men who had taken part in the celebrated banquet for the sake of jest, he was surrounded and slain by six armed men, of whom three were Italians, three Aetolians. His companions fled, and there arose a cry for help and a tumult of people running through the whole city with lights; the assassins escaped by the nearest gate.
At first light a crowded assembly, as if convened by a prior edict or by the voice of a herald, was in the theater. Openly they clamored that he had been slain by his own retinue and by those obscene men; but in their minds they marked out Zeuxippus as the author of the murder. For the present it was resolved that those who had been together with him be apprehended, and that a questioning be held of them.
while they are being sought, Zeuxippus, with a constant spirit, for the sake of turning the charge away from himself, having advanced into the assembly, says that men err who believe that so atrocious a killing pertains to those half‑men, and he argues many things plausibly to that effect; by which he made some believe that never, if he were conscious to himself, would he have offered himself to the multitude, or would he have made mention of that murder with no one provoking; others do not doubt that suspicion is turned aside by impudently going to meet the charge. after a little the innocent men were tortured, since they themselves knew nothing; in the opinion of all, as evidence they named Zeuxippus and Pisistratus, with no argument added as to why they seemed to know anything. Zeuxippus, however, with a certain Stratonidas, fled by night to Tanagra, fearing his own conscience more than the testimony of men conscious of nothing; Pisistratus, scorning the informers, remained at Thebes.
There was a slave of Zeuxippus, the intermediary and minister of the whole affair, whom Pisistratus, fearing as an informer, by that very fear drove into giving evidence. He sends a letter to Zeuxippus that he should remove the slave privy to the matter: he seemed to him not so suitable for concealing the affair as he had been for executing it. The man who had carried this letter, ordered to give it to Zeuxippus as soon as possible, because there was not immediately an opportunity of meeting him, hands it over to that very slave, whom of all he believed most faithful to his master, and adds that it is from Pisistratus about a matter pertaining very greatly to Zeuxippus.
struck by conscience, though he had affirmed that he would hand them over at once, he opens them; and, the letters read through, fearful, he flees back to Thebes and lodges information with the magistrates. And Zeuxippus indeed, moved to flight by the slave’s defection, withdrew to Anthedon, judging it a safer place for exile; as for Pisistratus and the others, interrogations with tortures were held, and execution was carried out.
[29] Efferauit ea caedes Thebanos Boeotosque omnes ad exsecrabile odium Romanorum, credentes non sine consilio imperatoris Romani Zeuxippum principem gentis id facinus conscisse. ad rebellandum neque uires neque ducem habebant: proximum bello quod erat, in latrocinium uersi alios in hospitiis, alios uagos per hiberna milites ad uarios commeantes usus excipiebant. quidam in ipsis itineribus ad notas latebras ab insidiantibus, pars in deserta per fraudem deuersoria deducti opprimebantur; postremo non tantum ab odio sed etiam auiditate praedae ea facinora fiebant, quia negotiandi ferme causa argentum in zonis habentes in commeatibus erant.
[29] That slaughter brutalized the Thebans and all the Boeotians into an execrable hatred of the Romans, believing that Zeuxippus, the chief of the people, had, not without the counsel of the Roman emperor, been privy to that crime. For rebellion they had neither forces nor a leader: the thing next to war that there was, they turned to brigandage, waylaying some soldiers in lodgings, others as they wandered through the winter quarters, going to and fro on various errands. Some, on the very roads, were seized by men lying in wait and dragged to well-known lairs; others, led by fraud into solitary hostelries, were overpowered; finally, these crimes were committed not only from hatred but also from avidity for booty, since, almost always for purposes of negotiation (trade), men in convoys, carrying silver in their belts, were on the march.
when at first a few, then day by day more, were being missed, all Boeotia began to be infamous, and the soldier went out from camp more timidly than in hostile country. Then Quinctius sends legates to inquire about brigandage through the cities. Very many murders were found around the Copais marsh: there bodies dug from the slime and hauled out of the lagoon, with stones or amphorae fastened to them, so that by the weight they might be dragged into the deep; many crimes were found to have been done at Acraephia and Coronea.
Quinctius at first ordered the guilty to be handed over to him and that the Boeotians contribute five hundred talents in place of five hundred soldiers—for so many had been slain. As neither of these was done, the cities only excusing themselves in words that nothing had been done by public counsel, he sent legates to Athens and into Achaea to attest to the allies that he would prosecute the Boeotians in a just and pious war; and, Appius Claudius having been ordered to go with part of the forces to Acraephia, he himself with the rest laid siege to Coronea, after first devastating the fields along which from Elateia the two divergent columns had gone. Struck by this disaster, the Boeotians, when all things were filled with terror and flight, send envoys.
Since they were not admitted into the camp, the Achaeans and Athenians arrived; the Achaeans had greater authority as intercessors, because, had they not obtained peace for the Boeotians, they had resolved to wage the war along with the Romans. Through the Achaeans an opportunity was afforded to the Boeotians to approach and address the Roman; and, when they were ordered to surrender the guilty and to contribute thirty talents in the name of a fine, peace was granted and the assault was called off.
[30] Paucos post dies decem legati ab Roma uenerunt, quorum ex consilio pax data Philippo in has leges est, ut omnes Graecorum ciuitates quae in Europa quaeque in Asia essent libertatem ac suas haberent leges: quae earum sub dicione Philippi fuissent, praesidia ex iis Philippus deduceret uacuasque traderet, Romanis ante Isthmiorum tempus; deduceret et ex iis quae in Asia essent, Euromo Pedasisque et Bargyliis et Iaso et Myrina et Abydo et Thaso et Perintho: eas quoque enim placere liberas esse; de Cianorum libertate Quinctium Prusiae Bithynorum regi scribere quid senatui et decem legatis placuisset; captiuos transfugasque reddere Philippum Romanis et naues omnes tectas tradere praeter quinque et regiam unam inhabilis prope magnitudinis, quam sedecim uersus remorum agebant; ne plus quinque milia armatorum haberet neue elephantum ullum; bellum extra Macedoniae fines ne iniussu senatus gereret; mille talentum daret populo Romano, dimidium praesens, dimidium pensionibus decem annorum. Ualerius Antias quaternum milium pondo argenti uectigal in decem annos impositum regi tradit; Claudius in annos triginta quaterna milia pondo et ducena, <in> praesens uiginti milia pondo. idem nominatim adiectum scribit ne cum Eumene Attali filio—nouus is tum rex erat— bellum gereret.
