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[1] L. Cornelio Scipione C. Laelio consulibus nulla prius secundum religiones acta in senatu res est quam de Aetolis. et legati eorum institerunt, quia breuem indutiarum diem habebant, et ab T. Quinctio, qui tum Romam ex Graecia redierat, adiuti sunt. Aetoli, ut quibus plus in misericordia senatus quam in causa spei esset, suppliciter egerunt, ueteribus benefactis noua pensantes maleficia.
[1] In the consulship of L. Cornelius Scipio and C. Laelius, nothing was transacted in the senate before, in accordance with religious observances, the matter of the Aetolians. And their legates pressed the case, because they had a short term of truce, and they were assisted by T. Quinctius, who had then returned to Rome from Greece. The Aetolians—since they had more hope in the mercy of the senate than in their cause—pleaded suppliantly, weighing their new misdeeds against their old benefactions.
However, those present were worn out by interrogations on all sides from the senators, which wrung forth more a confession of guilt than responses; and, ordered to withdraw from the Curia, they gave occasion to a great contest. More anger than mercy prevailed in their case, because men were incensed at them not only as at enemies, but as at an indomitable and unsociable people. When the struggle had gone on for several days, at last it was decided that peace should neither be granted nor refused; two conditions were laid before them: either they should permit to the Senate free discretion concerning themselves, or they should pay 1,000 talents and have the same friends and the same enemies.
he, when the senate had ordered the consuls either to draw lots or to arrange the provinces between themselves, said they would act more elegantly if they entrusted the matter to the judgment of the Fathers rather than to the lot. Scipio, having given in reply to this that he would consider what he ought to do, after speaking with his brother alone and being bidden by him to commit the matter boldly to the senate, reports back to his colleague that he would do what that man should propose. when the affair—either new, or, by the antiquity of precedents, now worn out from memory—had raised the senate with the expectation of a contest, P. Scipio Africanus said that, if they decreed the province Greece to his brother L. Scipio, he would go to him as legate.
[2] Praetores inde prouincias sortiti sunt, L. Aurunculeius urbanam, Cn. Fuluius peregrinam, L. Aemilius Regillus classem, P. Iunius Brutus Tuscos, M. Tuccius Apuliam et Bruttios, C. Atinius Siciliam. consuli deinde, cui Graecia prouincia decreta erat, ad eum exercitum, quem a M'. Acilio—duae autem legiones erant— accepturus esset, in supplementum addita peditum ciuium Romanorum tria milia, equites centum, et socium Latini nominis quinque milia, equites ducenti; et adiectum, ut, cum in prouinciam uenisset, si e re publica uideretur esse, exercitum in Asiam traiceret. alteri consuli totus nouus exercitus decretus, duae legiones Romanae et socium Latini nominis quindecim milia peditum, equites sexcenti.
[2] Then the praetors drew lots for their provinces: L. Aurunculeius the urban jurisdiction, Cn. Fulvius the foreign, L. Aemilius Regillus the fleet, P. Junius Brutus Etruria, M. Tuccius Apulia and Bruttium, C. Atinius Sicily. Then to the consul to whom Greece had been decreed as his province, for that army which he was to receive from M'. Acilius — and there were two legions — there were added, as a supplement, 3,000 Roman-citizen infantry, 100 horse, and, of the allies of the Latin name, 5,000 infantry and 200 horse; and it was added that, when he had come into the province, if it should seem to be in the interest of the state, he should transport the army into Asia. To the other consul an entirely new army was decreed: two Roman legions and, of the allies of the Latin name, 15,000 foot and 600 horse.
Q. Minucius was ordered to transfer the army from the Ligurians—for he had already written that the province was completed and the whole name of the Ligurians had come into surrender—into the Boii, and to hand it over to the proconsul P. Cornelius, as he was conducting the Boii out from the territory with which he had penalized them when conquered in war. The two urban legions, which had been enrolled the previous year, were assigned to the praetor M. Tuccius, and fifteen thousand infantry of the allies of the Latin name and six hundred cavalry, for holding Apulia and the Bruttii. To A. Cornelius, the praetor of the previous year, who had held the Bruttii with an army, it was ordered—if it so seemed to the consul—that he hand over to M'. Acilius the legions transported into Aetolia, if that man should wish to remain there; but if Acilius preferred to return to Rome, that A. Cornelius should remain in Aetolia with that army.
C. Atinius Labeo, it was resolved, should receive Sicily as his province and the army from M. Aemilius, and, for a supplement, should enroll from that same province, if he wished, two thousand infantry and one hundred cavalry. P. Iunius Brutus was to enroll in Etruria a new army, one Roman legion and ten thousand of the allies and of the Latin name, and four hundred cavalry. L. Aemilius, to whom the maritime province had fallen, was ordered to receive twenty long ships and the naval allies from M. Iunius, praetor of the previous year, and himself to enroll one thousand naval allies and two thousand infantry; with those ships and soldiers to set out into Asia and to receive the fleet from C. Livius. For those holding the two Spains and Sardinia, imperium was prolonged for one year, and the same armies were decreed.
