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[1] P. Cornelium Cn. filium Scipionem et M'. Acilium Glabrionem consules inito magistratu patres, priusquam de prouinciis agerent, res diuinas facere maioribus hostiis iusserunt in omnibus fanis, in quibus lectisternium maiorem partem anni fieri solet, precarique, quod senatus de nouo bello in animo haberet, ut ea res senatui populoque Romano bene atque feliciter eueniret. ea omnia sacrificia laeta fuerunt, primisque hostiis perlitatum est, et ita haruspices responderunt, eo bello terminos populi Romani propagari, uictoriam ac triumphum ostendi. haec cum renuntiata essent, solutis religione animis patres rogationem ad populum ferri iusserunt, uellent iuberentne cum Antiocho rege, quique eius sectam secuti essent, bellum iniri; si ea perlata rogatio esset, tum, si ita uideretur consulibus, rem integram ad senatum referrent.
[1] Publius Cornelius Scipio, son of Gnaeus, and Manius Acilius Glabrio, the consuls, upon entering their magistracy, before they dealt with the provinces, ordered that divine rites be performed with greater victims in all the fanes in which a lectisternium is accustomed to be held for the greater part of the year, and that prayer be made that, since the senate had a new war in mind, that matter might turn out well and happily for the senate and Roman people. All those sacrifices were favorable, and with the first victims favorable acceptance was obtained; and thus the haruspices replied that in that war the boundaries of the Roman people would be propagated, victory and triumph were shown. When these things had been reported, their minds released from religious scruple, the fathers ordered that a rogation be carried to the people, whether they wished and ordered that war be entered upon with King Antiochus and with whoever had followed his sect; if that rogation were carried, then, if it so seemed to the consuls, they should refer the matter entire to the senate.
P. Cornelius carried that bill; then the senate decreed that the consuls should draw lots for the provinces of Italy and Greece; that the one to whom Greece had fallen should, besides that number of soldiers which L. Quinctius the consul had, by authority of the senate, enrolled or ordered for that province, receive the army which M. Baebius the praetor, in the previous year, had transported into Macedonia by decree of the senate; and that outside Italy it was permitted, if the situation demanded, to take auxiliaries from the allies not above the number of 5,000. It pleased the senate that L. Quinctius, the consul of the previous year, be appointed legate for that war. The other consul, to whom Italy had fallen as his province, was ordered to wage war with the Boii, and, of the two armies which the previous consuls had had, to keep whichever he preferred and to send the other to Rome, and that those urban legions should be prepared for whatever the senate had determined.
[2] His ita in senatu, <incerto> ad id, quae cuius<que> prouincia foret, decretis, tum demum sortiri consules placuit. Acilio Graecia, Cornelio Italia euenit. certa deinde sorte senatus consultum factum est, quod populus Romanus eo tempore duellum iussisset esse cum rege Antiocho, quique sub imperio eius essent, ut eius rei causa supplicationem imperarent consules, utique M'. Acilius consul ludos magnos Ioui uoueret et dona ad omnia puluinaria.
[2] With these matters thus in the senate, the decisions as to which province would belong to whom being uncertain, then at last it pleased that the consuls should draw lots. Greece fell to Acilius, Italy to Cornelius. Then, once the lot was fixed, a senatorial decree was passed, since at that time the Roman people had ordered there to be war with King Antiochus and those who were under his authority: that for that purpose the consuls should order a public supplication, and in particular that the consul Manius Acilius should vow Great Games to Jupiter and gifts to all the pulvinar shrines.
that vow, with Publius Licinius, pontifex maximus, prompting the words, the consul pronounced in these terms: 'If the war which the People has ordered to be undertaken with King Antiochus shall be brought to completion in accordance with the judgment of the Senate and People of Rome, then to you, Jupiter, the Roman People will hold Great Games for ten continuous days, and gifts will be given to all the pulvinaries out of money, as much as the Senate shall have decreed. Whoever of the magistrates shall at any time and anywhere perform those games, let these games be duly done and the gifts duly given.' Thereupon a supplication was proclaimed by the two consuls by edict for two days.
Consulibus sortitis prouincias extemplo et praetores sortiti sunt. M. Iunio Bruto iurisdictio utraque euenit, A. Cornelio Mammulae Bruttii, M. Aemilio Lepido Sicilia, L. Oppio Salinatori Sardinia, C. Liuio Salinatori classis, L. Aemilio Paulo Hispania ulterior. his ita exercitus decreti: A. Cornelio noui milites, conscripti priore anno ex senatus consulto a L. Quinctio consule, dati sunt, iussusque tueri omnem oram circa Tarentum Brundisiumque.
The consuls having by lot received their provinces, forthwith the praetors also cast lots. To M. Junius Brutus fell both jurisdictions; to A. Cornelius Mammula, Bruttium; to M. Aemilius Lepidus, Sicily; to L. Oppius Salinator, Sardinia; to C. Livius Salinator, the fleet; to L. Aemilius Paulus, Farther Spain. To these the armies were decreed as follows: to A. Cornelius were given new soldiers, enrolled in the prior year by decree of the senate by L. Quinctius, consul, and he was ordered to guard the whole shore around Tarentum and Brundisium.
To L. Aemilius Paulus for Further Spain, besides the army which he was to receive from M. Fulvius, proconsul, it was decreed that he should lead 3,000 new soldiers and 300 horse, on this condition: that in these two parts be of the allies of the Latin name, the third of Roman citizens. The same reinforcement was sent to C. Flaminius, whose imperium was being prorogued, into Nearer Spain. M. Aemilius Lepidus was ordered to receive at the same time the province and the army from L. Valerius, whom he was to succeed; that L. Valerius, if it seemed good, be retained in the province as propraetor, and that the province be divided thus: that one part be from Agrigentum to Pachynus, the other from Pachynus to Tyndareum; that maritime coast L. Valerius should guard with twenty long ships.
To the same praetor it was mandated to exact two tithes of grain; he was to see to its being brought to the sea and conveyed into Greece. Likewise to L. Oppius it was ordered to exact the other tithes in Sardinia; but it was deemed that this grain be carried not to Greece but to Rome. C. Livius, praetor, to whom the fleet had fallen, was ordered, with thirty ships prepared, to cross into Greece at the earliest opportunity, and to receive ships from Atilius.
[3] Legati terni in Africam ad Carthaginienses et in Numidiam ad frumentum rogandum, quod in Graeciam portaretur, missi, pro quo pretium solueret populus Romanus. adeoque in apparatum curamque eius belli ciuitas intenta fuit, ut P. Cornelius consul ediceret, qui senatores essent quibusque in senatu sententiam dicere liceret, quique minores magistratus essent, ne quis eorum longius ab urbe Roma abiret, quam unde eo die redire posset, neue uno tempore quinque senatores ab urbe Roma abessent. in comparanda impigre classe C. Liuium praetorem contentio orta cum colonis maritimis paulisper tenuit.
[3] Three envoys were sent into Africa to the Carthaginians and into Numidia to ask for grain to be carried into Greece, for which the Roman People would pay the price. And the commonwealth was so intent upon the apparatus and care of that war, that Publius Cornelius the consul proclaimed by edict that those who were senators and permitted to give an opinion in the senate, and those who were lesser magistrates, should not go farther from the city of Rome than whence they could return on that same day, and that at no one time should five senators be absent from the city of Rome. In the energetic preparing of the fleet, a contention that arose with the maritime colonists held up Gaius Livius the praetor for a little while.
for when they were being compelled into the fleet, they appealed to the tribunes of the plebs; by them they were referred to the senate. the senate, with all agreeing to a man, decreed that there was to be no exemption from naval service for those colonists. Ostia and Fregenae and Castrum Novum and Pyrgi and Antium and Tarracina and Minturnae and Sinuessa were the ones that contended with the praetor about the exemption.
Then the consul Manius Acilius, by decree of the senate, referred to the college of the Fetials whether war ought in any case to be declared upon King Antiochus in his own person, or whether it were sufficient to announce it to some garrison of his; and whether they ordered that war be declared separately upon the Aetolians as well, and whether the treaty and friendship ought first to be renounced to them before war was to be declared. The Fetials replied that already before, when they were consulted concerning Philip, they had decreed that it made no difference whether it was announced in his presence or to a garrison; that friendship seemed to have been renounced, since, though the envoys so often demanded the things in question, it had been judged equitable that neither the things be restored nor satisfaction be made; that the Aetolians had of their own accord declared war upon themselves, in that they had seized Demetrias, a city of the allies, by force, had gone to attack Chalcis by land and sea, and had brought King Antiochus over into Europe to wage war upon the Roman People. With everything now sufficiently prepared, the consul Manius Acilius proclaimed that those whom Lucius Quinctius had enrolled as soldiers and those whom he had levied upon the allies and the Latin Name—those whom it was proper to go with him into the province—and the military tribunes of the first and third legion, that all these should assemble at Brundisium on the Ides of May.
[4] Sub idem tempus legati ab duobus regibus, Philippo et Ptolomaeo, [Aegypti rege,] Romam uenerunt, Philippo pollicente ad bellum auxilia et pecuniam et frumentum; ab Ptolomaeo etiam mille pondo auri, uiginti milia pondo argenti adlata. nihil eius acceptum; gratiae regibus actae; et cum uterque se cum omnibus copiis in Aetoliam uenturum belloque interfuturum polliceretur, Ptolomaeo id remissum; Philippi legatis responsum gratum eum senatui populoque Romano facturum, si M'. Acilio consuli non defuisset. item ab Carthaginiensibus et Masinissa rege legati uenerunt.
[4] At about the same time legates came to Rome from two kings, Philip and Ptolemy, [king of Egypt,] Philip promising for the war auxiliaries and money and grain; from Ptolemy there were also brought 1,000 pounds of gold and 20,000 pounds of silver. None of this was accepted; thanks were rendered to the kings; and although each promised that he would come with all his forces into Aetolia and take part in the war, this was remitted to Ptolemy; to Philip’s legates it was answered that he would do what was pleasing to the Senate and the Roman People, if he did not fail the consul M'. Acilius. Likewise legates came from the Carthaginians and King Masinissa.
Carthaginians promised to bring thousands of modii of wheat, 500,000 (modii) of barley to the army, and to carry half of that to Rome; that the Romans should accept this as a gift from them, they begged, and that they would also equip a fleet [of their own] at their own expense, and would pay at once in full the stipend which they owed in many installments over many years; the envoys of Masinissa [said that] the king would send to M'. Acilius the consul 500,000 modii of wheat, 300,000 (modii) of barley to the army in Greece, to Rome 300,000 modii of wheat, 250,000 (modii) of barley, 500 horsemen, 20 elephants. About the grain, the answer was given to both alike: the Roman people would use it on condition that they accepted the price; about the fleet, the Carthaginians were excused, except in so far as any ships were owed by treaty; about the money likewise the answer was given that they would accept none before the due date.
[5] Cum haec Romae agebantur, Chalcide Antiochus, ne cessaret per hibernorum tempus, partim ipse sollicitabat ciuitatium animos mittendis legatis, partim ultro ad eum ueniebant, sicut Epirotae communi gentis consensu et Elei e Peloponneso uenerunt. Elei auxilium aduersus Achaeos petebant, quos post bellum non ex sua sententia indictum Antiocho primum ciuitati suae arma illaturos <credebant>. mille iis pedites cum duce Cretensi Euphane sunt missi. Epirotarum legatio erat minime in partem ullam liberi aut simplicis animi; apud regem gratiam initam uolebant cum eo, ut cauerent, ne quid offenderent Romanos.
[5] While these things were being transacted at Rome, Antiochus at Chalcis, so that he might not be idle during the time of winter-quarters, was in part himself stirring the spirits of the communities by sending envoys, and in part they were coming to him of their own accord, as the Epirotes came by the common consent of their nation and the Eleans from the Peloponnese. The Eleans were seeking assistance against the Achaeans, whom, after the war against Antiochus had been declared not by their own vote, they <believed> would be the first to bring arms against their state. A thousand infantry were sent to them with the Cretan leader Euphane. The embassy of the Epirotes was in no respect of a free or straightforward spirit; they wished to initiate favor with the king, while taking care not to give the Romans any offense.
for they were requesting that he not rashly lead them into the cause, exposed over against Italy on behalf of all Greece and destined to catch the first onsets of the Romans; but if he himself could with terrestrial and naval forces preside over Epirus, all the Epirotes would eagerly receive him into their cities and ports; if he could not do that, they were deprecating that he not expose them naked and unarmed to a Roman war. by this embassy it was apparent that this was being pursued: that either, as they more believed, if he had abstained from Epirus, all things would be intact for themselves with the Roman armies, and sufficient favor would be conciliated with the king, because they would have accepted him if he came; or, if he had come, thus also there would be hope of pardon from the Romans, because, not having waited for aid far from them, they had succumbed to present forces. to this so perplexing embassy, since it was not sufficiently in promptu what he should answer, he said that he would send legates to them, who would speak about those things which pertained to them and to himself in common.
[6] In Boeotiam ipse profectus est, causas in speciem irae aduersus Romanos eas, quas ante dixi, habentem, Brachyllae necem et bellum a Quinctio Coroneae propter Romanorum militum caedes illatum, re uera per multa iam saecula publice priuatimque labante egregia quondam disciplina gentis et multorum eo statu, qui diuturnus esse sine mutatione rerum non posset. obuiam effusis undique Boeotiae principibus Thebas uenit. ibi in concilio gentis, quamquam et ad Delium impetu in praesidium Romanum facto et ad Chalcidem commiserat nec paruis nec dubiis principiis bellum, tamen eandem orationem <est> exorsus, qua in colloquio primo ad Chalcidem quaque per legatos in concilio Achaeorum usus erat, ut amicitiam secum institui, non bellum indici Romanis postularet.