[30] A few days later, ten legates came from Rome, at whose counsel peace was granted to Philip on these terms: that all the cities of the Greeks, both those in Europe and those in Asia, should have liberty and their own laws; that from those which had been under Philip’s dominion he should withdraw the garrisons and hand them over left empty, before the time of the Isthmian Games to the Romans; that he should also withdraw from those which were in Asia—Euromus, Pedasa and Bargylia and Iasus and Myrina and Abydus and Thasos and Perinthus—for that it likewise pleased that they be free; that as to the liberty of the Cians, Quinctius should write to Prusias, king of the Bithynians, what had pleased the senate and the ten legates; that Philip should restore to the Romans the captives and deserters and hand over all decked ships except five and one royal ship of almost unmanageable size, which they propelled with sixteen banks of oars; that he should not have more than five thousand armed men nor any elephant; that he should not wage war outside the frontiers of Macedonia without the order of the senate; that he should give one thousand talents to the Roman people, half at once, half in ten yearly installments. Valerius Antias reports that a tribute of four thousand pounds’ weight of silver over ten years was imposed on the king; Claudius, that for thirty years four thousand two hundred pounds, and immediately twenty thousand pounds. The same writer records that it was added expressly by name that he should not wage war with Eumenes, son of Attalus—he was then a new king.
on these terms hostages were received, among whom Demetrius, the son of Philip. Valerius Antias adds that to Attalus, in his absence, the island of Aegina and the elephants were given as a gift, and to the Rhodians Stratonicea and other cities of Caria which Philip had held; to the Athenians the islands were given—Lemnos, Imbros, Delos, Scyros.
[31] Omnibus Graeciae ciuitatibus hanc pacem adprobantibus soli Aetoli decretum decem legatorum clam mussantes carpebant: litteras inanes uana specie libertatis adumbratas esse. cur enim alias Romanis tradi urbes nec nominari eas, alias nominari et sine traditione liberas iuberi esse, nisi quod quae in Asia sint liberentur, longinquitate ipsa tutiores, quae in Graecia sint, ne nominatae quidem intercipiantur, Corinthus et Chalcis et Oreus cum Eretria et Demetriade? nec tota ex uano criminatio erat.
[31] With all the cities of Greece approving this peace, the Aetoli alone, muttering in secret, were carping at the decree of the ten legates: that the document was inane, adumbrated with a vain semblance of liberty. For why, indeed, are some cities handed over to the Romans and not named, others named and ordered to be free without a delivery, except that those which are in Asia are liberated, safer by their very remoteness, whereas those which are in Greece—lest, even if named, they be intercepted—are Corinth and Chalcis and Oreus together with Eretria and Demetrias? Nor was the whole accusation out of mere emptiness.
doubt was felt, namely, about Corinth, Chalcis, and Demetrias, because in the decree of the senate, by which ten envoys had been sent from the city, the other cities of Greece and of Asia were without doubt being liberated, while regarding those three cities the envoys had been ordered to do and determine, in the interest of the Republic and in their good faith, what the exigencies of the Republic demanded. Antiochus was king, whom they did not doubt would cross over into Europe as soon as his own forces had sufficiently pleased him; they did not wish that cities so opportune for seizure should lie open to him. Setting out from Elatia, Quinctius proceeded to Anticyra with the ten envoys; from there he crossed to Corinth.
There, counsels about the liberty of Greece were agitated almost whole days in the council of the ten envoys: repeatedly Quinctius insisted that all Greece must be liberated, if they wished to blunt the tongues of the Aetolians, if they wished the true affection and majesty of the Roman name to be with all men, if they wished to give good faith that they had crossed the sea for the liberation of Greece, not for the transferring of empire from Philip to themselves. No one said anything contrary to these points about the freedom of the cities: but they added that it was safer for themselves to remain for a little under the guardianship of a Roman garrison than to accept Antiochus as lord in place of Philip. Finally, it was decreed thus: Corinth should be handed back to the Achaeans, yet that there should be a garrison in the Acrocorinthus; Chalcis and Demetrias should be retained until the anxiety about Antiochus had departed.
[32] Isthmiorum statum ludicrum aderat, semper quidem et alias frequens cum propter spectaculi studium insitum genti, quo certamina omnis generis artium uiriumque et pernicitatis uisuntur, tum quia propter opportunitatem loci per duo diuersa maria omnium rerum usus ministrantis humano generi, concilium Asiae Graeciaeque is mercatus erat. tum uero non ad solitos modo usus undique conuenerant sed expectatione erecti qui deinde status futurus Graeciae, quae sua fortuna esset. alii alia non taciti solum opinabantur sed sermonibus etiam ferebant Romanos facturos: uix cuiquam persuadebatur Graecia omni cessuros.
[32] The spectacle of the Isthmian Games was at hand, at all times indeed and otherwise crowded both because of the zeal for spectacle inborn in the nation, whereby contests of every kind of arts, of strength, and of swiftness are viewed, and because, owing to the advantageous situation of the place, through two opposite seas supplying to the human race the use of all things, this market had been the council of Asia and Greece. Then indeed men had come together from every side not only for the customary purposes but, raised by expectation, to learn what the status of Greece would be thereafter, what her fortune would be. Some were conjecturing different things, not only silently but also spreading in conversations what the Romans would do: it was scarcely persuadable to anyone that they would withdraw from all Greece.
they had taken their seats for the spectacle, and the herald with the trumpeter, as is the custom, advanced into the middle area, whence with a solemn chant the show is wont to be announced, and, the trumpet having made silence, thus pronounces: ‘the Roman Senate and T. Quinctius the imperator, King Philip and the Macedonians having been conquered, order the Corinthians, the Phocians, and all the Locrians, and the island of Euboea, and the Magnetes, the Thessalians, the Perrhaebians, and the Achaeans Phthiotes to be free, immune from tribute, and under their own laws.’ he had enumerated all the peoples who had been under the dominion of King Philip. at the hearing of the herald’s voice there was a joy greater than what mankind as a whole could take in: scarcely did each man sufficiently believe that he had heard, and they looked upon one another, marveling as at the empty vision of a dream; as it concerned each, trusting least to the credit of their own ears, they asked their neighbors. the herald having been called back, since each man was eager not only to hear but to see the messenger of his freedom, he proclaimed the same things again.
then from joy now assured such applause with shouting arose and was so often repeated that it was easily apparent that, of all goods, nothing is more pleasing to the multitude than liberty. the spectacle was then carried through so rapidly that neither anyone’s mind nor eyes were intent upon the show: to such a degree had one joy preoccupied the sense of all other pleasures.