[3] Priusquam consules in prouincias proficiscerentur, prodigia per pontifices procurari placuit. Romae Iunonis Lucinae templum de caelo tactum erat ita, ut fastigium ualuaeque deformarentur; Puteolis pluribus locis murus et porta fulmine icta et duo homines exanimati; Nursiae sereno satis constabat nimbum ortum; ibi quoque duos liberos homines exanimatos; terra apud se pluuisse Tusculani nuntiabant, et Reatini mulam in agro suo peperisse. ea procurata, Latinaeque instauratae, quod Laurentibus carnis, quae dari debet, data non fuerat.
[3] Before the consuls set out to their provinces, it was resolved that the prodigies be expiated by the pontiffs. At Rome the temple of Juno Lucina had been struck from the sky, in such a way that the pediment and the doors were disfigured; at Puteoli, in several places, a wall and a gate were struck by lightning, and two men were struck dead; at Nursia it was sufficiently established that, in clear weather, a storm-cloud had arisen; there too two free men were struck dead; the people of Tusculum reported that it had rained earth in their territory, and the Reatines that a mule had given birth in their field. These things having been attended to, the Latin rites were renewed, because to the Laurentes the meat which ought to be given had not been given.
A supplication too was held on account of those religious observances which the decemvirs, from the Books, issued should be performed to the gods. Ten freeborn men, ten maidens, all having both father and mother living, were employed for that sacrifice, and the decemvirs by night performed the sacred rite with suckling victims. P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus, before he set out, set up an arch on the Capitol facing the road by which one ascends to the Capitol, with seven gilded statues and two horses, and he placed two marble basins before the arch.
Per eosdem dies principes Aetolorum tres et quadraginta, inter quos Damocritus et frater eius erant, ab duabus cohortibus missis a M'. Acilio Romam deducti et in Lautumias coniecti sunt. cohortes inde ad exercitum redire L. Cornelius consul iussit. —legati ab Ptolomaeo et Cleopatra regibus Aegypti gratulantes, quod M'. Acilius consul Antiochum regem Graecia expulisset, uenerunt adhortantesque, ut in Asiam exercitum traicerent: omnia perculsa metu non in Asia modo sed etiam in Syria esse; reges Aegypti ad ea, quae censuisset senatus, paratos fore.
During those same days, forty-three leaders of the Aetolians, among whom were Damocritus and his brother, were conducted to Rome by two cohorts sent by M'. Acilius and were thrown into the Lautumiae. From there the consul L. Cornelius ordered the cohorts to return to the army. —legates from Ptolemy and Cleopatra, kings of Egypt, came, offering congratulations because the consul M'. Acilius had driven King Antiochus out of Greece, and exhorting that they transport the army into Asia: that all things were stricken with fear not in Asia only but also in Syria; that the kings of Egypt would be ready for those measures which the senate should have resolved.
[4] L. Cornelius consul peractis, quae Romae agenda erant, pro contione edixit, ut milites, quos ipse in supplementum scripsisset, quique in Bruttiis cum A. Cornelio propraetore essent, ut hi omnes idibus Quinctilibus Brundisium conuenirent. item tres legatos nominauit, Sex. Digitium L. Apustium C. Fabricium Luscinum, qui ex ora maritima undique nauis Brundisium contraherent; et omnibus iam paratis paludatus ab urbe est profectus.
[4] Lucius Cornelius, the consul, when the things that had to be done at Rome were completed, proclaimed before the assembly that the soldiers whom he himself had enrolled as a supplement, and those who were in Bruttium with Aulus Cornelius, propraetor, that all these should meet at Brundisium on the Ides of Quintilis (July). Likewise he named three legates, Sextus Digitius, Lucius Apustius, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, to gather ships to Brundisium from all along the maritime coast; and with everything now prepared, wearing the military cloak, he set out from the city.
about five thousand volunteers, Romans and allies, who had completed their terms of service under the commander Publius Africanus, were at hand for the departing consul and gave in their names. During those days in which the consul set out to the war, at the Apollinarian Games, on the fifth day before the Ides of Quinctilis, with the sky clear, in the daytime the light was darkened, since the moon had gone beneath the disk of the sun. And Lucius Aemilius Regillus, to whom the naval province had fallen, at the same time set out.