[6] He himself set out into Boeotia, having as ostensible causes of anger against the Romans those which I mentioned before—the killing of Brachyllas and the war brought by Quinctius at Coronea on account of the slaughter of Roman soldiers—while in truth, for many generations now, the once-excellent discipline of the nation, both publicly and privately, had been slipping, and many were in such a condition as could not be lasting without a change of affairs. With the leaders of Boeotia pouring out from every side to meet him, he came to Thebes. There, in the council of the nation, although both at Delium—an assault having been made upon the Roman garrison—and at Chalcis he had engaged the war with beginnings neither small nor doubtful, nevertheless he began the same speech <est> which he had used in the first conference at Chalcis and which he had employed through envoys in the council of the Achaeans: that friendship with himself should be instituted, not that war be declared against the Romans.
Hac quoque gente adiuncta Chalcidem regressus, praemissis inde litteris, ut Demetriadem conuenirent principes Aetolorum, cum quibus de summa rerum deliberaret, nauibus eo ad diem indictum concilio uenit. et Amynander, accitus ad consultandum ex Athamania, et Hannibal Poenus, iam diu non adhibitus, interfuit ei consilio. consultatum de Thessalorum gente est, quorum omnibus, qui aderant, uoluntas temptanda uidebatur.
This people too having been joined, he returned to Chalcis; letters having been sent ahead from there, that the leaders of the Aetolians should convene at Demetrias, with whom he might deliberate about the summa of affairs, he came thither by ship on the day appointed for the council. And Amynander, summoned to consult from Athamania, and Hannibal the Carthaginian, who had for a long time not been called in, took part in that council. Deliberation was held about the Thessalian people, whose will seemed to all who were present to be tested.
on that point the opinions were diverse, in that some held that action should be taken at once, others that, as winter—which was then nearly at its middle—should defer it to the beginning of spring; and some that only legates should be sent, others that they should go with all their forces and overawe them with fear, if they delayed.
[7] Cum circa hanc fere consultationem disceptatio omnis uerteretur, Hannibal nominatim interrogatus sententiam in uniuersi belli cogitationem regem atque eos, qui aderant, tali oratione auertit. 'si, ex quo traiecimus in Graeciam, adhibitus essem in consilium, cum de Euboea deque Achaeis et de Boeotia agebatur, eandem sententiam dixissem, quam hodie, cum de Thessalis agitur, dicam. ante omnia Philippum et Macedonas in societatem belli quacumque ratione censeo deducendos esse.
[7] While almost the whole disputation was turning around this consultation, Hannibal, asked by name for his opinion, diverted the king and those who were present to the consideration of the war as a whole by such a speech. 'If, from the time we crossed over into Greece, I had been admitted into the council, when business was being done concerning Euboea and the Achaeans and Boeotia, I would have given the same opinion which today, when the question is about the Thessalians, I shall state. Before all things I judge that Philip and the Macedonians must be brought into a war-alliance by whatever method.'
as for Euboea and the Boeotians and the Thessalians, who doubts that, as men who have no strength of their own, always flattering those present, they will employ the same fear which they have in council to obtain pardon, and that, as soon as they see the Roman army in Greece, they will turn themselves to their accustomed imperium, and that it will not be injurious to them that, when the Romans were far away, they were unwilling to experience your force and that of your present army? how much earlier and rather is it to join Philip to us than these? he, if once he descends into the cause, will have nothing left in reserve, and he will bring such forces as are not only an accession to the war against the Romans, but which by themselves alone not long ago were able to sustain the Romans.
with this added—let envy be absent from the word—how could I doubt about the outcome, since I see that those very means by which the Romans were strong against Philip will now be such that they themselves are assailed? The Aetolians, who defeated Philip—as is agreed among all—will fight with Philip against the Romans; Amynander and the nation of the Athamanians, whose effort in that war was next to the Aetolians the greatest, will stand with us; at that time, with you quiet, Philip bore the whole mass of the war; now you will wage war, two greatest kings, with the forces of Asia and Europe, against one people—passing over both my fortunes, which I say nothing of, a people which in the age of our fathers was not even equal to a single king of the Epirotes—who, pray, was anything compared with you?— What, then, is the thing that gives me confidence that Philip can be joined to us?
one, the common utility, which is the greatest bond of society; the other, you Aetoli as the authors. for your legate here, Thoas, among the other things he was accustomed to say to stir Antiochus into Greece, before all always affirmed this: that Philip was growling and was bearing with difficulty, under the guise of peace, the laws of servitude imposed upon him. he indeed was matching in words the king’s anger to that of a wild beast bound or shut in and eager to break the bars.
if his spirit is such, let us loosen his bonds and break his bars, so that he may be able to burst forth, his long‑restrained wrath, against the common enemies. But if our legation moves him not at all, then let us, since we cannot adjoin him to ourselves, take care that he not be able to be adjoined to our enemies. Seleucus, your son, is at Lysimachia; if, with the army which he has with him, he begins to lay waste through Thrace the districts nearest to Macedonia, he will easily divert Philip from bringing aid to the Romans, to the defending of his own affairs first and foremost.
You have my opinion about Philip; what I thought concerning the conduct of the entire war you have not been ignorant of from the beginning. If I had been listened to then, the Romans would be hearing not that at Chalcis in Euboea had been taken and the fort of the Euripus stormed, but that Etruria and the coast of the Ligurians and of Cisalpine Gaul were ablaze with war, and—what is their greatest terror—that Hannibal was in Italy. Even now I judge that you should summon all the naval and land forces; let transports with supplies follow the fleet; for here, just as we are few for the duties of war, so we are too many in proportion to the scarcity of supplies.
when you have drawn together all your forces, with the fleet divided you will keep part at Corcyra on station, lest passage lie open and safe to the Romans, and part you will convey to the coast of Italy which looks toward Sardinia and Africa; you yourself will advance with all the land forces into the Bulline territory; thence you will guard Greece, both presenting the appearance to the Romans that you are going to cross, and—if the situation shall demand—going to cross. these things I advise—I who, though I am not the most expert in war, have certainly learned, by my own good and ill, to wage war with the Romans. in the matters on which I have given counsel, in these same I promise service neither unfaithful nor sluggish.
[8] Haec ferme Hannibalis oratio fuit; quam laudarunt magis in praesentia, qui aderant, quam rebus ipsis exsecuti sunt; nihil enim eorum factum est, nisi quod ad classem copiasque accersendas ex Asia Polyxenidam misit. legati Larisam ad concilium Thessalorum sunt missi, et Aetolis Amynandroque dies ad conueniendum exercitui Pheras est dictus; eodem et rex cum suis copiis confestim uenit. ubi dum opperitur Amynandrum atque Aetolos, Philippum Megalopolitanum cum duobus milibus hominum ad legenda ossa Macedonum circa Cynoscephalas, ubi debellatum erat cum Philippo, misit, siue ab ipso, quaerente sibi commendationem ad Macedonum gentem et inuidiam regi, quod insepultos milites reliquisset, monitus, siue ab insita regibus uanitate ad consilium specie amplum, re inane animo adiecto.
[8] This was about Hannibal’s speech; which those present praised more for the moment than they executed in realities; for none of those things was done, except that he sent Polyxenidas from Asia to summon the fleet and forces. Envoys were sent to Larisa to the council of the Thessalians, and to the Aetolians and to Amynander a day for assembling the army at Pherae was appointed; to the same place the king also came forthwith with his own forces. While he was waiting there for Amynander and the Aetolians, he sent Philip of Megalopolis with two thousand men to collect the bones of the Macedonians around Cynoscephalae, where the war had been fought out with Philip, whether having been advised by Hannibal himself—who was seeking commendation for himself with the nation of the Macedonians and odium for the king, because he had left the soldiers unburied—or with that counsel, grand in appearance but empty in reality, added to his mind by the vanity innate in kings.
A tumulus was made by heaping into one the bones which had been strewn everywhere, which won no favor among the Macedonians, but stirred immense hatred toward Philip. Therefore the man who up to that time was going to have the influence in the council immediately sent to Marcus Baebius, propraetor, that Antiochus had made an attack into Thessaly; if it seemed good to him, he should move from his winter quarters; he himself would go forth to meet him, so that they might consult what ought to be done.
[9] Antiocho ad Pheras iam castra habenti, ubi coniunxerant ei se Aetoli et Amynander, legati ab Larisa uenerunt quaerentes, quod ob factum dictumue Thessalorum bello lacesseret eos, simul orantes, ut remoto exercitu per legatos, si quid ei uideretur, secum disceptaret. eodem tempore quingentos armatos duce Hippolocho Pheras in praesidium miserunt; ii exclusi aditu, iam omnia itinera obsidentibus regiis, Scotusam se receperunt. legatis Larisaeorum rex clementer respondit, non belli faciendi, sed tuendae et stabiliendae libertatis Thessalorum causa se Thessaliam intrasse.
[9] When Antiochus already had his camp at Pheras, where the Aetolians and Amynander had joined themselves to him, envoys came from Larisa asking on account of what deed or word of the Thessalians he was provoking them to war, and at the same time begging that, with the army withdrawn, he would discuss the matter with them through envoys, if anything seemed good to him. At the same time they sent five hundred armed men under the leadership of Hippolochus to Pheras as a garrison; shut out from entry—now that the king’s men were blocking all the roads—they withdrew to Scotusa. To the envoys of the Larisaeans the king replied with clemency, that he had entered Thessaly not for the making of war, but for the sake of guarding and establishing the liberty of the Thessalians.
Similar to these, a legate was sent to deal with the Pheraeans; as no answer was given to him, the Pheraeans themselves sent to the king as legate Pausanias, the leading man of the state. He, since the case was equal, urged things not unlike those which had been spoken on behalf of the Chalcidenses in the conference at the Euripus strait, and in some respects even more ferociously; the king, having ordered them again and again to deliberate, not to adopt that counsel which, while being too cautious and provident for the future, they would immediately repent of, dismissed them. When this had been reported back to Pherae by the embassy, they did not hesitate even a little, but, out of loyalty toward the Romans, to endure whatever the fortune of war might bring.
and so they too were preparing themselves with utmost effort to defend the city, and the king at once set about to assault the walls from every side; and, as one who understood well—for there was no doubt—that the event depended on that city which he had first attacked, whether he should thereafter be despised by the whole nation of the Thessalians or feared, he cast every terror upon the besieged from all quarters. they sustained the first onset of the assault quite steadfastly; then, when many of the defenders were falling or being wounded, their spirits began to waver. then, recalled by the castigations of the leading men to persevere in their purpose, leaving the outer ring of the wall, with their forces now failing they withdrew into the inner part of the city, around which a shorter circuit of fortification had been thrown; at last, overcome by their troubles, since they feared that, if taken by force, there would be no pardon with the victor, they surrendered themselves.
Then the king, delaying not at all, sent four thousand armed men to Scotusa while the terror was still fresh. Nor was there any delay of surrender there, since they beheld the recent example of the Pheraeans, who, what they had pertinaciously refused at the outset, subdued by misfortune had at length done; along with the city itself Hippolochus and the garrison of the Larisaeans were surrendered. All were dismissed by the king inviolate, because he believed that this would be a matter of great moment for conciliating the minds of the Larisaeans.
[10] Intra decimum diem, quam Pheras uenerat, his perfectis Crannonem profectus cum toto exercitu primo aduentu cepit. inde Cierium et Metropolim et iis circumiecta castella recepit; omniaque iam regionis eius praeter Atracem et Gyrtonem in potestate erant. tunc adgredi Larisam constituit ratus uel terrore ceterarum expugnatarum uel beneficio praesidii dimissi uel exemplo tot ciuitatium dedentium sese non ultra in pertinacia mansuros.
[10] Within the tenth day after he had come to Pherae, with these things accomplished, setting out for Crannon with the whole army he took it upon his first arrival. Thence he recovered Cierium and Metropolis and the forts surrounding them; and already all of that region, except Atrax and Gyrton, were in his power. Then he resolved to attack Larisa, thinking that either through the terror of the others taken by storm, or through the benefit of the garrison dismissed, or by the example of so many cities surrendering themselves, they would not remain any longer in pertinacity.
with the elephants ordered to be driven before the standards for the sake of terror, he advanced toward the city in a square formation, so that the minds of a great part of the Larisaeans, being uncertain, wavered between the present fear of the enemy and a shamefaced regard for their absent allies. During those same days Amynander, with the youth of the Athamanians, occupied Pellinaeum; and Menippus, setting out into Perrhaebia with three thousand Aetolian foot-soldiers and two hundred horse, took Malloea and Cyretias by force and devastated the Tripolitan countryside. These things swiftly accomplished, they return to Larisa to the king; while he was consulting what ought to be done about Larisa, they arrived.
there opinions were tending in opposite directions, some assessing that force should be applied and that there must be no delay, but that with works and engines at once on every side he should assault the walls of the city situated on a plain, with open and level access on all sides; others now remarking that the strength of the city was by no means to be compared with Pherae, now that winter and the season of the year were suited to no military matter, least of all to the besieging and storming of cities. while the king was uncertain between hope and fear, envoys from Pharsalus, who by chance had come to surrender their city, raised his spirits. meanwhile M. Baebius, having met with Philip among the Dassaretii, by common counsel sent Ap. Claudius to the protection of Larisa; he, through Macedonia by forced marches, reached the ridge of the mountains which is above Gonnos.
The town of Gonnus is twenty miles from Larisa, situated in the very jaws of the pass which they call Tempe. There, having pitched camp broader than was proportionate to his forces, and having kindled more fires than were needful for use, he produced for the enemy the appearance which he had sought: that the whole Roman army was there with King Philip. Therefore the king, alleging among his own that winter was pressing on, after delaying only a single day withdrew from Larisa and returned to Demetrias; and the Aetolians and the Athamanians betook themselves back into their own borders.