[33] Ludis uero dimissis cursu prope omnes tendere ad imperatorem Romanum, ut ruente turba in unum adire contingere dextram cupientium, coronas lemniscosque iacientium haud procul periculo fuerit. sed erat trium ferme et triginta annorum, et cum robur iuuentae tum gaudium ex tam insigni gloriae fructu uires suppeditabat. nec praesens tantummodo effusa est laetitia, sed per multos dies gratis et cogitationibus et sermonibus renouata: esse aliquam in terris gentem quae sua impensa, suo labore ac periculo bella gerat pro libertate aliorum, nec hoc finitimis aut propinquae uicinitatis hominibus aut terris continentibus iunctis praestet, sed maria traiciat, ne quod toto orbe terrarum iniustum imperium sit, ubique ius fas lex potentissima sint; una uoce praeconis liberatas omnes Graeciae atque Asiae urbes: hoc spe concipere audacis animi fuisse, ad effectum adducere et uirtutis et fortunae ingentis.
[33] But when the games were dismissed, almost all at a run made for the Roman commander, so that, as the crowd rushed together to one spot, in their desire to approach and touch his right hand, and as they threw garlands and fillets, it was not far from danger. Yet he was about 33 years old, and both the vigor of youth and the joy from so signal a harvest of glory supplied him with strength. Nor was the joy poured out only on the spot, but for many days it was renewed with thanksgivings both in thoughts and in conversations: that there exists upon earth some nation which wages wars at its own expense, with its own toil and peril, for the liberty of others; and that it bestows this not upon those next door, or men of neighboring vicinity, or lands joined by the same continent, but crosses seas, so that there may be no unjust dominion anywhere in the whole world, and that everywhere right, divine law, and statute be most powerful; that by the single voice of a herald all the cities of Greece and of Asia had been set free: to conceive this in hope was the part of a bold spirit, to bring it to accomplishment, of immense valor and fortune.
[34] Secundum Isthmia Quinctius et decem legati legationes regum gentium ciuitatiumque audiuere. primi omnium regis Antiochi uocati legati sunt. iis eadem fere quae Romae egerant uerba sine fide rerum iactantibus nihil iam perplexe ut ante, cum dubiae res incolumi Philippo erant, sed aperte denuntiatum ut excederet Asiae urbibus quae Philippi aut Ptolomaei regum fuissent, abstineret liberis ciuitatibus, neu quam lacesseret armis: et in pace et in libertate esse debere omnes ubique Graecas urbes; ante omnia denuntiatum ne in Europam aut ipse transiret aut copias traiceret.
[34] After the Isthmia, Quinctius and the ten commissioners heard the legations of kings, nations, and cities. First of all, the envoys of King Antiochus were called. To them—who were vaunting claims without any credibility—there was now nothing said perplexedly as before, when affairs were doubtful with Philip still unscathed, but it was openly declared that he should withdraw from the cities of Asia which had belonged to the kings Philip or Ptolemy, that he should abstain from the free cities, and not provoke any with arms: and that all Greek cities everywhere ought to be both in peace and in liberty; above all it was declared that he should neither himself cross into Europe nor transfer his forces across.
the king’s legates having been dismissed, a convention of cities and peoples began to be held, and it was carried through the more expeditiously because the decrees of the ten legates were being proclaimed by name <in> the cities. To the Orestae—that is a people of the Macedonians—because they had been the first to defect from the king, their own laws were restored. The Magnetes and the Perrhaebi and the Dolopes were likewise proclaimed free.
To the nation of the Thessalians, besides liberty granted, the Phthiotan Achaeans were given, Phthiotic Thebes and Pharsalus excepted. The Aetolians, demanding concerning Pharsalus and Leucas that they be restored to them under the treaty, were referred to the Senate; the Phocians and the Locrians were attached to them, as they had been before, with the authority of the decree added. Corinth and Triphylia and Heraea—a city, itself of the Peloponnese—were restored to the Achaeans.
Oreum and Eretria the ten envoys were granting to King Eumenes, son of Attalus, with Quinctius dissenting: this one matter was referred to the arbitration of the senate; the senate gave liberty to those cities, with Carystus added. To Pleuratus were given Lychnidus and the Parthini: both peoples of the Illyrians had been under the dominion of Philip. They ordered that Amynander hold the forts which in the time of war he had wrested from Philip by capture.
[35] Dimisso conuentu decem legati, partiti munia inter se, ad liberandas suae quisque regionis ciuitates discesserunt, P. Lentulus Bargylias, L. Stertinius Hephaestiam et Thasum et Thraeciae urbes, P. Uillius et L. Terentius ad regem Antiochum, Cn. Cornelius ad Philippum. qui de minoribus rebus editis mandatis percunctatus si consilium non utile solum sed etiam salutare admittere auribus posset, cum rex gratias quoque se acturum diceret si quid quod in rem suam esset expromeret, magno opere ei suasit, quoniam pacem impetrasset, ad societatem amicitiamque petendam mitteret Romam legatos ne, si quid Antiochus moueret, expectasse et temporum opportunitates captasse ad rebellandum uideri posset. ad Tempe Thessalica Philippus est conuentus.
[35] With the assembly dismissed, the ten envoys, having divided the duties among themselves, departed, each to liberate the cities of his own region: P. Lentulus to Bargyliae; L. Stertinius to Hephaestia and Thasos and the cities of Thrace; P. Villius and L. Terentius to King Antiochus; Cn. Cornelius to Philip. He, after inquiring, with respect to the lesser matters set out in his mandates, whether he might admit to his ears advice not only useful but even salutary, and the king saying that he would even give thanks if he would bring forth anything that was to his advantage, strongly urged him—since he had obtained peace—to send envoys to Rome to seek alliance and friendship, lest, if Antiochus should stir anything, he might seem to have waited and seized opportunities of the times to rebel. Philip was met at Tempe in Thessaly.
who, when he had answered that he would send legates immediately, Cornelius came to Thermopylae, where on fixed days there is accustomed to be a frequent assembly of Greece—they call it the Pylaic—: he especially admonished the Aetolians to remain constant and faithful in the friendship of the Roman people. Some of the chiefs of the Aetolians complained mildly that the spirit of the Romans toward their nation was not the same after victory as it had been in war; others more fiercely accused and upbraided that not only could Philip not have been conquered without the Aetolians, but that the Romans could not even have crossed into Greece. The Roman, refraining from replying to these points lest the matter should pass into altercation, said that they would obtain equitable terms if they sent to Rome.
[36] Cum haec in Graecia Macedoniaque et Asia gererentur, Etruriam infestam prope coniuratio seruorum fecit. ad quaerendam opprimendamque eam M'. Acilius Glabrio praetor, cui inter ciues peregrinosque iurisdictio obtigerat, cum una ex duabus legione urbana est missus. alios <uagos ~comprehendit, alios> iam congregatos pugnando uicit: ex his multi occisi, multi capti; alios uerberatos crucibus adfixit, qui principes coniurationis fuerant, alios dominis restituit.