Aetoli, postquam legati ab Roma rettulerunt nullam spem pacis esse, quamquam omnis ora maritima eorum, quae in Peloponnesum uersa est, depopulata ab Achaeis erat, periculi magis quam damni memores, ut Romanis intercluderent iter, Coracem occupauerunt montem; neque enim dubitabant ad oppugnationem Naupacti eos principio ueris redituros esse. Acilio, quia id expectari sciebat, satius uisum est inopinatam adgredi rem et Lamiam oppugnare; nam et a Philippo prope ad excidium adductos esse, et tunc eo ipso, quod nihil tale timerent, opprimi incautos posse. profectus ab Elatia primum in hostium terra circa Spercheum amnem posuit castra; inde nocte motis signis prima luce corona moenia est adgressus.
The Aetolians, after the envoys from Rome reported that there was no hope of peace, although all their seacoast that faces toward the Peloponnese had been laid waste by the Achaeans, being mindful more of peril than of loss, seized Mount Corax to cut off the route for the Romans; for they did not doubt that at the beginning of spring they would return to the assault of Naupactus. To Acilius, since he knew that that was being expected, it seemed better to undertake an unlooked-for move and to attack Lamia; for both they had been brought nearly to extinction by Philip, and now for the very reason that they feared nothing of the sort, the unwary could be overpowered. Setting out from Elatia, he first pitched camp in enemy territory around the river Spercheus; then, the standards being moved at night, at first light he assaulted the walls on all sides.
[5] Magnus pauor ac tumultus, ut in re improuisa, fuit. constantius tamen, quam quis facturos crederet, in tam subito periculo, cum uiri propugnarent, feminae tela omnis generis saxaque in muros gererent, iam multifariam scalis appositis urbem eo die defenderunt. Acilius signo receptui dato suos in castra medio ferme die reduxit; et tunc cibo et quiete refectis corporibus, priusquam praetorium dimitteret, denuntiauit, ut ante lucem armati paratique essent; nisi expugnata urbe se eos in castra non reducturum.
[5] There was great fear and tumult, as in an unforeseen situation. Yet more steadfastly than one would have believed they would act, in so sudden a peril—while the men were defending, the women were carrying missiles of every kind and stones to the walls—they defended the city that day, with ladders already set in many places. Acilius, having given the signal for retreat, led his men back to the camp at about midday; and then, when their bodies had been refreshed with food and rest, before he dismissed the headquarters assembly, he gave notice that they should be armed and ready before dawn; that unless the city were taken, he would not lead them back into camp.
at the same time as on the day before, attacking in several places, since the townspeople were now failing in strength, now in missiles, now above all in spirit, he seized the city within a few hours. there, the booty having been partly sold off and partly divided, a council was held as to what he should do next. it pleased no one to go to Naupactus, with the pass to Corax occupied by the Aetolians.
lest, however, the summer operations be sluggish, and the Aetoli—though they had not obtained peace from the Senate—should nonetheless have it through their own procrastination, Acilius decided to attack Amphissa. From Heraclea the army was led thither by way of Oeta. When he had pitched camp at the walls, he set about assaulting the city not by an encircling ring, as at Lamia, but by works.
At several places at once the ram was being brought up, and, as the walls were being shaken, the townsmen attempted to prepare or devise nothing against such a kind of machine; all hope was in arms and audacity; by frequent sorties they threw into disorder both the enemy stations and those themselves who were around the works and machines.
[6] Multis tamen locis decussus murus erat, cum adlatum est successorem Apolloniae exposito exercitu per Epirum ac Thessaliam uenire. cum tredecim milibus peditum et quingentis equitibus consul ueniebat. iam in sinum Maliacum uenerat; et praemissis Hypatam, qui tradere urbem iuberent, postquam nihil responsum est nisi ex communi Aetolorum decreto facturos, ne teneret se oppugnatio Hypatae nondum Amphissa recepta, praemisso fratre Africano Amphissam ducit.
[6] Nevertheless in many places the wall had been cut down, when news was brought that his successor, the army having been put ashore at Apollonia, was coming through Epirus and Thessaly. The consul was coming with thirteen thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry. He had already come into the Malian Gulf; and, men having been sent ahead to Hypata to order them to surrender the city, after nothing was answered except that they would act according to the common decree of the Aetolians, lest an assault on Hypata should detain him, Amphissa not yet recovered, he, with his brother Africanus sent ahead, leads toward Amphissa.
At their arrival the townspeople, abandoning the city—for by now it had been for the most part stripped of its walls—betook themselves into the citadel, which they hold to be inexpugnable, all alike, armed and unarmed. The consul pitched camp about 6 miles from there. Thither Athenian envoys first came to Publius Scipio, who, as was said before, had gone ahead of the column, then to the consul, pleading on behalf of the Aetolians.
they brought back a more clement answer from Africanus, who, seeking an honorable cause for leaving off the Aetolian war, had his eye on Asia and King Antiochus, and had ordered the Athenians to persuade not the Romans only to prefer peace to war, but the Aetolians as well. Quickly, with the Athenians as sponsors, a numerous embassy of Aetolians came from Hypata, and their hope of peace was increased even by Africanus’s speech, whom they approached first, as he recalled that many nations and peoples, first in Spain, then in Africa, had come into his allegiance; that in all cases he had left behind greater monuments of clemency and benignity than of warlike virtue. The matter seemed complete, when, once the consul was approached, he reported that same answer by which they had been driven off by the senate.