Appius, although he perceived the siege—on account of which affair he had been sent—released, nevertheless went down to Larisa to confirm the allies’ spirits for the future; and there was a double joy, because both the enemies had withdrawn from the borders, and they beheld a Roman garrison within the walls.
[11] Rex Chalcidem a Demetriade, amore captus uirginis Chalcidensis, Cleoptolemi filiae, cum patrem primo allegando, deinde coram ipse rogando fatigasset, inuitum se grauioris fortunae condicioni illigantem, tandem impetrata re tamquam in media pace nuptias celebrat et relicum hiemis, oblitus, quantas simul duas res suscepisset, bellum Romanum et Graeciam liberandam, omissa omnium rerum cura, in conuiuiis et uinum sequentibus uoluptatibus ac deinde ex fatigatione magis quam satietate earum in somno traduxit. eadem omnis praefectos regios, qui ubique, ad Boeotiam maxime, praepositi hibernis erant, cepit luxuria; in eandem et milites effusi sunt, nec quisquam eorum aut arma induit aut stationem aut uigilias seruauit aut quicquam, quod militaris operis aut muneris esset, fecit. itaque principio ueris, cum per Phocidem Chaeroneam, quo conuenire omnem undique exercitum iusserat, uenisset, facile animaduertit nihilo seueriore disciplina milites quam ducem hibernasse.
[11] The king went to Chalcis from Demetrias, captured by love of a Chalcidian maiden, the daughter of Cleoptolemus; after he had wearied the father, at first by pleading by letter, then in person by asking face to face—reluctant as he was, binding himself to the condition of a more weighty fortune—at last, the matter having been obtained, he celebrates the nuptials as if in the midst of peace; and the rest of the winter—forgetful how great two matters at once he had undertaken, the Roman war and the freeing of Greece—setting aside the care of all things, he passed in banquets and in pleasures that attend wine, and then, from fatigue rather than from satiety of them, in sleep. The same luxury seized all the royal prefects, who everywhere, especially in Boeotia, had been put in charge of the winter-quarters; the soldiers too poured themselves out into the same, and not one of them either put on arms or kept post or watches or did anything that was of military work or duty. And so, at the beginning of spring, when through Phocis he had come to Chaeronea, where he had ordered the whole army from every side to assemble, he easily noticed that the soldiers had wintered with discipline no stricter than the leader.
He then ordered Alexander the Acarnanian and Menippus the Macedonian to lead the forces to Stratus in Aetolia; he himself, a sacrifice to Apollo having been made at Delphi, advanced to Naupactus. A council of the chiefs of Aetolia having been held, by the road which, past Calydon and Lysimachia, leads to Stratus, he met his own men who were coming by the Maliac Gulf. There Mnasilochus, chieftain of the Acarnanians, purchased by many gifts, not only was conciliating the nation to the king, but had also brought over Clytus, the praetor—who then held the highest power—into his own opinion.
He, when he perceived that the Leucadians—Leucas being the head of Acarnania—could not easily be driven to defection because of fear of the Roman fleet, which was with Atilius and which was around Cephallenia, approached them by artifice. For when in council he had said that the inland parts of Acarnania must be safeguarded and that all who bore arms must march out to Medion and Thyrreum, lest they be seized by Antiochus or by the Aetolians, there were those who said it was not requisite to stir up all in tumult, that a garrison of five hundred men was enough. Having gotten hold of that youth, with three hundred posted on garrison at Medion, two hundred at Thyrreum, he was contriving this: that they, to be as hostages, should come into the king’s power.
[12] Per eosdem dies legati@ regis Medionem uenerunt; quibus auditis cum in contione, quidnam respondendum regi esset, consultaretur, et alii manendum in Romana societate, alii non aspernandam amicitiam regis censerent, media uisa est Clyti sententia eoque accepta, ut ad regem mitterent legatos peterentque ab eo, ut Medionios super tanta re consultare in concilio Acarnanum pateretur. in eam legationem Mnasilochus et qui eius factionis erant de industria coniecti, clam missis, qui regem admouere copias iuberent, ipsi terebant tempus. itaque uixdum iis egressis [legatis] Antiochus in finibus et mox ad portas erat, et trepidantibus, qui expertes proditionis fuerant, tumultuoseque iuuentutem ad arma uocantibus ab Clyto et Mnasilocho in urbem est inductus; et aliis sua uoluntate adfluentibus metu coacti etiam, qui dissentiebant, ad regem conuenerunt.
[12] During those same days the king’s envoys came to Medion; and when they had been heard, as it was being deliberated in an assembly what answer should be returned to the king, and some were of the opinion that they should remain in Roman alliance, others that the king’s friendship was not to be spurned, the middle opinion of Clytus seemed best, and this was adopted: that they should send envoys to the king and ask of him that he permit the Medionians to consult concerning so great a matter in the council of the Acarnanians. Into that embassy Mnasilochus and those of his faction were deliberately thrust, while men were secretly sent to order the king to move up his forces; they themselves were spinning out the time. And so, scarcely had those [envoys] departed when Antiochus was on the borders and soon at the gates; and, while those who had been ignorant of the treachery were in alarm and were tumultuously calling the youth to arms, he was led into the city by Clytus and Mnasilochus; and, while others were of their own will streaming in, even those who dissented, compelled by fear, assembled to the king.
when he had soothed those who were terrified with a placid oration, on the hope of his vaunted clemency several peoples of Acarnania defected. He set out from Medion for Thyrreum, after sending Mnasilochus and the envoys on ahead to the same place. However, the fraud uncovered at Medion made the Thyrreans more cautious, not more timid; for, after giving a by no means perplexed reply—that they would accept no new societas except by the authority of the Roman commanders—and with the gates closed, they deployed armed men on the walls.
and, most opportune for confirming the spirits of the Acarnanians, Cn. Octavius, sent by Quinctius, when he had received a garrison and a few ships from A. Postumius, who had been put in charge of Cephallenia by the legate Atilius, came to Leucas and filled the allies with hope that M'. Acilius the consul had already crossed the sea with the legions and that there was a Roman camp in Thessaly. As the season of the year, now ripe for sailing, made this rumor like to the truth, the king, after a garrison had been imposed at Medion and in certain other towns of Acarnania, withdrew from Thyrium and, through the cities of Aetolia and Phocis, returned to Chalcis.
[13] Sub idem tempus M. Baebius et Philippus rex, iam ante per hiemem in Dassaretiis congressi, cum Ap. Claudium, ut obsidione Larisam eximeret, in Thessaliam misissent, quia id tempus rebus gerendis immaturum erat, in hiberna regressi, principio ueris coniunctis copiis in Thessaliam descenderunt. in Acarnania tum Antiochus erat. aduenientes Philippus Malloeam Perrhaebiae, Baebius Phacium est adgressus; quo primo prope impetu capto Phaestum eadem celeritate capit.
[13] At about the same time, M. Baebius and King Philip, who already before during the winter had met among the Dassaretii, having sent Ap. Claudius into Thessaly to free Larisa from siege, because that season was immature for conducting operations, returned to winter quarters; at the beginning of spring, with their forces conjoined, they descended into Thessaly. Antiochus was then in Acarnania. On their arrival Philip attacked Malloea of Perrhaebia, Baebius Phacium; and this, taken almost at the first assault, he took Phaestus with the same speed.
then, when he had withdrawn back to Atrax, from there he occupies Cyretiae and Eritium, and, with garrisons posted through the recovered towns, he joins himself again to Philip, who was besieging Malloea. upon the advent of the Roman army, whether from fear of the forces or from hope of pardon, when they had surrendered themselves, they went in one column to recover those towns which the Athamanes had occupied. now these were: Aeginium Ericinium Gomphi Silana Tricca Meliboea Phaloria.
thence they encircle Pellinaeum, where Philippus of Megalopolis was in garrison with five hundred infantry and forty cavalry, and, before they assaulted it, they send to Philip to warn him not to wish to try the last extremity of force. To these he replied fairly fiercely that he would have entrusted himself either to the Romans or to the Thessalians; he would not commit himself into the power of Philip (the king). After it appeared that the matter must be done by force, since Limnaeum also seemed able to be attacked at the same time, it was decided that the king should go to Limnaeum, while Baebius stayed behind to assail Pellinaeum.
[14] Per eos forte dies M'. Acilius consul cum uiginti milibus peditum, duobus milibus equitum, quindecim elephantis mari traiecto pedestris copias Larisam ducere tribunos militum iussit; ipse cum equitatu Limnaeum ad Philippum uenit. aduentu consulis deditio sine cunctatione est facta, traditumque praesidium regium et cum iis Athamanes. ab Limnaeo Pellinaeum consul proficiscitur.
[14] About those days by chance, Manius Acilius, the consul, with twenty thousand infantry, two thousand cavalry, and fifteen elephants, the sea having been crossed, ordered the military tribunes to lead the infantry forces to Larisa; he himself with the cavalry came to Limnaeum to Philip. At the arrival of the consul, surrender without hesitation was made, and the royal garrison was handed over, and with them the Athamanians. From Limnaeum the consul sets out for Pellinaeum.
there the Athamanes were the first to surrender themselves, then also Philip the Megalopolitan; as he was departing with his garrison, when by chance King Philip had met him, he ordered him, in mockery, to be saluted as king, and he himself, on coming face to face with him, addressed him as “brother” with a jest not really befitting his own majesty. Thence he was led to the consul and ordered to be kept under guard, and not much later was sent to Rome in chains. The remaining multitude, whether of the Athamanes or of King Antiochus’s soldiers, which had been in the garrisons of the towns that surrendered in those days, was handed over to King Philip; they were about four thousand men.
the consul set out for Larisa, there to consult about the general conduct of the war. on the journey legates from Cierium and Metropolis met him, surrendering their cities. Philip, having treated the captives of the Athamanians with especial leniency, so that through them he might conciliate the nation, having gotten hope of winning possession of Athamania, led the army thither, after sending the captives ahead into the cities.
and they had great authority among the commons, commemorating the king’s clemency toward them and his munificence; and Amynander, whose present majesty would have kept some in loyalty, fearing lest he be handed over to Philip, long since an enemy, and to the Romans, then justly hostile on account of his defection, left the kingdom with his wife and children and withdrew to Ambracia; thus all Athamania passed into the right and dominion of Philip. the consul, for the refitting especially of the beasts of burden, which had been wearied both by the navigation and afterwards by the marches, having tarried a few days at Larisa, with the army as it were renewed by a modest rest, advanced to Crannon. as he came, Pharsalus and Scotusa and Pherae, and whatever garrisons of Antiochus were in them, were surrendered.
As he was approaching the defiles, above which Thaumaci is situated, with the city deserted, all the armed youth occupied the woods and the roads and charged the Roman column from the higher ground. The consul first sent men to speak with them at close quarters to deter them from such fury; after he saw them persevere in their undertaking, having sent a tribune around with the soldiers of two standards, he blocked the route to the city for the armed men, and took it empty. Then, when a shout was heard from the rear that the city had been taken, a slaughter was made of the ambushers who were fleeing from the woods on all sides.
[15] Cum haec agebantur, Chalcide erat Antiochus, iam tum cernens nihil se ex Graecia praeter amoena Chalcide hiberna et infames nuptias petisse. tunc Aetolorum uana promissa incusare et Thoantem, Hannibalem uero non ut prudentem tantum uirum sed prope uatem omnium, quae tum euenirent, admirari. ne tamen temere coepta segnitia insuper euerteret, nuntios in Aetoliam misit, ut omni contracta iuuentute conuenirent Lamiam; et ipse eo decem milia fere peditum ex iis, qui postea uenerant ex Asia, expleta et equites quingentos duxit.
[15] While these things were being transacted, Antiochus was at Chalcis, already then perceiving that he had sought nothing from Greece except the pleasant winter-quarters at Chalcis and an infamous marriage. Then he reproached the empty promises of the Aetolians and Thoas, but admired Hannibal not only as a prudent man but almost as a vates—a foreteller—of all the things which were then occurring. Yet lest slackness should in addition overthrow what had been rashly begun, he sent messengers into Aetolia, that, the whole youth gathered, they should assemble at Lamia; and he himself led thither about 10,000 infantry, made up from those who had afterwards come from Asia, and 500 cavalry.
When somewhat fewer than ever before had assembled there, and only the chiefs were present with a few clients, and they said that everything had been done by them diligently to summon as many as possible from their communities, that neither by authority nor favor nor command had they prevailed against those shirking military service—abandoned on every side both by his own men, who were lingering in Asia, and by the allies, who did not provide the things in hope of which they had called him—he withdrew within the pass of Thermopylae. That ridge, just as Italy is divided by the back of the Apennines, so divides mid-Greece. Before the pass of Thermopylae, turned toward the north, are Epirus and Perrhaebia and Magnesia and Thessaly and the Phthiotan Achaeans and the Maliac Gulf; within the narrows, they slope toward the south: the greater part of Aetolia and Acarnania and, with Locris, Phocis and Boeotia, and the island Euboea adjoining, and the Attic land running out into the deep like a promontory, and the Peloponnesus lying at the back.
This ridge, stretching from Leucate and the sea facing toward the west through Aetolia to the other sea set opposite to the east, has such rough thickets and interposed cliffs that not only armies, but not even unencumbered men, easily find any paths for a crossing. They call the eastern end of the range Mount Oeta, whose highest height is named Callidromus; in its valley sloping toward the Maliac Gulf there is a track not wider than 60 paces. This is the single military road by which armies, if they are not prevented, can be led through.