[36] While these things were being transacted in Greece, Macedonia, and Asia, a conspiracy of slaves made Etruria almost up in arms. To seek it out and suppress it, M'. Acilius Glabrio, praetor—to whom jurisdiction between citizens and foreigners had fallen—was sent with one of the two urban legions. Some <vagrants ~he apprehended, others> already gathered he overcame by fighting: of these many were killed, many captured; some, after being scourged, he affixed to crosses—those who had been the chiefs of the conspiracy—others he restored to their masters.
The consuls set out to their provinces. Marcellus, having entered the borders of the Boii, with the soldiery wearied the whole day by making the road, as he was pitching camp on a certain hill, was attacked by a certain Corolamus, a petty king of the Boii, who, with a large band, killed as many as 3,000 men; and several distinguished men fell in that makeshift battle, among whom the prefects of the allies T. Sempronius Gracchus and M. Iunius Silanus, and the military tribunes from the second legion M. Ogulnius and P. Claudius. The camp, however, having been energetically fortified by the Romans, was held, although the enemy, elated by their prosperous fight, had assailed it in vain.
Then he kept himself in the same standing camp for several days, while both tending the wounded and <a> restoring the soldiers’ spirits after so great a terror. The Boii, as a tribe least patient to endure the tedium of delay, dispersed here and there into their forts and villages. Marcellus, the Po having been crossed forthwith, leads the legions into the Comense territory, where the Insubres, the Comenses having been called to arms, were holding a camp.
The Gauls, made fierce by the Boii’s battle a few days before, commit battle on the very march; and at first they charged so sharply that they drove in the vanguard. When Marcellus noticed this, fearing that, once shaken, they might be routed, after he had set the cohort of the Marsi in opposition, he sent all the squadrons of the Latin cavalry against the enemy. And when their first and second onrush had blunted the enemy, who was pressing in fiercely, the rest of the Roman battle line, now strengthened, at first stood firm, then vigorously advanced the standards; nor did the Gauls endure the combat any longer before turning their backs and fleeing in headlong rout.
in that battle, Valerius Antias writes that over forty thousand men were cut down, eighty-seven military standards were captured, and seven hundred thirty-two wagons, and many golden torques—of which one, of great weight, Claudius writes, was set up in the Capitol in the temple as a gift to Jupiter. The Gauls’ camp on that day was stormed and sacked, and the oppidum of Comum was taken a few days later; thereafter twenty-eight forts defected to the consul. It is also disputed among the writers whether the consul first led the army against the Boii or the Insubres, and whether he effaced an adverse reverse by a prosperous battle, or whether the victory won at Comum was disfigured by a defeat received among the Boii.
[37] Sub haec tam uaria fortuna gesta L. Furius Purpurio alter consul per tribum Sapiniam in Boios uenit. iam castro Mutilo adpropinquabat, cum ueritus ne intercluderetur simul a Bois Liguribusque exercitum eadem uia qua adduxerat reduxit et magno circuitu per aperta eoque tuta loca ad collegam peruenit. inde iunctis exercitibus primum Boiorum agrum usque ad Felsinam oppidum populantes peragrauerunt.
[37] After these deeds, with such varied fortune, Lucius Furius Purpurio, the other consul, came into the Boii by way of the Sapinian tribe. He was already approaching the camp at Mutilus, when, fearing lest he be cut off at once by the Boii and the Ligurians, he led the army back by the same route by which he had brought it, and by a great circuit through open and therefore safe places he reached his colleague. Thence, the armies having been joined, they first traversed the land of the Boii, devastating it up to the town of Felsina.
that city and the other forts around, and the Boii almost all, except the youth who were in arms for the sake of plunder—at that time they had withdrawn into out‑of‑the‑way forests—came into surrender. Thence the army was led over into the Ligurians. The Boii, seeing the Roman column massed rather carelessly, because they themselves seemed to be far off, thinking they would attack by surprise, followed them through hidden passes.
not having overtaken them, and the Po having been suddenly crossed by ships, after they had thoroughly ravaged the Laevi and the Libui, as they were returning from there through the farthest borders of the Ligurians with rustic booty, they fall upon the Roman column. the battle was engaged more swiftly and more fiercely than if they had met with minds prepared at a contest appointed in time and place. there it appeared how great a force ire has for goading spirits; for the Romans fought so eager for carnage rather than for victory that they scarcely left to the enemy a messenger of the disaster.
On account of these deeds, when the consuls’ letters had been brought to Rome, a supplicatio for three days was decreed. Shortly after, the consul Marcellus came to Rome, and a triumph was decreed to him by the great consensus of the Fathers. He triumphed in magistracy over the Insubres and the Comenses; the hope of a triumph over the Boii he left to his colleague, since for himself in that nation there had befallen an adverse battle, while for his colleague a successful one.
[38] Eodem anno Antiochus rex, cum hibernasset Ephesi, omnes Asiae ciuitates in antiquam imperii formulam redigere est conatus. et ceteras quidem, aut quia locis planis positae erant aut quia parum moenibus armisque ac iuuentuti fidebant, haud difficulter uidebat iugum accepturas: Zmyrna et Lampsacus libertatem usurpabant, periculumque erat ne, si concessum iis foret quod intenderent, Zmyrnam in Aeolide Ioniaque, Lampsacum in Hellesponto aliae urbes sequerentur. igitur et ipse ab Epheso ad Zmyrnam obsidendam misit et quae Abydi copiae erant praesidio tantum modico relicto duci ad Lampsacum oppugnandam iussit.
[38] In the same year King Antiochus, after wintering at Ephesus, tried to reduce all the cities of Asia into the ancient formula of dominion. And indeed he saw that the rest would accept the yoke without difficulty, either because they were set in level places or because they trusted little in their walls, arms, and youth: Zmyrna and Lampsacus were claiming liberty, and there was danger that, if what they intended were conceded to them, other cities would follow—Zmyrna in Aeolis and Ionia, Lampsacus in the Hellespont. Therefore he both sent from Ephesus to besiege Zmyrna, and ordered the forces that were at Abydus, a merely modest garrison having been left, to be led to attack Lampsacus.
nor did he terrify by force only, but through legates, by gently addressing and castigating temerity and pertinacity, he tried to create a hope that shortly they would have what they were seeking; but, since it was sufficiently apparent both to themselves and to all others that they held liberty obtained from the king, not snatched by opportunity. In answer to this it was replied that Antiochus ought neither to marvel nor to be incensed, if they should endure with not quite an even mind the deferral of the hope of liberty.
Ipse initio ueris nauibus ab Epheso profectus Hellespontum petit, terrestres copias traici ab Abydo Chersonesum iussit. cum ad Madytum Chersonesi urbem terrestri naualem exercitum iunxisset, quia clauserant portas, circumdedit moenia armatis; et iam opera admouenti deditio facta est. idem metus Sestum incolentes aliasque Chersonesi urbes in deditionem dedit.
He himself, at the beginning of spring, set out from Ephesus with ships and made for the Hellespont; he ordered the land forces to be ferried across from Abydus to the Chersonese. When, at Madytus, a city of the Chersonese, he had united the land and the naval army, because they had closed the gates, he surrounded the walls with armed men; and already, as he was bringing up the siege-works, surrender was made. The same fear delivered the inhabitants of Sestus and the other cities of the Chersonese into surrender.
Lysimachia thence he came with all his naval and terrestrial forces together. When he found it deserted and almost wholly strewn with ruins—the Thracians had taken it and, having plundered it, had burned it a few years before—a desire seized him of restoring a noble city situated in an opportune place. And so with every care at once he addressed himself both to restore the roofs and the walls, and partly to buy back the Lysimacheans who were in servitude, partly to seek out and gather those scattered by flight through the Hellespont and the Chersonese, partly to enroll new colonists with a hope of advantages proposed and to people it in every way; at the same time, that the fear of the Thracians might be removed, he himself with half of the land forces set out to devastate the regions nearest to Thrace, and he left a part and all the naval allies in the works of refitting the city.
[39] Sub hoc tempus et L. Cornelius, missus ab senatu ad dirimenda inter Antiochum Ptolomaeumque reges certamina, Selymbriae substitit et decem legatorum P. Lentulus a Bargyliis, P. Uillius et L. Terentius ab Thaso Lysimachiam petierunt. eodem et ab Selymbria L. Cornelius et ex Thracia paucos post dies Antiochus conuenerunt. primus congressus cum legatis et deinceps inuitatio benigna et hospitalis fuit; ut de mandatis statuque praesenti Asiae agi coeptum est, animi exasperati sunt.
[39] At about this time also L. Cornelius, sent by the senate to settle the contests between the kings Antiochus and Ptolemy, halted at Selymbria; and of the ten envoys P. Lentulus from Bargyliae, P. Uillius and L. Terentius from Thasos, made for Lysimachia. To the same place too both L. Cornelius from Selymbria and, a few days later, Antiochus from Thrace arrived. The first meeting with the envoys, and thereafter the invitation, was benign and hospitable; but when it came to deal with the mandates and the present status of Asia, spirits were exasperated.
The Romans did not dissemble that all his acts from the time he loosed his fleet from Syria displeased the senate, and they judged it equitable that all the cities which had been under Ptolemy’s dominion be restored to him: for as to those cities which, possessed by Philip, Antiochus had intercepted on the occasion when Philip, turned aside into the war with Rome, was diverted, that indeed was not to be borne—that the Romans for so many years by land and sea had exhausted such perils and labors, while Antiochus should have the prizes of the war. But that his arrival in Asia could have been dissimulated by the Romans as if it pertained nothing to them—what then? As to the fact that now he has even crossed into Europe with all his naval and terrestrial forces, how far is he from a war openly declared upon the Romans?
[40] Aduersus ea Antiochus mirari se dixit Romanos tam diligenter inquirere quid regi Antiocho faciundum aut quousque terra marique progrediundum fuerit, ipsos non cogitare Asiam nihil ad se pertinere nec magis illis inquirendum esse quid Antiochus in Asia quam Antiocho quid in Italia populus Romanus faciat. quod ad Ptolomaeum attineat, cui ademptas ciuitates querantur, sibi cum Ptolomaeo et amicitiam esse et id agere ut breui etiam adfinitas iungatur. ne ex Philippi quidem aduersa fortuna spolia ulla se petisse aut aduersus Romanos in Europam traiecisse, sed qua Lysimachi quondam regnum fuerit, quo uicto omnia quae illius fuissent iure belli Seleuci facta sint, existimare suae dicionis esse.
[40] In answer to this Antiochus said he marveled that the Romans so diligently inquired what the king Antiochus ought to do, or how far by land and sea he ought to advance, while they themselves did not consider that Asia in no way pertains to them, nor that it is any more for them to inquire what Antiochus does in Asia than for Antiochus to inquire what the Roman people do in Italy. As for Ptolemy, about whom they complain that cities have been taken from him, he said that he both had friendship with Ptolemy and was working to the effect that shortly even an affinity (marriage alliance) be joined. Not even from Philip’s adverse fortune had he sought any spoils, nor had he crossed over into Europe against the Romans; but he judged to be under his sway the region where once the kingdom of Lysimachus had been—upon whose defeat all that had been his, by the law of war, had become Seleucus’s.
his elders being occupied with the care of other affairs, at first Ptolemy, and thereafter Philip as well, held certain of them for the purpose of usurping another’s possession. The Chersonese indeed, and the tracts nearest to Thrace which lie around Lysimachia—who would doubt that they were Lysimachus’s? he has come to recover these into their ancient right, and to found anew Lysimachia, destroyed by the onset of the Thracians, so that his son Seleucus may have that as the seat of the kingdom.
[41] His disceptationibus per dies aliquot habitis rumor sine ullo satis certo auctore allatus de morte Ptolomaei regis ut nullus exitus imponeretur sermonibus effecit. nam et dissimulabat pars utraque se audisse et L. Cornelius, cui legatio ad duos reges Antiochum Ptolomaeumque mandata erat, spatium modici temporis ad conueniendum Ptolomaeum petebat, ut priusquam moueretur aliquid in noua possessione regni praeueniret in Aegyptum, et Antiochus suam fore Aegyptum, si tum occupasset, censebat. itaque dimissis Romanis relictoque Seleuco filio cum terrestribus copiis ad restituendam ut instituerat Lysimachiam, ipse omni classe nauigat Ephesum, legatis ad Quinctium missis qui ad fidem faciendam nihil nouaturum regem de societate agerent.
[41] After these disputations had been held for several days, a rumor, brought without any sufficiently certain author, about the death of King Ptolemy, brought it about that no conclusion was put upon the discussions. For both parties dissembled that they had heard it, and Lucius Cornelius, to whom an embassy to the two kings, Antiochus and Ptolemy, had been entrusted, was requesting a short space of time to convene with Ptolemy, in order that, before anything was set in motion in the new possession of the kingdom, he might forestall by going into Egypt; and Antiochus judged that Egypt would be his, if he seized it then. And so, the Romans having been dismissed and his son Seleucus left with the land forces to restore Lysimachia as he had intended, he himself with the whole fleet sails to Ephesus, envoys having been sent to Quinctius to negotiate, for the making of assurance, that the king would introduce nothing new concerning the alliance.
coasting the shore of Asia he arrived in Lycia, and at Patara, upon learning that Ptolemy was alive, the plan of sailing to Egypt was indeed abandoned. Nevertheless making for Cyprus, when he had rounded the promontory of the Chelidoniae, he was for a little while held back by a sedition of the rowers in Pamphylia around the river Eurymedon. Thence, as he set out for the headlands which they call of the river Sarus, a foul tempest arising nearly sank him with the whole fleet: many were broken, many ships were cast ashore, many were so swallowed by the sea that no one swam to land.