[16] Haudquaquam pari tum animo Antiochus intra portas loci eius castris positis munitionibus insuper saltum impediebat et, cum duplici uallo fossaque et muro etiam, qua res postulabat, ex multa copia passim iacentium lapidum permunisset omnia, satis fidens numquam ea uim Romanum exercitum facturum, Aetolos ex quattuor milibus—tot enim conuenerant —partim ad Heracleam praesidio obtinendam, quae ante ipsas fauces posita est, partim Hypatam mittit, et Heracleam haud dubius consulem oppugnaturum, et iam multis nuntiantibus circa Hypatam omnia euastari. consul depopulatus Hypatensem primo deinde Heracleensem agrum, inutili utrobique auxilio Aetolorum, in ipsis faucibus prope fontes calidarum aquarum aduersus regem posuit castra. Aetolorum utraeque manus Heracleam sese incluserunt.
[16] By no means with equal spirit then, Antiochus, having pitched his camp within the gates of that place, was obstructing the pass with fortifications besides; and when, with a double rampart and ditch and also with a wall, wherever the situation required, he had thoroughly fortified everything from the great supply of stones lying everywhere, quite confident that the Roman army would never force a passage there, he sends the Aetolians, out of four thousand—for so many had assembled—partly to hold Heraclea by garrison, which is situated before the very jaws of the pass, partly to Hypata, being in no doubt that the consul would attack Heraclea, and now with many reporting that everything around Hypata was being laid waste. The consul, having ravaged first the Hypatan and then the Heraclean territory, the aid of the Aetolians being useless in both places, pitched his camp in the very defiles, near the springs of hot waters, over against the king. Both bands of Aetolians shut themselves up in Heraclea.
Antiochus, to whom, before he should discern the enemy, all things seemed sufficiently fortified and fenced about with garrisons, was seized by fear lest the Roman might find some paths along the overhanging ridges for a passage; for there was a report that once the Lacedaemonians had been thus outflanked by the Persians, and lately Philip by these same Romans; and so he sends a messenger to Heraclea to the Aetolians, that they should at least render him this service in that war, namely, to seize and beset the summits around the mountains, so that the Romans could by no way cross. On hearing this message, a dissension arose among the Aetolians. Part held that the king’s command must be obeyed and that they must go; part that they should halt at Heraclea for either fortune—so that, whether the king were defeated by the consul, they might have intact forces in readiness to bring aid to their neighboring communities, or, if he should conquer, they might pursue the Romans scattered in flight.
[17] Consul postquam insessa superiora loca ab Aetolis uidit, M. Porcium Catonem et L. Ualerium Flaccum consularis legatos cum binis milibus delectorum peditum ad castella Aetolorum, Flaccum in Rhoduntiam et Tichiunta, Catonem in Callidromum mittit. ipse, priusquam ad hostem copias admoueret, uocatos in contionem milites paucis est adlocutus. 'plerosque omnium ordinum, milites, inter uos esse uideo, qui in hac eadem prouincia T. Quincti ductu auspicioque militaueritis.
[17] After the consul saw that the higher positions had been occupied by the Aetolians, he sends Marcus Porcius Cato and Lucius Valerius Flaccus, legates of consular rank, with 2,000 chosen infantry to the Aetolians’ forts—Flaccus to Rhoduntia and Tichiunta, Cato to Callidromus. He himself, before he brought his forces up to the enemy, when the soldiers had been called into an assembly, addressed them briefly. “I see that the greater part of men of all ranks among you, soldiers, served in this same province under the leadership and auspices of Titus Quinctius.
In the Macedonian war the defile at the river Aous was more unsurmountable than this; for these are gates, and, with all else shut, there is as it were a single natural transit between two seas; the fortifications both were then set in more opportune positions and were stronger; that enemy’s army too was both greater in number and by the kind of soldiers considerably better; for there were Macedonians there and Thracians and Illyrians, all most ferocious nations, here are Syrians and Asiatic Greeks, most vile kinds of men and born for servitude; that king was most warlike and trained, from youth up, by wars of neighboring Thracians and Illyrians and of well-nigh all the dwellers-around, this one, to be silent of all the rest of his life, is he who, when he had crossed from Asia into Europe to bring war against the Roman people, did nothing more memorable in the whole time of winter-quarters than that for love’s sake he took to wife a woman out of a private house and even of obscure stock among his own countrymen, and, a new-made husband, as if fattened by nuptial dinners, he advanced to battle. The sum of his strength and hope was in the Aetolians, a nation most vainglorious and most ungrateful, as you previously experienced, and now Antiochus is experiencing. For they neither came in numbers, nor could they be contained in the camp, and they are themselves in sedition one with another, and, when they had demanded that Hypata and Heraclea be defended, defending neither they fled back into the ridges of the mountains, a part shut themselves inside Heraclea.
the king himself confessed that nowhere on a level field did he dare not only to come together for combat, but not even to pitch his camp in the open; abandoning all the region before him— that which he boasted he had taken from us and from Philip— he hid himself within the crags, not even before the jaws of the pass, as the Lacedaemonians once are said, but inside, deep within, with his camp drawn back. what difference, for showing fear, is there whether he has shut himself in to be besieged by the walls of some city? but neither will the narrows protect Antiochus, nor those summits which they seized protect the Aetolians. provision and precaution have been made sufficiently on all sides, that in battle there might be nothing against you except the enemy.
you ought to set this before your minds: not that you are fighting only for the liberty of Greece, although that too would be an excellent title—to free, already liberated from Philip before now, from the Aetolians and from Antiochus—nor that only those things will fall to your reward which are now in the royal camp, but that all that apparatus also, which is daily expected from Ephesus, will become spoil; then you will open Asia and Syria and all the richest realms as far as the rising of the sun to Roman imperium. What then will be lacking, but that from Gades to the Red Sea we set our boundaries with the Ocean, which with its embrace bounds the circle of the lands, and that the whole human race, next to the gods, revere the Roman name? For such great prizes prepare minds worthy, that on the morrow, with the gods kindly aiding, we may decide the issue by battle.'
[18] Ab hac contione dimissi milites, priusquam corpora curarent, arma telaque parant. luce prima signo pugnae proposito instruit aciem consul, arta fronte, ad naturam et angustias loci. rex, postquam signa hostium conspexit, et ipse copias educit.
[18] The soldiers, dismissed from this assembly, before they cared for their bodies, prepare arms and weapons. At first light, with the signal of battle set forth, the consul arrays the battle-line, with a close-packed front, to suit the nature and the straits of the place. The king, after he caught sight of the enemy’s standards, likewise leads out his forces.
He posted a portion of the light-armed before the rampart in the front line; then he stationed the strength of the Macedonians, whom they called the sarissophoroi, as a bulwark around the very fortifications. To these he added on the left wing a band of javelin-throwers, archers, and slingers under the very roots of the mountain, so that from the higher ground they might assail the naked flanks of the enemy. On the right, at the very end of the defenses, where the ground down to the sea is shut off by pathless marshy mire and quagmires, he placed the elephants with their accustomed guard; behind them the cavalry; then, a small interval left, the remaining forces in a second line.
The Macedonians, posted before the rampart, at first easily withstood the Romans, who were trying approaches from every side, being greatly aided by those who from the higher ground were pouring in with slings, as if a storm of sling-bullets (glandes), and arrows together with javelins; then, when a greater force of the enemy, no longer to be endured, was bearing in, driven from their position, with their ranks drawn back, they retired within the fortifications; from there, from the rampart they made, with spears set before them, something like a second rampart. And such was the moderate height of the rampart that it both afforded their own men the higher ground for fighting, and, by reason of the length of the spears, had the enemy beneath them. Many, advancing rashly up to the rampart, were transfixed; and either they would have withdrawn with their attempt frustrated, or more would have fallen, had not M. Porcius—after the Aetolians had been driven down from the ridge of Callidromus and for the most part cut down (for he had overwhelmed them off their guard, and most of them asleep)—appeared on the hill overhanging the camp.
[19] Flacco non eadem fortuna ad Tichiunta et Rhoduntiam, nequiquam subire ad ea castella conato, fuerat. Macedones quique alii in castris regiis erant primo, dum procul nihil aliud quam turba et agmen apparebat, Aetolos credere uisa procul pugna subsidio uenire; ceterum, ut primum signaque et arma ex propinquo cognita errorem aperuerunt, tantus repente pauor omnis cepit, ut abiectis armis fugerent. et munimenta sequentis impedierunt, et angustiae uallis, per quam sequendi erant, et maxime omnium quod elephanti nouissimi agminis erant, quos pedes aegre praeterire, eques nullo poterat modo timentibus equis tumultumque inter se maiorem quam in proelio edentibus; aliquantum temporis et direptio castrorum tenuit; Scarpheam tamen eo die consecuti sunt hostem.
[19] Flaccus did not have the same fortune at Tichiunta and Rhoduntia, having tried in vain to come up to those forts. The Macedonians and whoever else were in the royal camp at first, while at a distance nothing appeared but a crowd and a marching column, were seen to believe that the Aetolians, far from any fighting, were coming as reinforcements; but as soon as the standards and arms, recognized from close at hand, revealed the mistake, so great a sudden panic seized all that, throwing away their arms, they fled. Both the fortifications hindered those pursuing, and the narrowness of the valley through which they had to follow, and most of all the fact that the elephants were at the very rear of the column—whom the infantry could scarcely pass, while the cavalry could in no way do so, their horses being afraid and producing among themselves a greater tumult than in battle—; the plundering of the camp also detained them for some time; nevertheless they overtook the enemy at Scarphea that day.
with many on the very march slain and taken, not horses and men only, but even the elephants—whom they had not been able to capture—killed, they returned to camp; which had been assailed that day, in the very time of the battle, by the Aetolians, who were holding Heraclea with a garrison, but without any result to an undertaking not a little bold. The consul, at the third watch of the following night, having sent the cavalry ahead to pursue the enemy, moved the standards of the legions at first light. The king had gained some distance on the road, inasmuch as he did not halt from his headlong course before Elatia; where, once the remnants of the battle and of the flight had been gathered, he withdrew to Chalcis with a very small band of half-armed soldiers.
Roman cavalry did not overtake the king himself at Elatia; but they overwhelmed a great part of the column, either halting from weariness or, dispersed by error—as men fleeing without guides through unknown routes; nor did anyone escape from the whole army except the 500 who were around the king; and even out of the 10,000 soldiers, whom we have written, with Polybius as author, that the king conveyed across with him into Greece, the number was scant; what, if we believe Valerius Antias, who writes that there were 60,000 soldiers in the royal army, that 40,000 of them fell, and over 5,000 were captured with 230 military standards? Of the Romans, 150 were slain in the very contest of the battle; while defending themselves from the incursion of the Aetolians, not more than 50 were killed.
[20] Consule per Phocidem et Boeotiam exercitum ducente consciae defectionis ciuitates cum uelamentis ante portas stabant metu, ne hostiliter diriperentur. ceterum per omnes dies haud secus quam <in> pacato agro sine uexatione ullius rei agmen processit, donec in agrum Coroneum uentum est. ibi statua regis Antiochi posita in templo Mineruae Itoniae iram accendit, permissumque militi est, ut circumiectum templo agrum popularetur; dein cogitatio animum subit, cum communi decreto Boeotorum posita esset statua, indignum esse in unum Coronensem agrum saeuire.
[20] With the consul leading the army through Phocis and Boeotia, the cities conscious of their defection stood with supplicatory veils before their gates in fear, lest they be sacked as enemies. However, on all the days the column advanced no differently than
with the soldiery recalled at once, an end was put to the plundering; the Boeotians were only chastised with words for their ungrateful spirit toward the Romans amid such great and so recent benefactions. during the very time of the battle, ten royal ships, with the prefect Isidore, were lying off Thronium in the Malian Gulf. there Alexander the Acarnanian, grievously wounded, a messenger of the adverse battle, when he had taken refuge, caused the ships, alarmed by the fresh terror, to make for Cenaeum in Euboea.
There Alexander died and was buried. The three ships which had set out from Asia and held the same harbor, on hearing of the army’s catastrophe, returned to Ephesus. Isidorus crossed from Cenaeum to Demetrias, in case perchance his flight should carry the king thither.—during those same days A. Atilius, prefect of the Roman fleet, intercepted large royal convoys which had already sailed past the strait that is at the island of Andros; some ships he sank, others he captured; those which were of the rearmost column turned their course to Asia.
[21] Antiochus sub aduentum consulis a Chalcide profectus Tenum primo tenuit, inde Ephesum transmisit. consuli Chalcidem uenienti portae patuerunt, cum appropinquante eo Aristoteles praefectus regis urbe excessisset. et ceterae urbes in Euboea sine certamine traditae; post paucosque dies omnibus perpacatis sine ullius noxa urbis exercitus Thermopylas reductus, multo modestia post uictoriam quam ipsa uictoria laudabilior.
[21] Antiochus, on the consul’s arrival, set out from Chalcis; he first held Tenos, and from there crossed over to Ephesus. For the consul coming to Chalcis the gates stood open, since, as he approached, Aristotle, the king’s prefect, had withdrawn from the city. And the other cities in Euboea were handed over without contest; and after a few days, with everything thoroughly pacified and without harm to any city, the army was led back to Thermopylae—its modesty after victory far more praiseworthy than the victory itself.
then the consul sent M. Cato to Rome, by whose means the senate and the Roman people would know on no doubtful authority what had been done. he from Creusa—the emporium of the Thespians, set back in the inmost Corinthian Gulf—made for Patrae in Achaia; from Patrae he coasted along the shores of Aetolia and Acarnania as far as Corcyra, and so crossed to Hydruntum in Italy. on the fifth day from there, by a foot-journey, he reached Rome at prodigious speed.