A great multitude of men perished there, not only oarsmen and soldiers in unknown throngs, but even the king’s distinguished friends. With the remnants of the shipwreck collected, since matters were not such that he could attempt Cyprus, he returned to Seleucia with a less opulent column than that with which he had set out. There, with the ships ordered to be hauled ashore—for now winter was drawing on—he himself withdrew to Antioch for winter quarters.
[42] Romae eo primum anno tresuiri epulones facti C. Licinius Lucullus tribunus plebis, qui legem de creandis his tulerat, et P. Manlius et P. Porcius Laeca; iis triumuiris item ut pontificibus lege datum est togae praetextae habendae ius. sed magnum certamen cum omnibus sacerdotibus eo anno fuit quaestoribus urbanis Q. Fabio Labeoni et L. Aurelio. pecunia opus erat, quod ultimam pensionem pecuniae in bellum conlatae persolui placuerat priuatis.
[42] At Rome, in that year for the first time, a board of three Epulones was established: C. Licinius Lucullus, tribune of the plebs, who had carried the law for creating them, and P. Manlius and P. Porcius Laeca; to those three-men likewise, as to the pontiffs, the right of wearing the toga praetexta was granted by law. But that year the urban quaestors Q. Fabius Labeo and L. Aurelius had a great contest with all the priests. Money was needed, because it had been decided that the final installment of the money collected for the war should be paid to private individuals.
the quaestors were demanding from the augurs and the pontiffs the stipend which they had not contributed during the war. The tribunes of the plebs, appealed to by the priests, did so in vain, and it was exacted for all the years during which they had not given. In the same year two pontiffs died and new men were co-opted in their place, M. Marcellus, consul, in place of C. Sempronius Tuditanus, who had died as praetor in Spain, and L. Valerius Flaccus in place of M. Cornelius Cethegus.
In that year the curule aediles M. Fulvius Nobilior and C. Flaminius apportioned to the people wheat—ten hundred thousand (1,000,000) modii—at two asses apiece. The Sicilians had brought this to Rome in honor of C. Flaminius himself and his father; Flaminius shared the favor with his colleague. The Roman Games were both prepared magnificently and, in their entirety, renewed three times.
the plebeian aediles Gnaeus Domitius Ahenobarbus and Gaius Scribonius Curio [maximus] brought many cattle-raisers before the judgment of the people: three of these were condemned; from their mulct-money they built a temple of Faunus on the Island. the Plebeian Games were renewed for two days, and there was a banquet for the sake of the games.
[43] L. Ualerius Flaccus et M. Porcius Cato consules idibus Martiis, quo die magistratum inierunt, de prouinciis cum ad senatum rettulissent, patres censuerunt, quoniam in Hispania tantum glisceret bellum ut iam consulari et duce et exercitu opus esset, placere consules Hispaniam citeriorem Italiamque prouincias aut comparare inter se aut sortiri: utri Hispania prouincia euenisset, eum duas legiones et quindecim milia socium Latini nominis et octingentos equites secum portare et naues longas uiginti ducere; alter consul duas scriberet legiones: iis Galliam obtineri prouinciam satis esse fractis proximo anno Insubrum Boiorumque animis. Cato Hispaniam, Ualerius Italiam est sortitus. praetores deinde prouincias sortiti, C. Fabricius Luscinus urbanam, C. Atinius Labeo peregrinam, Cn. Manlius Uolso Siciliam, Ap. Claudius Nero Hispaniam ulteriorem, P. Porcius Laeca Pisas, ut ab tergo Liguribus esset; P. Manlius in Hispaniam citeriorem adiutor consuli datus.
[43] L. Valerius Flaccus and M. Porcius Cato, consuls, on the Ides of March—the day on which they entered office—after they had referred to the senate about the provinces, the fathers decreed that, since in Spain the war was swelling to such a degree that now there was need of a consular commander and an army, it was pleasing that the consuls either arrange between themselves or draw lots for Hither Spain and Italy as their provinces: to whichever the province of Spain had fallen, he should take with him two legions and fifteen thousand allies of the Latin name and eight hundred cavalry, and should lead twenty long ships; the other consul should enroll two legions: with these it would be sufficient that Gaul be held as a province, the spirits of the Insubres and Boii having been broken in the previous year. Cato drew Spain, Valerius Italy. Then the praetors drew lots for the provinces, C. Fabricius Luscinus the urban (jurisdiction), C. Atinius Labeo the peregrine (foreign), Cn. Manlius Volso Sicily, Ap. Claudius Nero Farther Spain, P. Porcius Laeca Pisae, so that he might be at the rear of the Ligurians; P. Manlius was given to Hither Spain as helper to the consul.
To T. Quinctius, with suspicions resting not only upon Antiochus and the Aetolians but now also upon Nabis, tyrant of the Lacedaemonians, the imperium was prorogued for a year, that he should have two legions; if any supplement for them were needed, the consuls were ordered to enroll and send it into Macedonia. To Ap. Claudius, besides the legion which Q. Fabius had had, it was permitted to enroll two thousand <infantry> and two hundred new cavalry. An equal number of new infantry and cavalry was decreed also to P. Manlius for Hither Spain, and the same legion which had been under Q. Minucius as praetor was assigned.
[44] Prouinciis ita distributis consules, priusquam ab urbe proficiscerentur, uer sacrum ex decreto pontificum iussi facere, quod A. Cornelius Mammula praetor uouerat de senatus sententia populique iussu Cn. Seruilio C. Flaminio consulibus. annis post uno et uiginti factum est quam uotum. per eosdem dies C. Claudius Appi filius Pulcher augur in Q. Fabi Maximi locum, qui priore anno mortuus erat, lectus inauguratusque est.
[44] With the provinces thus distributed, the consuls, before they set out from the city, were ordered to perform the Sacred Spring by decree of the pontiffs, which A. Cornelius Mammula, praetor, had vowed by resolution of the senate and order of the people, in the consulship of Cn. Servilius and C. Flaminius. It was carried out 21 years after the vow. About the same days, C. Claudius, son of Appius, Pulcher, augur, was chosen and inaugurated in the place of Q. Fabius Maximus, who had died in the previous year.
Mirantibus iam uolgo hominibus quod Hispania mouisset bellum neglegi, litterae a Q. Minucio allatae sunt se ad Turdam oppidum cum Budare et Baesadine imperatoribus Hispanis signis conlatis prospere pugnasse: duodecim milia hostium caesa, Budarem imperatorem captum, ceteros fusos fugatosque. his litteris lectis minus terroris ab Hispanis erat, unde ingens bellum expectatum fuerat. omnes curae utique post aduentum decem legatorum in Antiochum regem conuersae.
With men now commonly marveling that the war which Spain had stirred was being neglected, letters were brought from Q. Minucius that he had fought successfully in pitched battle at the town of Turda with the Spanish commanders Budar and Baesadine: twelve thousand of the enemy were cut down, Budar the commander was captured, the rest routed and put to flight. With these letters read, there was less terror from the Spaniards, from whom a vast war had been expected. All concerns, especially after the arrival of the ten legates, were turned toward King Antiochus.
They, after first setting forth what had been transacted with Philip and on what terms peace had been granted, showed that a no less massive burden of war was imminent from Antiochus: with a huge fleet and an excellent land army he had crossed over into Europe, and, if a vain hope—arising from an even vainer rumor—of invading Egypt had not diverted him, Greece would soon have been ablaze with war; for not even the Aetolians would keep quiet, a nation restless by nature and angry at the Romans. Another vast evil, too, clings in the very vitals of Greece—Nabis, now tyrant of the Lacedaemonians, soon, if it be permitted, to be tyrant of all Greece, matching in greed and cruelty all tyrants famed by report; if he were allowed to hold Argos, as a citadel, as it were, set upon the Peloponnese, then, with the Roman armies transported back to Italy, Greece, freed from Philip in vain, would, if nothing else, have in place of a distant king a neighboring tyrant for master.
[45] Haec cum ab tam grauibus auctoribus, tum qui omnia per se ipsos explorata adferrent, audirentur, maior res quod ad Antiochum attineret, maturanda magis, quoniam rex quacumque de causa in Syriam concessisset, de tyranno consultatio uisa est. cum diu disceptatum esset utrum satis iam causae uideretur cur decerneretur bellum, an permitterent T. Quinctio, quod ad Nabim Lacedaemonium attineret, faceret quod e re publica censeret esse, permiserunt, eam rem esse rati quae maturata dilataue non ita magni momenti ad summam rem publicam esset: magis id animaduertendum esse quid Hannibal et Carthaginienses, si cum Antiocho bellum motum foret, acturi essent.
[45] When these things were heard, both from authorities so weighty and from those who were bringing everything as explored by themselves, the matter that concerned Antiochus seemed the greater and rather to be hastened, since the king, for whatever cause, had withdrawn into Syria; as for the tyrant, it seemed a subject for consultation. When it had been long disputed whether there now seemed sufficient cause for war to be decreed, or whether they should permit T. Quinctius, as regarded Nabis the Lacedaemonian, to do what he judged to be in the public interest, they granted the permission, thinking that that matter, whether expedited or deferred, was not of such great moment to the commonwealth as a whole: rather, attention was to be paid to what Hannibal and the Carthaginians would do, if war were set in motion with Antiochus.
Aduersae Hannibali factionis homines principibus Romanis, hospitibus quisque suis, identidem scribebant nuntios litterasque ab Hannibale ad Antiochum missas et ab rege ad eum clam legatos uenisse: ut feras quasdam nulla mitescere arte, sic immitem et implacabilem eius uiri animum esse; marcescere otii situ queri ciuitatem et inertia sopiri nec sine armorum sonitu excitari posse. haec probabilia memoria prioris belli per unum illum non magis gesti quam moti faciebat. inritauerat etiam recenti facto multorum potentium animos.
Men of the faction adverse to Hannibal kept writing to the Roman leading men, each to his own hosts, that messengers and letters had been sent by Hannibal to Antiochus and that secret envoys had come from the king to him: that, as certain wild beasts are softened by no art, so the spirit of that man was savage and implacable; that the commonwealth complained it was withering in the mould of leisure and was lulled by inertia, nor could it be roused without the sound of arms. The memory of the former war—by that one man not so much waged as set in motion—made these things plausible. He had also provoked the minds of many powerful men by a recent deed.
[46] Iudicum ordo Carthagine ea tempestate dominabatur, eo maxime quod iidem perpetui iudices erant. res fama uitaque omnium in illorum potestate erat; qui unum eius ordinis offendisset omnes aduersos habebat, nec accusator apud infensos iudices deerat. horum in tam impotenti regno—neque enim ciuiliter nimiis opibus utebantur—praetor factus Hannibal uocari ad se quaestorem iussit.
[46] The order of judges at Carthage at that time was dominant, most of all because the same men were perpetual judges. The property, reputation, and life of everyone were in their power; whoever had offended one of that order had them all as adversaries, nor was there lacking an accuser before judges already hostile. In the so uncontrolled rule of these men—for they did not use their excessive powers civilly—Hannibal, having been made praetor, ordered the quaestor to be called to him.
The quaestor held that for nothing; for he was also of the adverse faction, and, because from the quaestorship he was being referred into the judges, the most powerful order, already he was carrying his spirit in anticipation of the resources soon to be his. Indeed, deeming that unworthy, Hannibal sent a viator to seize the quaestor; and, having brought him before the assembly, he accused not so much the man himself as the order of judges, before whose arrogance and resources neither laws were anything nor magistrates. And when he perceived that his oration was being received with favorable ears, and that their arrogance was grievous even to the liberty of the lowest ranks, he forthwith promulgated and carried a law that judges should be chosen for single years, and that no one should be a judge for two consecutive years.
However, by as much as through that deed he had entered into favor with the plebs, by so much he had offended the minds of a great part of the leading men. He added also another measure, whereby, for the public good, he provoked against himself personal feuds. The public revenues were partly slipping away through negligence, partly were prey and for division to certain of the leading men and magistrates; nay, even the money which was paid each year to the Romans as stipend was lacking, and a heavy tribute seemed to be impending upon private citizens.
[47] Hannibal postquam uectigalia quanta terrestria maritimaque essent et in quas res erogarentur animaduertit et quid eorum ordinarii rei publicae usus consumerent, quantum peculatus auerteret, omnibus residuis pecuniis exactis, tributo priuatis remisso satis locupletem rem publicam fore ad uectigal praestandum Romanis pronuntiauit in contione et praestitit promissum.
[47] After Hannibal observed how great the terrestrial and maritime revenues were and on what things they were expended, and what portion of them the ordinary uses of the commonwealth consumed, how much peculation diverted, with all outstanding monies exacted and the tribute remitted to private persons, he declared in a public assembly that the state would be wealthy enough to furnish the vectigal to the Romans, and he made good his promise.