Before dawn, having entered the city, he directed his route from the gate to the praetor Marcus Junius. He at first light summoned the senate; and there Lucius Cornelius Scipio—dismissed by the consul a few days earlier—when, on arriving, he had heard that Cato had gone on ahead and was in the senate, came up as he was expounding what had been done. Then two legates, by order of the senate, were brought forward into the popular assembly, and there they expounded the same matters as in the senate, concerning the things transacted in Aetolia.
a thanksgiving was decreed for 3 days, and that the praetor should sacrifice 40 greater victims to whichever gods seemed good to him.—During those same days, too, M. Fulvius Nobilior, who 2 years earlier had set out as praetor to Spain, entered the city in an ovation; he carried before him 130,000 silver denarii (bigati), and, besides the counted coin, 12,000 pounds of silver and 127 pounds of gold.
[22] Acilius consul ab Thermopylis Heracleam ad Aetolos praemisit, ut tunc saltem, experti regiam uanitatem, resipiscerent traditaque Heraclea cogitarent de petenda ab senatu seu furoris sui seu erroris uenia. et ceteras Graeciae ciuitates defecisse eo bello ab optime meritis Romanis; sed quia post fugam regis, cuius fiducia officio decessissent, non addidissent pertinaciam culpae, in fidem receptas esse; Aetolos quoque, quamquam non secuti sint regem, sed accersierint, et duces belli, non socii fuerint, si paenitere possint, posse et incolumis esse. ad ea cum pacati nihil responderetur, appareretque armis rem gerendam et rege superato bellum Aetolicum integrum restare, castra ab Thermopylis ad Heracleam mouit, eoque ipso die, ut situm nosceret urbis, ab omni parte equo moenia est circumuectus.
[22] Acilius the consul sent ahead from Thermopylae to Heraclea to the Aetolians, that then at least, having experienced the royal vanity, they might come back to their senses and, with Heraclea handed over, consider asking from the senate pardon for either their frenzy or their error. And that the other cities of Greece had defected in that war from the Romans who had most well deserved of them; but because after the king’s flight—on whose confidence they had departed from duty—they had not added obstinacy to their fault, they had been received back into allegiance; the Aetolians too, although they had not followed the king but had summoned him, and had been leaders of the war, not allies, if they could repent, could also be safe and unharmed. Since to these proposals, though peaceable, nothing was answered, and it became apparent that the matter must be conducted by arms, and that, with the king overcome, the Aetolian war still remained intact, he moved his camp from Thermopylae to Heraclea; and on that very day, in order to learn the site of the city, he rode on horseback around the walls on every side.
Heraclea is situated at the foothills of Mount Oeta, itself in the plain; it has a citadel overhanging on a high place and precipitous on every side. Having contemplated all that had to be known, he resolved to attack the city at four points at once. From the river Asopus, where the gymnasium also is, he put L. Valerius in charge of the siege-works and the assault; the quarter outside the walls, where it was more thickly inhabited than almost in the city, he assigned to Ti. Sempronius Longus to be stormed; over against the bay of the Maliac Gulf, the sector which had not an easy approach, he posted M. Baebius; from the other little river, which they call Melana, opposite the temple of Diana, he set Ap. Claudius.
By their great exertion, within a few days the towers, the battering rams, and all the other apparatus for besieging cities were completed. And since the whole Heracleian countryside, marshy and crowded with tall trees, generously supplied material for every kind of works, then, because the Aetoli had taken refuge within the walls, the abandoned buildings which were in the vestibule of the city provided for various uses not only beams and planks but also brick, rubble, and stones of various sizes.
[23] Et Romani quidem operibus magis quam armis urbem oppugnabant, Aetoli contra armis se tuebantur. nam cum ariete quaterentur muri, non laqueis, ut solet, exceptos declinabant ictus, sed armati frequentes <erumpebant>, quidam ignes etiam, quos aggeribus inicerent, ferebant. fornices quoque in muro erant apti ad excurrendum, et ipsi, cum pro dirutis reficerent muros, crebriores eos, ut pluribus erumperetur in hostem locis, faciebant.
[23] And the Romans indeed were attacking the city more by works than by arms, while the Aetolians on the contrary were defending themselves by arms. For when the walls were being battered by the battering-ram, they did not, as is the custom, deflect the blows by catching it with nooses, but, armed and in great numbers, they burst out; some even carried fires to cast upon the siege-mounds. There were also arches in the wall suited for sallying out, and they themselves, when they were restoring the walls where they had been torn down, made these openings more frequent, so that at more places there might be a sally against the enemy.
This, in the first days, while their strength was intact, they did both in great numbers and briskly; thereafter, day by day, fewer and more sluggishly. For though they were pressed by many matters, nothing wore them out so much as the vigils, since, the Romans, with a great abundance of soldiers, had some relieving others into the station of others, while the Aetoli, on account of their fewness, the same men by days and nights were being scorched by assiduous toil. For 24 days, in such a way that no time was free from combat, against a foe attacking at once from four quarters, the nocturnal labor was continued into the diurnal.
When the consul knew that the Aetolians were now fatigued, both from the lapse of time and because deserters affirmed it so, he undertook such a counsel. At midnight he gave the signal for recall and, simultaneously withdrawing all the soldiers from the assault, kept them quiet in camp until the third hour of the day; then the assault, once begun, was carried through again until the middle of the night, and then was intermitted until the third hour of the day. The Aetolians, thinking fatigue to be the cause for the assault not being continued—which had affected themselves as well—whenever the signal for recall had been given to the Romans, as if they too had been called back, each man withdrew from his post, and they did not appear armed on the walls before the third hour of the day.
[24] Consul cum nocte media intermisisset oppugnationem, quarta uigilia rursus ab tribus partibus summa ui adgressus, ab una Ti. Sempronium tenere intentos milites signumque expectare iussit, ad ea in nocturno tumultu, unde clamor exaudiretur, haud dubie ratus hostis concursuros. Aetoli pars sopiti adfecta labore ac uigiliis corpora ex somno moliebantur, pars uigilantes adhuc ad strepitum pugnantium in tenebris currunt. hostes partim per ruinas iacentis muri transcendere conantur, partim scalis ascensus temptant, aduersus quos undique ad opem ferendam concurrunt Aetoli.
[24] When the consul had broken off the assault at midnight, in the fourth watch he again attacked with the utmost force from three quarters; but on one side he ordered Ti. Sempronius to keep the soldiers intent and to await the signal, thinking that in the nocturnal tumult the enemy would without doubt converge to whatever point whence a shout might be heard. Some of the Aetoli, drowsing, their bodies worn by toil and vigils, were heaving themselves out of sleep; others, still awake, ran to the clamor of men fighting in the darkness. The enemy in part tried to get across by the ruins of the fallen wall, in part attempted ascents with ladders; against them the Aetoli from every side converged to bring aid.
one sector, in which there were buildings outside the city, is neither defended nor assaulted; but those who would assault, intent, were awaiting the signal; no defender was present. Now it was growing light, when the consul gave the signal; and without any contest they overleap the walls, partly through the half-ruined sections, partly by ladders the intact walls. At the same time a clamor, an index of the captured town, was heard; from every side the Aetoli, their posts abandoned, flee into the citadel.
With the consul’s permission the victors sack the town, not so much from anger nor from hatred as that the soldier, restrained in so many cities recovered from the power of the enemy, might at last in some place feel the fruit of victory. Then, when about mid-day he had recalled the soldiers and divided them into two parts, he ordered one to be led around at the roots of the mountains to a crag which, equal in the pitch of its height, was as if cut off from the citadel by a valley between; but the summits of those mountains are so nearly twin that from the other peak missiles can be hurled into the citadel. Meanwhile, with half the soldiers, the consul, about to clamber up from the city to the citadel, was awaiting the signal from those who were going to make their way from the rear onto the crag. The Aetoli who were in the citadel could not endure first the shout of those who had seized the crag, then the assault of the Romans from the city; and with their spirits now broken, and nothing there prepared for sustaining a siege any longer—inasmuch as women and boys and another unwarlike crowd had been gathered into the citadel, which could scarcely hold, much less protect, so great a multitude.
Accordingly, at the first assault, after casting away their arms, they surrendered themselves. Among the others was handed over Damocritus, chief of the Aetolians, who at the beginning of the war, when T. Quinctius was demanding the decree of the Aetolians by which they had decreed that Antiochus be summoned, had replied that he would give it in Italy, when the Aetolians had pitched their camp there. On account of that ferocity, his being handed over brought greater joy to the victors.
[25] Eodem tempore, quo Romani Heracleam, Philippus Lamiam ex composito oppugnabat, circa Thermopylas cum consule redeunte ex Boeotia, ut uictoriam ipsi populoque Romano gratularetur excusaretque, quod morbo impeditus bello non interfuisset, congressus. inde diuersi ad duas simul oppugnandas urbes profecti. intersunt septem ferme milia passuum; et quia Lamia cum posita est in tumulo, tum regionem maxime Oetae spectat, oppido quam breue interuallum uidetur, et omnia in conspectu sunt.
[25] At the same time, when the Romans were assaulting Heraclea, Philip, by prearrangement, was attacking Lamia; around Thermopylae he met with the consul as he was returning from Boeotia, in order both to congratulate him and the Roman people on the victory and to make his excuse, because, hindered by illness, he had not taken part in the war. Thence they set out in different directions to besiege two cities at once. There are about seven miles between them; and because Lamia, both since it is set on a mound and since it looks especially toward the region of Oeta, the interval to the town seems very short, and everything is in sight.
while strenuously, as if by a proposed contest, Romans and Macedonians were day and night either at the works or in battles, this was the greater difficulty for the Macedonians: that the Romans were assaulting with an agger and with “vines” and with all works above ground, while the Macedonians underneath were attacking with mines, and in rough places flint almost impenetrable to iron was encountered. And when the undertaking advanced too little, through conferences of the chiefs the king tried the townspeople, to have them hand over the city, not doubting that, if Heraclea were captured first, they would be about to surrender to the Romans rather than to himself, and that the consul would be about to make his own credit by relieving the siege. Nor did that expectation disappoint him; for immediately, from Heraclea once captured, a messenger came that he should desist from the assault: it was more equitable that the Roman soldiers, who had fought in pitched battle with the Aetolians, should have the prizes of victory.
[26] Paucis priusquam Heraclea caperetur diebus Aetoli concilio Hypatam coacto legatos ad Antiochum miserunt, inter quos et Thoas idem, qui et antea, missus est. mandata erant, ut ab rege peterent, primum ut ipse coactis rursus terrestribus naualibusque copiis in Graeciam traiceret, deinde, si qua ipsum teneret res, ut pecuniam et auxilia mitteret; id cum ad dignitatem eius fidemque pertinere, non prodi socios, tum etiam ad incolumitatem regni, ne sineret Romanos uacuos omni cura, cum Aetolorum gentem sustulissent, omnibus copiis in Asiam traicere. uera erant, quae dicebantur; eo magis regem mouerunt.
[26] A few days before Heraclea was captured, the Aetolians, a council having been convened at Hypata, sent legates to Antiochus, among whom Thoas too—the same as before—was sent. The mandates were that they should ask of the king, first, that he himself, his land and naval forces again assembled, should cross over into Greece; then, if any matter detained him, that he should send money and auxiliaries; that this pertained both to his dignity and fidelity—that the allies not be betrayed—and also to the safety of his kingdom, that he should not allow the Romans, free from all care, when they had removed the nation of the Aetolians, to transport with all their forces into Asia. What was being said was true; it moved the king all the more.
accordingly, for the present he gave to the envoys money which was necessary for the uses of war; he affirmed that he would send land and naval auxiliaries. He retained Thoas, one of the envoys, and he himself lingered not at all unwilling, so that a present exactor of the promises might be at hand.
[27] Ceterum Heraclea capta fregit tandem animos Aetolorum, et paucos post dies, quam ad bellum renouandum acciendumque regem in Asiam miserant legatos, abiectis belli consiliis pacis petendae oratores ad consulem miserunt. quos dicere exorsos consul interfatus, cum alia sibi praeuertenda esse dixisset, redire Hypatam eos datis dierum decem indutiis et L. Ualerio Flacco cum iis misso iussit eique, quae secum acturi fuissent, exponere, et si qua uellent alia. Hypatam ut est uentum, principes Aetolorum apud Flaccum concilium habuerunt consultantes, quonam agendum modo apud consulem foret.
[27] However, with Heraclea captured, the spirits of the Aetolians were at last broken, and a few days after they had sent envoys into Asia to summon the king for the renewal of the war, casting aside counsels of war they sent orators to the consul to seek peace. When they had begun to speak, the consul, interrupting, said that other matters had to take precedence for him, and ordered them—when a truce of ten days had been granted and Lucius Valerius Flaccus sent with them—to return to Hypata and set forth to him what they would have transacted with himself, and anything else they wished. When they came to Hypata, the leading men of the Aetolians held a council with Flaccus, consulting in what manner action should be taken before the consul.
As they were preparing to begin from the ancient rights of the treaties and their merits toward the Roman people, Flaccus ordered them to desist from those topics which they themselves had violated and broken; a confession of fault, he said, would be more to their advantage, and their whole oration should be turned into entreaties; for the hope of safety was placed not in their own case, but in the clemency of the Roman people; and that he would be present to assist them as they acted suppliantly both with the consul and at Rome in the Senate; for to that place too legates would have to be sent. This one way seemed to all toward safety: to commit themselves into the good faith of the Romans; for thus they would both impose upon them a shame in violating suppliants, and they themselves would, nonetheless, remain in their own control, if Fortune should show anything better.