Tum uero ii quos pauerat per aliquot annos publicus peculatus, uelut bonis ereptis, non furtorum manubiis extortis infensi et irati Romanos in Hannibalem et ipsos causam odii quaerentes instigabant. ita diu repugnante P. Scipione Africano, qui parum ex dignitate populi Romani esse ducebat subscribere odiis accusatorum Hannibalis et factionibus Carthaginiensium inserere publicam auctoritatem nec satis habere bello uicisse Hannibalem nisi uelut accusatores calumniam in eum iurarent ac nomen deferrent, tandem peruicerunt ut legati Carthaginem mitterentur qui ad senatum eorum arguerent Hannibalem cum Antiocho rege consilia belli faciendi inire. legati tres missi, Cn. Seruilius M. Claudius Marcellus Q. Terentius Culleo.
Then indeed those whom public peculation had fattened for several years, as though their goods had been snatched away and not the spoils of their thefts extorted, hostile and enraged, were instigating the Romans against Hannibal, and were themselves seeking a pretext for hatred. Thus, though P. Scipio Africanus long resisted—who judged it scarcely consonant with the dignity of the Roman People to subscribe to the hatreds of Hannibal’s accusers and to insert the public authority into the factions of the Carthaginians, and not to deem it enough to have conquered Hannibal in war unless, as prosecutors, they should swear to a calumny against him and enter his name for prosecution—at length they prevailed that legates be sent to Carthage to charge before their senate that Hannibal was entering into counsels of making war with King Antiochus. Three legates were sent, Cn. Servilius, M. Claudius Marcellus, Q. Terentius Culleo.
when they had come to Carthage, on the counsel of Hannibal’s enemies they ordered it to be said, to those asking the cause of their arrival, that they had come to have the controversies which the Carthaginians had with Masinissa, king of the Numidians, adjudicated. this was believed by the crowd: Hannibal alone was not deceived that he himself was being sought by the Romans, and that peace had been given to the Carthaginians on such terms that an inexpiable war remained against himself alone. therefore he resolved to yield to the time and to fortune; and with everything already prepared beforehand for flight, having shown himself that day in the forum for the sake of averting suspicion, at nightfall, in forensic (civil) dress, he went out to the gate with two companions ignorant of the plan.
[48] Cum equi quo in loco iusserat praesto fuissent, nocte Byzacium—ita regionem quandam agri uocant—transgressus, postero die ad mare inter Acyllam et Thapsum ad suam turrem peruenit; ibi eum parata instructaque remigio excepit nauis. ita Africa Hannibal excessit, saepius patriae quam suum euentum miseratus. eodem die in Cercinam insulam traiecit.
[48] When the horses had been ready at the place where he had ordered, by night he crossed Byzacium—thus they call a certain region of the countryside—and on the next day he reached the sea between Acylla and Thapsus, to his own tower; there a ship, prepared and equipped with a rowing-crew, received him. Thus Hannibal departed from Africa, more often pitying his fatherland than his own outcome. On the same day he crossed over to the island Cercina.
where, when in the port he had found several Phoenician freight-ships with merchandise, and at his disembarkation a concourse of greeters had gathered, to those inquiring he ordered it to be said that he was a legate sent to Tyre. Fearing, however, lest any one of those ships, having set out by night, should report at Thapsus or Hadrumetum that he had been seen at Cercina, with a sacrifice ordered to be prepared he gave orders that the ship-masters and the merchants be invited, and that sails with their yards be gathered from the ships so that an awning—the middle of summer, by chance, it was—might be made for those dining on the shore. With as much apparatus as the situation and the time permitted, the feast of that day was celebrated, and with much wine the convivium was prolonged into the late night.
Hannibal, when he first had time for deceiving those who were in the port, put the ship to sea. The rest, lulled asleep, when on the next day at last they had risen from sleep, full of crapulence, late as it was, spent several hours in carrying back onto the ships, stowing, and fitting the tackle. At Carthage, too, a throng of people accustomed to frequent Hannibal’s house gathered at the vestibule of the dwelling.
when it was spread abroad that he did not appear, a crowd gathered in the forum seeking the chief of the state; and some said that he had taken flight—which was the case—others that he had been killed by the fraud of the Romans, and this the common people clamored the more; and you might have discerned various countenances, as in a civitas nurturing different parties of different men and discordant with factions; then at last it was reported that he had been seen at Cercina.
[49] Et Romani legati cum in senatu exposuissent compertum patribus Romanis esse et Philippum regem ante ab Hannibale maxime accensum bellum populo Romano fecisse et nunc litteras nuntiosque ab eo ad Antiochum et Aetolos missos consiliaque inita impellendae ad defectionem Carthaginis, nec alio eum quam ad Antiochum regem profectum: haud quieturum antequam bellum toto orbe terrarum concisset; id ei non debere impune esse, si satisfacere Carthaginienses populo Romano uellent nihil eorum sua uoluntate nec publico consilio factum esse—Carthaginienses responderunt quidquid aequum censuissent Romani facturos esse.
[49] And when the Roman envoys had set forth in the senate that it had been ascertained by the Roman Fathers that King Philip, formerly, being most inflamed by Hannibal, had made war upon the Roman people, and that now letters and messengers had been sent by him to Antiochus and to the Aetolians, and plans had been entered upon for impelling Carthage to defection, and that he had set out to none other than King Antiochus: that he would not be quiet before he had stirred up war through the whole orb of lands; that this ought not to be unpunished for him; if the Carthaginians wished to satisfy the Roman people, they should [declare] that none of those things had been done by their own will nor by public counsel—the Carthaginians replied that they would do whatever the Romans should judge equitable.
Hannibal prospero cursu Tyrum peruenit exceptusque a conditoribus Carthaginis ut ab altera patria, uir tam clarus omni genere honorum, paucos moratus dies Antiochiam nauigat. ibi profectum iam regem in Asiam cum audisset filiumque eius sollemne ludorum ad Daphnen celebrantem conuenisset, comiter ab eo exceptus nullam moram nauigandi fecit. Ephesi regem est consecutus, fluctuantem adhuc animo incertumque de Romano bello, sed haud paruum momentum ad animum eius moliendum aduentus Hannibalis fecit.
Hannibal reached Tyre with a prosperous course and was received by the founders of Carthage as by a second fatherland; a man so illustrious in every kind of honor, after delaying a few days he sails to Antioch. There, when he had heard that the king had already set out into Asia, and had met his son celebrating the solemn festival of games at Daphne, being courteously received by him he made no delay in sailing. At Ephesus he overtook the king, still wavering in mind and uncertain about the Roman war; but the arrival of Hannibal created no small momentum for shaping his mind.