[28] Postquam ad consulem uentum est, Phaeneas legationis princeps longam orationem et uarie ad mitigandam iram uictoris compositam ita ad extremum finiuit, ut diceret Aetolos se suaque omnia fidei populi Romani permittere. id consul ubi audiuit, 'etiam atque etiam uidete' inquit, 'Aetoli, ut ita permittatis.' tum decretum Phaeneas, in quo id diserte scriptum erat, ostendit. 'quando ergo' inquit 'ita permittitis, postulo, ut mihi Dicaearchum ciuem uestrum et Menestam Epirotam'—Naupactum is cum praesidio ingressus ad defectionem compulerat— 'et Amynandrum cum principibus Athamanum, quorum consilio ab nobis defecistis, sine mora dedatis.' prope dicentem interfatus Romanum 'non in seruitutem' inquit, 'sed in fidem tuam nos tradidimus, et certum habeo te imprudentia labi, qui nobis imperes, quae moris Graecorum non sint.' ad ea consul 'nec hercule' inquit 'magnopere nunc curo, quid Aetoli satis ex more Graecorum factum esse censeant, dum ego more Romano imperium inhibeam in deditos modo decreto suo, ante armis uictos; itaque, ni propere fit, quod impero, uinciri uos iam iubebo.' adferri catenas et circumsistere lictores iussit.
[28] After they had come to the consul, Phaeneas, the leader of the embassy, brought to an end a long speech, composed in various ways to mitigate the anger of the victor, in such a way at the close that he said the Aetoli entrusted themselves and all their things to the good faith of the Roman people. When the consul heard this, he said, 'look again and again, Aetoli, that you thus commit yourselves.' Then Phaeneas showed the decree, in which that was plainly written. 'Since therefore,' he said, 'you thus commit yourselves, I demand that you surrender to me Dicaearchus, your fellow citizen, and Menestas the Epirote'—he, having entered Naupactus with a garrison, had compelled it to defection—'and Amynander with the chiefs of the Athamanians, by whose counsel you defected from us, without delay.' Interrupting the Roman as he was almost speaking further, he said, 'it is not into servitude that we have delivered ourselves, but into your good faith, and I am certain you slip through imprudence, you who command us things which are not the custom of the Greeks.' To this the consul said, 'nor, by Hercules, do I greatly care now what the Aetoli judge to have been done sufficiently according to Greek custom, provided that I, according to the Roman custom, exercise authority over those surrendered just now by their own decree, earlier conquered by arms; and so, unless what I command is done promptly, I will now order you to be chained.' He ordered chains to be brought and the lictors to surround them.
then the ferocity of Phaeneas and of the other Aetolians was broken, and at last they realized of what condition they were; and Phaeneas said that he himself and the Aetolians who were present knew that the things ordered had to be done, but that for decreeing them there was need of the council of the Aetolians; to that end he requested that an armistice of ten days be granted. At Flaccus’s request on behalf of the Aetolians an armistice was given, and they returned to Hypata. There, when in the council of the select men, whom they call the Apocleti, Phaeneas had set forth both what was being commanded and what had nearly befallen them, the leaders groaned indeed at their condition, yet they judged that the victor must be obeyed and that the Aetolians should be summoned from all the towns to an assembly.
[29] Postquam uero coacta omnis multitudo eadem illa audiuit, adeo saeuitia imperii atque indignitate animi exasperati sunt, ut, si in pace fuissent, illo impetu irae concitari potuerint ad bellum. ad iram accedebat et difficultas eorum, quae imperarentur—quonam modo enim utique regem Amynandrum se tradere posse?—et spes forte oblata, quod Nicander eo ipso tempore ab rege Antiocho ueniens impleuit expectatione uana multitudinem, terra marique ingens parari bellum. duodecumo is die, quam conscenderat nauem, in Aetoliam perfecta legatione rediens Phalara in sinu Maliaco tenuit.
[29] After indeed the whole assembled multitude heard those same things, they were so exasperated by the savagery of the command and by the indignity to their spirit that, if they had been in peace, by that very impulse of anger they could have been stirred to war. Added to the anger was the difficulty of the things being commanded—how, pray, could they possibly hand over King Amynander?—and a hope fortuitously offered, because Nicander, at that very time coming from King Antiochus, filled the multitude with vain expectation that an immense war was being prepared by land and sea. On the twelfth day from when he had embarked, returning to Aetolia with his legation completed, he put in at Phalara in the Maliac Gulf.
thence, after he had conveyed the money to Lamia, he himself, with the light-armed, at first evening, between the Macedonian and Roman camps in the middle ground, while he was making for Hypata by known bypaths, fell into a Macedonian outpost and was led to the king, the banquet not yet dismissed. When this was reported, Philip, moved as by the arrival of a guest, not an enemy, ordered him to recline and to feast; and then, the others having been dismissed, him alone detained, he forbade him to fear anything on his own account, and he accused the Aetolians’ crooked counsels, always recoiling upon their own heads, who had first brought the Romans, then Antiochus, into Greece. But, forgetful of past things—which can rather be reprehended than corrected—he would not act so as to insult their adverse fortunes; the Aetolians also ought at last to end their hatreds against him, and Nicander in private to remember the day on which he had been saved by him.
[30] M'. Acilius uendita aut concessa militi circa Heracleam praeda, postquam nec Hypatae pacata consilia esse, et Naupactum concurrisse Aetolos, ut inde totum impetum belli sustinerent, audiuit, praemisso Ap. Claudio cum quattuor milibus militum ad occupanda iuga, qua difficiles transitus montium erant, ipse Oetam escendit Herculique sacrificium fecit in eo loco, quem Pyram, quod ibi mortale corpus eius dei sit crematum, appellant. inde toto exercitu profectus reliquum iter satis expedito agmine fecit; ut ad Coracem uentum est—mons est altissimus inter Callipolim et Naupactum—, ibi et iumenta multa ex agmine praecipitata cum ipsis oneribus sunt et homines uexati; et facile apparebat, quam cum inerti hoste res esset, qui tam impeditum saltum nullo praesidio, ut clauderet transitum, insedisset. tum quoque uexato exercitu ad Naupactum descendit, et uno castello aduersus arcem posito ceteras partes urbis diuisis copiis pro situ moenium circumsedit.
[30] Manius Acilius, the booty about Heraclea having been sold or conceded to the soldiery, after he heard that at Hypata the counsels were not pacified, and that the Aetolians had converged upon Naupactus, that from there they might sustain the whole impetus of the war, sending ahead Ap. Claudius with four thousand soldiers to seize the ridges where the mountain passes were difficult, himself ascended Oeta and made a sacrifice to Hercules in that place which they call the Pyra, because there the mortal body of that god was cremated. Thence, setting out with the whole army, he made the rest of the march with a column rather unencumbered; when they came to Corax—a very high mountain between Callipolis and Naupactus—there many beasts of burden from the column were cast headlong with their loads, and the men were harassed; and it was easy to see how it stood with a sluggish enemy, who had sat upon so obstructed a defile with no garrison, to close the passage. Then even with the army harried he descended to Naupactus, and, one redoubt placed opposite the citadel, he invested the other parts of the city, his forces divided according to the lie of the walls.
[31] Eodem tempore et Messene in Peloponneso ab Achaeis, quod concilii eorum recusaret esse, oppugnari coepta est. duae ciuitates, Messene et Elis, extra concilium Achaicum erant; cum Aetolis sentiebant. Elei tamen post fugatum ex Graecia Antiochum legatis Achaeorum lenius responderant: dimisso praesidio regio cogitaturos se, quid sibi faciendum esset: Messenii sine responso dimissis legatis mouerant bellum, trepidique rerum suarum, cum iam ager effuso exercitu passim ureretur castraque prope urbem poni uiderent, legatos Chalcidem ad T. Quinctium, auctorem libertatis, miserunt, qui nuntiarent Messenios Romanis, non Achaeis et aperire portas et dedere urbem paratos esse.
[31] At the same time Messene in the Peloponnese began to be besieged by the Achaeans, because it refused to be of their council. Two cities, Messene and Elis, were outside the Achaean council; they sided with the Aetolians. The Eleans, however, after Antiochus had been put to flight from Greece, had answered the Achaean envoys more mildly: that, the royal garrison having been dismissed, they would consider what they ought to do. The Messenians, their envoys dismissed without an answer, had set war in motion, and, alarmed for their affairs, when already the countryside was being burned everywhere by the unleashed army and they saw a camp being pitched near the city, sent envoys to Chalcis to T. Quinctius, the author of liberty, to announce that the Messenians were ready, for the Romans, not for the Achaeans, both to open the gates and to surrender the city.
Having heard the envoys, Quinctius set out at once from Megalopolis and sent to Diophanes, praetor of the Achaeans, to order him forthwith to withdraw the army from Messene and come to him. Diophanes obeyed at the word, and, the siege raised, unencumbered, he himself, having gone on ahead of the column, met Quinctius around Andania, a small town situated between Megalopolis and Messene; and when he was setting forth the causes of the assault, he, mildly rebuked for having attempted so great a matter without his authority, was ordered to dismiss the army and not to disturb the peace wrought for the common good. He ordered the Messenians to recall the exiles and to be of the council of the Achaeans; if they had any matters which they either wished to refuse or to have provided against for the future, let them come to him to Corinth; he ordered Diophanes to provide him at once the council of the Achaeans.
there he complained that the island of Zacynthus had been intercepted by fraud and demanded that it be restored to the Romans. Zacynthus had been Philip, king of the Macedonians’; he had given it as a recompense to Amynander, so that it might be permitted to lead an army through Athamania into the upper part of Aetolia, by which expedition, with the spirits of the Aetolians broken, he compelled them to seek peace. Amynander set Philip the Megalopolitan over the island; later, during the war in which he joined himself with Antiochus against the Romans, Philip having been called back to the duties of war, he sent Hierocles the Agrigentine as successor.
[32] Is post fugam ab Thermopylis Antiochi Amynandrumque a Philippo Athamania pulsum missis ultro ad Diophanen praetorem Achaeorum nuntiis pecunia pactus insulam Achaeis tradidit. id praemium belli suum esse aequum censebant Romani: non enim M'. Acilium consulem legionesque Romanas Diophani et Achaeis ad Thermopylas pugnasse. Diophanes aduersus haec purgare interdum sese gentemque, interdum de iure facti disserere.
[32] He, after the flight of Antiochus from Thermopylae and with Amynander driven from Athamania by Philip, having of his own accord sent messengers to Diophanes, praetor of the Achaeans, having made a pact for money, handed over the island to the Achaeans. The Romans judged that an equitable prize of war to be theirs; for it was not for Diophanes and the Achaeans that Manius Acilius the consul and the Roman legions had fought at Thermopylae. Diophanes, in reply to these things, sometimes set about purging himself and his nation, sometimes discoursed about the rightfulness of the act.
Some of the Achaeans were also testifying that at the beginning they had spurned that measure, and now they were rebuking the praetor’s pertinacity; and on their authority it was decreed that the matter be entrusted to T. Quinctius. Quinctius was, just as he was harsh to those who opposed, so, if you yielded, the same man was placable. Laying aside the contention of voice and countenance, he said: ‘If I judged the possession of that island to be useful to the Achaeans, I would be an adviser to the Senate and the Roman People that they allow you to hold it; but just as I see a tortoise, when gathered into its own covering, to be safe against all blows, when it thrusts out some parts, whatever it has laid bare it holds liable and infirm, not otherwise do I think you, Achaeans, shut in on every side by the sea, the things which are within the boundaries of the Peloponnesus both to join to yourselves and, once joined, to defend easily; but the moment, from a greed of embracing more, you step out from here, everything that is outside is bare to you and exposed to all blows.’ With the whole council assenting, and Diophanes not daring to press further, Zacynthus is handed over to the Romans.
[33] Per idem tempus Philippus rex proficiscentem consulem ad Naupactum percunctatus, si se interim, quae defecissent ab societate Romana, urbes recipere uellet, permittente eo ad Demetriadem copias admouit haud ignarus, quanta ibi tum turbatio esset. destituti enim ab omni spe, cum desertos se ab Antiocho, spem nullam in Aetolis esse cernerent, dies noctesque aut Philippi hostis aduentum aut infestiorem etiam, quo iustius irati erant, Romanorum expectabant. turba erat ibi incondita regiorum, qui primo pauci in praesidio relicti, postea plures, plerique inermes, ex proelio aduerso fuga delati, nec uirium nec animi satis ad obsidionem tolerandam habebant; itaque praemissis a Philippo, qui spem impetrabilis ueniae ostendebant, responderunt patere portas regi.
[33] At the same time King Philip, having asked the consul as he was setting out to Naupactus whether in the meantime he (Philip) should recover the cities which had defected from the Roman alliance, and with his permission, brought up his forces to Demetrias, not unaware how great a turmoil there then was. For, abandoned of all hope—when they perceived themselves deserted by Antiochus and that there was no hope in the Aetolians—they were day and night expecting either the advent of Philip, an enemy, or even one more hostile, the Romans, who were the more justly incensed. There was there an unorganized crowd of royal troops, who at first had been left a few in garrison, later more, most of them unarmed, conveyed thither by flight from a disastrous battle; and they had neither strength nor spirit enough to endure a siege. And so, after Philip sent men ahead who held out hope of a pardon obtainable, they replied that the gates stood open to the king.
At his first entrance some of the chiefs departed from the city, and Eurylochus made death for himself. The soldiers of Antiochus—for thus they had stipulated—were escorted through Macedonia and Thrace by the Macedonians, lest anyone should violate them, and were conducted to Lysimachia. There were also a few ships at Demetrias, which Isidorus commanded; these too were dismissed along with their prefect.
[34] Dum haec a Philippo geruntur, T. Quinctius recepta Zacyntho ab Achaico concilio Naupactum traiecit, quae iam per duos menses—et iam prope excidium erat—oppugnabatur, et si capta ui foret, omne nomen ibi Aetolorum ad internecionem uidebatur uenturum. ceterum quamquam merito iratus erat Aetolis, quod solos obtrectasse gloriae suae, cum liberaret Graeciam, meminerat, et nihil auctoritate sua motos esse, cum, quae tum maxime accidebant, casura praemonens a furioso incepto eos deterreret, tamen sui maxime operis esse credens nullam gentem liberatae ab se Graeciae funditus euerti, obambulare muris, ut facile nosceretur ab Aetolis, coepit. confestim a primis stationibus cognitus est, uulgatumque per omnes ordines, Quinctium esse.
[34] While these things are being carried on by Philip, T. Quinctius, Zacynthus having been recovered, crossed from the Achaean council to Naupactus, which now for two months—and now it was near to destruction—was being besieged; and if it were taken by force, the whole name of the Aetolians there seemed likely to come to extermination. However, although he was with good reason angry at the Aetolians, because he remembered that they alone had detracted from his glory when he was liberating Greece, and that they had been moved in no respect by his authority when, forewarning that the things which were then especially were occurring would come to pass, he tried to deter them from a frenzied undertaking, nevertheless, believing it to be most of all his own work that no nation of the Greece liberated by himself should be utterly overturned, he began to walk about along the walls, so that he might be easily recognized by the Aetolians. Straightway he was recognized by the foremost outposts, and it was spread through all the ranks that it was Quinctius.
and so, with a rush made from all sides to the walls, each man stretching out his hands on his own behalf, with a consonant shout they by name begged Quinctius to bring aid and save them. And then indeed, although he was moved by these voices, yet with his hand he denied that there was any help in his power; but after he came to the consul, ‘has it escaped you,’ he said, ‘M'. Acili, what is afoot, or, though you clearly perceive it, do you judge that it does not greatly pertain to the main interest?’ He had raised the consul’s expectation; and ‘why not set forth,’ he said, ‘what the matter is?’ Then Quinctius: ‘Do you not see that, Antiochus having been conquered, you are wasting time in besieging two cities, though now nearly a year of your command has run its course, while Philip, who has seen neither a battle-line nor the standards of the enemy, has added to himself not only cities but so many nations—Athamania, Perrhaebia, Aperantia, Dolopia—and that the prize of your victory is that you and your soldiers do not yet hold even two cities, whereas Philip holds so many peoples of Greece? And yet it is not so much in our interest to diminish the resources and forces of the Aetolians as to prevent Philip from growing beyond measure.’
[35] Adsentiebatur his consul; sed pudor, si irrito incepto abscederet obsidione, occurrebat. tota inde Quinctio res permissa est. is rursus ad eam partem muri, qua paulo ante uociferati Aetoli fuerant, rediit.
[35] The consul assented to these things; but shame confronted him, if he should withdraw from the siege with the undertaking abortive. Thence the whole affair was entrusted to Quinctius. He in turn returned to that part of the wall where a little before the Aetoli had been vociferating.
There, when they were begging more earnestly that he take pity on the nation of the Aetolians, he ordered some to come out to him. Phaeneas himself and other leaders immediately went out. When these had prostrated themselves at his feet, he said, 'Your fortune makes it that I temper both my anger and my oration.'
the things which I foretold would come to pass have come to pass, and not even this is left to you, that they may seem to have befallen the undeserving; I, however, given by a certain lot for the fostering of Greece, will not desist from doing good even to the ungrateful. send envoys to the consul, to ask an armistice of such length that you may be able to send ambassadors to Rome, through whom you may refer your case to the senate; I will be present with the consul as your intercessor and defender.' thus, as Quinctius had advised, they did; nor did the consul spurn the legation; and, a truce having been granted to a fixed day, on which the embassy could be reported back from Rome, the siege was lifted and the army was sent into Phocis.
Consul cum T. Quinctio ad Achaicum concilium Aegium traiecit. ibi de Eleis et de exulibus Lacedaemoniorum restituendis actum est; neutra perfecta res, quia suae gratiae reseruari <exulum causam> Achaei, Elei per se ipsi quam per Romanos maluerunt Achaico contribui concilio. Epirotarum legati ad consulem uenerunt, quos non sincera fide in amicitia fuisse satis constabat; militem tamen nullum Antiocho dederant; pecunia iuuisse eum insimulabantur; legatos ad regem ne ipsi quidem misisse infitiabantur.
The consul crossed over with T. Quinctius to Aegium for the Achaean council. There it was dealt with concerning the Eleans and the restoring of the exiles of the Lacedaemonians; neither matter was completed, because the Achaeans wished that <the cause of the exiles> be reserved to their own favor, while the Eleans preferred to be added to the Achaean council by themselves rather than by the Romans. Envoys of the Epirotes came to the consul, regarding whom it was sufficiently established that they had not been in the friendship with sincere good faith; nevertheless they had given no soldier to Antiochus; they were accused of having aided him with money; nor did they themselves deny that they had sent envoys to the king.
To them requesting that it be permitted to be in pristine friendship, the consul replied that he did not yet know whether he should hold them in the number of enemies or of the pacified; that the senate would be judge of that matter; that he referred their case entire to Rome; that he granted a truce for that to the extent of ninety days. The Epirotes, sent to Rome, approached the senate. To them, reporting rather the things they had not done hostile than purging those things of which they were charged, an answer was given, by which they might seem to have obtained pardon, not to have proved their case.
and about the same time the envoys of King Philip were introduced into the senate, offering congratulations on the victory. at their request, that they be allowed to sacrifice on the Capitol and to place a gift of gold in the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, it was permitted by the senate. they set up a golden crown of a hundred pounds.
[36] Alter consul P. Cornelius Scipio, Galliam prouinciam sortitus, priusquam ad bellum, quod cum Bois gerendum erat, proficisceretur, postulauit ab senatu, ut pecunia sibi decerneretur ad ludos, quos praetor in Hispania inter ipsum discrimen pugnae uouisset. nouum atque iniquum postulare est uisus; censuerunt ergo, quos ludos inconsulto senatu ex sua unius sententia uouisset, eos uel de manubiis, si quam pecuniam ad id reseruasset, uel sua ipse impensa faceret. eos ludos per dies decem P. Cornelius fecit.
[36] The other consul, P. Cornelius Scipio, having obtained Gaul as his province by lot, before he set out to the war which had to be waged with the Boii, requested from the senate that money be decreed to him for the games which the praetor in Spain had vowed in the very crisis of the battle. He seemed to be making a novel and inequitable demand; therefore they decreed that the games which he had vowed, without consulting the senate and on his own single judgment, he should celebrate either from the spoils, if he had reserved any money for that, or at his own expense. P. Cornelius held those games for ten days.
at about the same time the temple of the Great Mother [Idaean] was dedicated, the goddess whom that P. Cornelius, conveyed from Asia, had borne from the sea up to the Palatine in the consulship of P. Cornelius Scipio—who afterwards had the cognomen Africanus—and P. Licinius. M. Livius and C. Claudius, censors, by decree of the senate had contracted for the building of the temple when M. Cornelius and P. Sempronius were consuls; thirteen years after it had been contracted, M. Iunius Brutus dedicated it, and games were held on account of its dedication, which Valerius Antias is authority to have been the first scenic games, called the Megalesia. Likewise C. Licinius Lucullus, duumvir, dedicated the temple of Juventas in the Circus Maximus.
He had vowed it sixteen years earlier, M. Livius, when consul, on the day he struck down Hasdrubal and his army; the same man, as censor, let out the contract for its construction in the consulship of M. Cornelius and P. Sempronius. Games too were held for the sake of dedicating this one, and for that reason everything was done with greater religious observance, because a new war with Antiochus was impending.
[37] Principio eius anni, quo haec iam profecto ad bellum M'. Acilio, manente adhuc Romae P. Cornelio consule agebantur, boues duos domitos in Carinis per scalas peruenisse in tegulas aedificii proditum memoriae est. eos uiuos comburi cineremque eorum deici in Tiberim haruspices iusserunt. Tarracinae et Amiterni nuntiatum est aliquotiens lapidibus pluuisse, Menturnis aedem Iouis et tabernas circa forum de caelo tactas esse, Uolturni in ostio fluminis duas naues fulmine ictas conflagrasse.
[37] At the beginning of that year, in which these matters were already being transacted with a view to war, Manius Acilius having set out, while Publius Cornelius the consul was still remaining at Rome, it has been handed down to memory that two tamed oxen in the Carinae reached, by the stairs, the roof-tiles of a building. The haruspices ordered them to be burned alive and their ash to be thrown into the Tiber. At Tarracina and at Amiternum it was reported that it had several times rained stones; at Minturnae that the temple of Jupiter and the shops around the forum had been struck from the sky; at Volturnum, at the mouth of the river, that two ships, struck by lightning, had gone up in flames.
On account of those prodigies, the decemvirs, after they had consulted the Sibylline books by decree of the senate, reported that a fast must be instituted for Ceres, and that it be observed every fifth year; and that a nine-day rite should be performed and there be a supplication for one day; that they should make supplication crowned with garlands; and that the consul P. Cornelius should sacrifice to whatever gods and with whatever victims the decemvirs had prescribed. The gods being appeased, now by vows duly being paid, now by expiating the prodigies, the consul sets out for his province, and from there he ordered Gnaeus Domitius, the proconsul, after dismissing his army, to depart for Rome; he himself led the legions into the land of the Boii.
[38] Sub idem fere tempus Ligures lege sacrata coacto exercitu nocte improuiso castra Q. Minucii proconsulis adgressi sunt. Minucius usque ad lucem intra uallum militem instructum tenuit intentus, ne qua transcenderet hostis munimenta. prima luce duabus simul portis eruptionem fecit.
[38] At about the same time the Ligurians, with an army assembled by a sacred levy, made an unforeseen night assault upon the camp of Q. Minucius, the proconsul. Minucius, intent that nowhere should the enemy overleap the fortifications, kept the soldiery drawn up within the rampart until daylight. At first light he made a sortie simultaneously from two gates.
nor at the first onset, as he had hoped, were the Ligurians routed; they sustained a doubtful combat for more than two hours; at last, as one column after another burst forth, and fresh troops relieved the weary for the fight, then at length the Ligurians, among other things also worn out by the night-watches, turned their backs. more than 4,000 of the enemy were cut down; of Romans and allies fewer than 300 perished. after about two months, the consul P. Cornelius fought excellently in a pitched battle with the army of the Boii, standards joined.
Antias Valerius writes that 28,000 of the enemy were killed, 3,400 captured, 124 military standards, 1,230 horses, 247 wagons; of the victors 1,484 fell. Although, as to the number, too little credit is due to that writer, since in augmenting it no one is more immoderate, nevertheless a great victory is apparent, because both the camp was captured and the Boi after that battle immediately surrendered themselves, and because a supplication was decreed by the Senate on account of that victory and larger victims were slain.
[39] Per eosdem dies M. Fuluius Nobilior ex ulteriore Hispania ouans urbem est ingressus. argenti transtulit duodecim milia pondo, bigati argenti centum triginta, auri centum uiginti septem pondo. P. Cornelius consul obsidibus a Boiorum gente acceptis agri parte fere dimidia eos multauit, quo, si uellet, populus Romanus colonias mittere posset.
[39] About the same days Marcus Fulvius Nobilior entered the city in an ovation from Farther Spain. He brought across 12,000 pounds of silver, 130 silver bigati, and 127 pounds of gold. Publius Cornelius the consul, having received hostages from the nation of the Boii, fined them of nearly half their land, in order that, if it wished, the Roman people might be able to send colonies.
from there to Rome, as one departing to a not-at-all doubtful triumph, he dismissed the army, and ordered them to be present at Rome on the day of the triumph; he himself, on the day after he came, the senate having been called into the temple of Bellona, after he had discoursed about the matters accomplished by himself, requested that it be permitted to him, in triumph, to be conveyed into the city. P. Sempronius Blaesus, tribune of the plebs, judged that the honor of a triumph ought not to be denied to Scipio, but ought to be deferred: that the wars of the Ligurians had always been joined to the Gallic; that those peoples among themselves brought mutual aids from nearby. if P. Scipio, the Boii having been defeated in battle, had either himself crossed with the victorious army into the territory of the Ligurians, or had sent part of his forces to Q. Minucius, who now for a third year was being detained there by a doubtful war, it could have been fought out to an end with the Ligurians; now soldiers had been led away to throng the triumph, soldiers who could have rendered outstanding service to the commonwealth, and can even now, if the senate should wish to restore by deferring the triumph that which had been overlooked through the haste for a triumph.
they should order the consul to return to the province with the legions, to take pains that the Ligurians be subjugated. unless they are compelled into the law and judgment of the Roman People, not even the Boii will keep quiet; either peace or war must be had on both fronts. with the Ligurians defeated, a few months later the proconsul P. Cornelius, following the example of many who did not triumph while in magistracy, would celebrate a triumph.
[40] Ad ea consul neque se Ligures prouinciam sortitum esse ait, neque cum Liguribus bellum gessisse, neque triumphum de iis postulare; Q. Minucium confidere breui subactis iis meritum triumphum postulaturum atque impetraturum esse; se de Gallis Bois postulare triumphum, quos acie uicerit, castris exuerit, quorum gentem biduo post pugnam totam acceperit in deditionem, a quibus obsides abduxerit, pacis futurae pignus. uerum enimuero illud multo maius esse, quod tantum numerum Gallorum occiderit in acie, quot cum milibus certe Boiorum nemo ante se imperator pugnauerit. plus partem dimidiam ex quinquaginta milibus hominum caesam, multa milia capta; senes puerosque Bois superesse.
[40] To this the consul says that he neither drew the Ligurians as his province, nor waged war with the Ligurians, nor is he asking for a triumph over them; that he trusts Q. Minucius, when they have shortly been subdued, will request and obtain a well‑earned triumph; that he himself asks for a triumph over the Gallic Boii, whom he has defeated in pitched battle, stripped of their camp, whose tribe two days after the battle he received in total surrender, from whom he has taken hostages, a pledge of future peace. But indeed that is much greater, that he has slain in the battle‑line such a number of Gauls as with so many thousands of Boii certainly no general before him has fought. More than half of 50,000 men were cut down, many thousands captured; among the Boii only old men and boys remain.
therefore could anyone marvel at this, why the victorious army, when it had left no enemy in the province, came to Rome to celebrate the consul’s triumph? Of these soldiers, if the senate should wish to employ their service even in another province, in which way, pray, does it believe they will go the readier to another danger and new labor: if the wage of their former danger and toil has been paid to them without any detraction, or if they are to dismiss the hope, proportioned to the deed, of the man who renders it—already once deceived in their first hope? As for himself, so far as it pertains to him, he had sought glory enough for a whole lifetime on that day when the senate, judging him the best man, sent him to receive the Idaean Mother.
With this title, even if neither the consulship nor a triumph be added, the image of P. Scipio Nasica will be sufficiently honorable and honored. The whole senate not only itself agreed to decree a triumph, but also by its authority compelled the tribune of the plebs to withdraw his veto. P. Cornelius the consul triumphed over the Boii.
in that triumph he carried along in Gallic carpenta the arms and standards and spoils of every kind, and Gallic bronze vessels, and together with noble captives he also led across a herd of captured horses. he brought over 1,471 golden torques; in addition, 247 pounds of gold; of silver, both unwrought and wrought in Gallic vessels, not unskillfully made in their own fashion, 2,340 pounds; 234 bigati coins. to the soldiers who followed the chariot he distributed 125 asses apiece, double to a centurion, triple to a horseman.
[41] Dum haec in Italia geruntur, Antiochus Ephesi securus admodum de bello Romano erat tamquam non transituris in Asiam Romanis; quam securitatem ei magna pars amicorum aut per errorem aut adsentando faciebat. Hannibal unus, cuius eo tempore uel maxima apud regem auctoritas erat, magis mirari se aiebat, quod non iam in Asia essent Romani, quam uenturos dubitare; propius esse ex Graecia in Asiam quam ex Italia in Graeciam traicere, et multo maiorem causam Antiochum quam Aetolos esse; neque [enim] mari minus quam terra pollere Romana arma. iam pridem classem circa Maleam esse; audire sese nuper nouas naues nouumque imperatorem rei gerendae causa ex Italia uenisse; itaque desineret Antiochus pacem sibi ipse spe uana facere.
[41] While these things were being done in Italy, Antiochus at Ephesus was quite secure about the Roman war, as though the Romans were not going to cross into Asia; and this security a great part of his friends produced for him, either through error or by assenting flattery. Hannibal alone—whose authority with the king was then very great—said that he marveled more that the Romans were not already in Asia than that they would come; that it was nearer to cross from Greece into Asia than from Italy into Greece, and that Antiochus had a much greater cause than the Aetolians; and that Roman arms were no less potent by sea than by land. For some time now, he said, a fleet had been around Malea; he had heard that recently new ships and a new commander had come from Italy for the purpose of conducting the affair; therefore Antiochus should cease making for himself a peace out of empty hope.
that in Asia, and for Asia itself, in a short time he would have to contend with the Romans by land and sea, and either the empire must be taken from those aiming at dominion over the world, or he himself must lose his kingdom. He alone seemed both to foresee the truth and to proclaim it faithfully. And so the king himself, with the ships which had been prepared and equipped, made for the Chersonese, in order to strengthen those places with garrisons, if by chance the Romans should come by land; he ordered Polyxenidas to prepare and launch the rest of the fleet; he sent out scouting ships around the islands to explore everything.
[42] C. Liuius praefectus Romanae classis, cum quinquaginta nauibus tectis profectus ab Roma Neapolim, quo ab sociis eius orae conuenire iusserat apertas naues, quae ex foedere debebantur, Siciliam inde petit fretoque Messanam praeteruectus, cum sex Punicas naues ad auxilium missas accepisset et ab Reginis Locrisque et eiusdem iuris sociis debitas exegisset naues, lustrata classe ad Lacinium, altum petit. Corcyram, quam primam Graeciae ciuitatium adiit, cum uenisset, percunctatus de statu belli—necdum enim omnia in Graecia perpacata erant—et ubi classis Romana esset, postquam audiuit circa Thermopylarum saltum in statione consulem ac regem esse, classem Piraei stare, maturandum ratus omnium rerum causa, pergit protinus nauigare Peloponnesum. Samen Zacynthumque, quia partis Aetolorum maluerant esse, protinus depopulatus Maleam petit, et prospera nauigatione usus paucis diebus Piraeum ad ueterem classem peruenit.
[42] C. Livius, prefect of the Roman fleet, having set out from Rome with fifty decked ships to Naples—where he had ordered the open ships, which were owed by treaty, to assemble from the allies of that coast—thence made for Sicily and, having passed by Messana through the strait, when he had received six Punic ships sent as aid and had exacted from the Rhegines and the Locrians and the allies of the same status the ships due, after the fleet was reviewed at Lacinium, he put out into the deep. Corcyra, the first of the cities of Greece which he approached, when he had come, he inquired about the state of the war—for not yet was everything in Greece fully pacified—and where the Roman fleet was; after he heard that the consul and the king were on station around the pass of Thermopylae, that the fleet was lying at the Piraeus, thinking that there must be hastening for the sake of all concerns, he proceeds straightway to sail to the Peloponnesus. Same and Zacynthus, because they had preferred to be of the Aetolian party, he immediately ravaged, and he makes for Malea; and, enjoying a prosperous voyage, in a few days he reached the Piraeus to the former fleet.
At Scyllaeum King Eumenes met them with three ships, having been for a long time at Aegina uncertain in counsel whether he should return to safeguard his kingdom—for he heard that Antiochus at Ephesus was preparing naval and terrestrial forces—or should by no means withdraw from the Romans, upon whose fortune his own depended. From the Piraeus A. Atilius, after handing over to his successor twenty-five decked ships, set out for Rome. Livius, with eighty-one decked ships, and many smaller besides, which were either open ram-prowed craft or scouting vessels without rams, crossed over to Delos.
[43] Eo fere tempore consul Acilius Naupactum oppugnabat. Liuium Deli per aliquot dies—et est uentosissima regio inter Cycladas fretis alias maioribus, alias minoribus diuisas —aduersi uenti tenuerunt. Polyxenidas certior per dispositas speculatorias naues factus Deli stare Romanam classem, nuntios ad regem misit.
[43] At about that time the consul Acilius was attacking Naupactus. Livius was held at Delos for several days by adverse winds — and it is a most windswept region, among the Cyclades, divided by straits, some larger, some smaller —. Polyxenidas, made aware through scouting ships stationed in order that the Roman fleet was lying at Delos, sent messengers to the king.
he, abandoning the operations which he was conducting in the Hellespont, returned to Ephesus with the rostrate ships, hastening as much as he could, and at once held a council whether a trial of a naval contest should be made. Polyxenidas said there must be no delay, and that by all means they should engage before Eumenes’s fleet and the Rhodian ships were joined to the Romans; thus in numbers they would be scarcely unequal, but in all other respects superior—both in the celerity of their ships and in the variety of their auxiliaries. For the Roman ships, both because they themselves, ill-constructed, are immobile, and also because, as coming into an enemy’s land, they come laden with provisions; whereas their own, since they were leaving all things pacified around them, would have nothing except the soldier and arms.
that the knowledge of the sea and of lands and of winds also would help much, all of which would throw into confusion enemies unacquainted with them. The author of the plan, who also in fact was going to carry out the plan, moved everyone. Having delayed for two days in preparation, on the third day, with one hundred ships—of which seventy were decked, the rest open—all of smaller form, they set out and made for Phocaea.
thence, when he had heard that the Roman fleet was already approaching, the king, because he was not going to be present at the naval contest, withdrew to Magnesia, which is at Mount Sipylus, to assemble land forces; the fleet made for the Cissunthus harbor of the Erythraeans, as if it would more suitably await the enemy there. The Romans, when first the north winds—these, in fact, had held for several days—subsided, from Delos make for Phanas, a port of the Chians facing the Aegean Sea; thence they sailed the ships around to the city, and, taking on provisions, cross over to Phocaea. Eumenes, having set out to Elaea to his fleet, a few days later from there returned to Phocaea to the Romans with twenty-four covered ships, and with slightly more open ones, as they were preparing and equipping themselves for the naval contest.
thence, having set out with one hundred five covered ships and nearly fifty open, at first, with the north winds athwart driving them toward the land, they were compelled, in a thin column, almost in single order, to go one by one; then, when the force of the wind was somewhat softened, they tried to cross over to the port of Corycus, which is above Cissunte.
[44] Polyxenidas, ut appropinquare hostis adlatum est, occasione pugnandi laetus sinistrum ipse cornu in altum extendit, dextrum cornu praefectos nauium ad terram explicare iubet, et aequa fronte ad pugnam procedebat. quod ubi uidit Romanus, uela contrahit malosque inclinat et simul armamenta componens opperitur insequentis nauis. iam ferme triginta in fronte erant, quibus ut aequaret laeuum cornu, dolonibus erectis altum petere intendit, iussis qui sequebantur aduersus dextrum cornu prope terram proras derigere.
[44] When it was reported that the enemy was approaching, Polyxenidas, rejoicing at the occasion of fighting, himself extended the left wing out into the deep, ordered the ship-commanders to deploy the right wing toward the land, and with an even front advanced to the battle. When the Roman saw this, he shortens the sails and inclines the masts, and at the same time, arranging the rigging, waits for the ships that were following. Already nearly thirty were in the front; to match these with his left wing, with the dolones erected he aimed to make for the open sea, having ordered those who were following to point their prows close to the land against the right wing.
Eumenes was closing up the column; but when first a tumult began over taking down the rigging, he too, with the greatest speed he could, spurred on the ships. Now they were in sight of all. Two Punic ships were ahead of the Roman fleet, and three royal ships met them; and, as in an unequal number, two royal ships hemmed in one, and first on both flanks they sheared off the oars, then armed men boarded and, the defenders having been cast down and slain, they seize the ship; the other, which had clashed on equal terms, after it saw the other ship captured, before it could be surrounded at once by the three, fled back to the fleet.
Livius, inflamed with indignation, made for the enemy in the praetorian (flag) ship. Against him, with the same hope, the two which had surrounded a single Punic ship were bearing down; whereupon he ordered the oarsmen to lower the oars into the water on both sides for the sake of steadying the ship, and to cast iron “hands” upon the oncoming enemy ships, and, when they had made the fight like one on foot, to remember Roman virtus and not to reckon the king’s slaves as men. By much greater ease than before two had overpowered one, then one ship stormed and captured two ships.
and now the fleets too had from every side run together, and everywhere, with the ships all intermixed, fighting was going on. Eumenes, who [last] had arrived after the engagement was joined, as soon as he noticed that the enemy’s left wing had been thrown into disorder by Livius, himself attacks the right, where the fight was on equal terms.
[45] Neque ita multo post primum ab laeuo cornu fuga coepit. Polyxenidas enim ut uirtute militum haud dubie se superari uidit, sublatis dolonibus effuse fugere intendit; mox idem et qui prope terram cum Eumene contraxerant certamen fecerunt. Romani et Eumenes, quoad sufficere remiges potuerunt et in spe erant extremi agminis uexandi, satis pertinaciter secuti sunt.
[45] Nor much after that did the first flight begin from the left wing. For Polyxenidas, when he saw that he was without doubt being surpassed by the virtue of the soldiers, with stratagems set aside he aimed at fleeing in a headlong rout; soon those who had drawn the contest up close to the land with Eumenes did the same. The Romans and Eumenes, so long as the rowers were able to suffice and they were in hope of vexing the tail of the column, followed with sufficient pertinacity.
after they saw that, owing to the celerity of the ships, inasmuch as they were light, their own, laden with provisions, were being eluded despite their efforts, at length they desisted, with 13 ships captured together with their soldiers and rowers, 10 sunk. Of the Roman fleet one Punic ship, in the first encounter hemmed in by two, perished. Polyxenidas did not put an end to his flight before he was in the harbor of Ephesus.
The Romans that day remained where the royal fleet had gone out; on the following day they intended to pursue the enemy. When they were about midway on their course, there met them twenty-five decked Rhodian ships with Pausistratus, prefect of the fleet. With these added, having pursued the enemy to Ephesus, they stood with their battle line drawn up before the mouth of the harbor.
after they had sufficiently extracted a confession from the vanquished, the Rhodians and Eumenes were dismissed home; the Romans, making for Chios, having sailed past Phoenicus, the first harbor of the land of Erythrae, with anchors cast for the night, on the next day ferried across to the island to the city itself. there, having tarried a few days, chiefly for refitting the oar‑crew, they crossed over to Phocaea. there, leaving behind four quinqueremes for the garrison of the city, the fleet came to Canae; and, since winter was now approaching, with a ditch and rampart thrown around them, the ships were hauled ashore.
At the close of the year the elections were held at Rome, by which L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Laelius were elected consuls— with all eyes fixed on Africanus—to finish the war with Antiochus. On the following day the praetors were elected: M. Tuccius, L. Aurunculeius, Cn. Fuluius, L. Aemilius, P. Iunius, C. Atinius Labeo.