[7] Reditum inde Hypatam est, nec consilium expediebatur; nam neque, unde mille talentum daretur, erat, et permisso libero arbitrio ne in corpora sua saeuiretur, metuebant. redire itaque eosdem legatos ad consulem et Africanum iusserunt et petere, ut, si dare uere pacem, non tantum ostendere, frustrantes spem miserorum uellent, aut ex summa pecuniae demerent aut permissionem extra ciuium corpora fieri iuberent. nihil impetratum ut mutaret consul; et ea quoque irrita legatio dimissa est.
[7] From there a return was made to Hypata, nor was a plan being worked out; for neither was there a source from which one thousand talents might be paid, and, even with free discretion granted that there should be no savagery against their persons, they were afraid. Therefore they ordered the same legates to return to the consul and to Africanus and to ask that, if they were willing to give true peace, not only to display it while frustrating the hope of the wretched, they should either deduct from the sum of money or order that the grant of discretion be made outside the persons of citizens. Nothing was obtained to make the consul change; and that embassy too was dismissed void.
The Athenians likewise followed; and the chief of their embassy, Echedemus, called the Aetolians—wearied by so many repulses and bewailing with unprofitable lamentation the fortune of their nation—back to hope, being the proposer of seeking a truce of six months, so that they might be able to send legates to Rome: delay, he said, would add nothing to their present evils, inasmuch as these were the last; the present disasters could be lightened by many chances with time interposed. With Echedemus as author the same men were sent; after first having met Publius Scipio, through him they obtained from the consul a truce for the period they were asking. And when the siege of Amphissa was lifted, Manius Acilius, having handed over the army to the consul, left his province, and the consul returned from Amphissa to Thessaly, in order to lead his forces through Macedonia and Thrace into Asia.
Tum Africanus fratri: 'iter, quod insistis, L. Scipio, ego quoque approbo; sed totum id uertitur in uoluntate Philippi, qui si imperio nostro fidus est, et iter et commeatus et omnia, quae in longo itinere exercitus alunt iuuantque, nobis suppeditabit; si is destituit, nihil per Thraeciam satis tutum habebis; itaque prius regis animum explorari placet. optime explorabitur, si nihil ex praeparato agentem opprimet qui mittetur.' Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, longe tum acerrimus iuuenum, ad id delectus per dispositos equos prope incredibili celeritate ab Amphissa—inde enim est dimissus—die tertio Pellam peruenit. in conuiuio rex erat et in multum uini processerat; ea ipsa remissio animi suspicionem dempsit nouare eum quicquam uelle.
Then Africanus to his brother: 'The route which you are entering upon, L. Scipio, I too approve; but all this turns on the will of Philip, who, if he is faithful to our imperium, will supply to us both the route and the provisions and all things which on a long march sustain and assist an army; if he fails you, you will have nothing sufficiently safe through Thrace; and so it is pleasing that the king’s mind be first explored. It will be best explored, if he who is sent catches him off guard, doing nothing from prearrangement.' Ti. Sempronius Gracchus, by far then the keenest of the young men, chosen for that task, by relays of horses with almost incredible speed from Amphissa—whence indeed he was dispatched—arrived at Pella on the third day. The king was at a banquet and had proceeded into much wine; that very relaxation of spirit removed the suspicion that he wished to innovate anything, to attempt any change.
and then indeed, being received courteously as a guest, on the following day he saw that supplies for the army had been graciously made ready, bridges built over the rivers, roads fortified where the passages were difficult. Reporting these things, with the same speed with which he had gone, he met the consul at Thaumaci. Thence the army, glad with a surer and greater hope, arrived in Macedonia to find everything prepared.
The king both received him as he came with royal apparatus and escorted him. In him there appeared much both dexterity and humanity—qualities commendable to Africanus, a man outstanding in other respects and not averse to a comity that was without luxury. Thence, with Philip both accompanying and preparing everything, not through Macedonia only but even through Thrace, they came to the Hellespont.
[8] Antiochus post naualem ad Corycum pugnam cum totam hiemem liberam in apparatus terrestris maritimosque habuisset, classi maxume reparandae, ne tota maris possessione pelleretur, intentus fuerat. succurrebat superatum se, cum classis afuisset Rhodiorum; quodsi ea quoque—nec commissuros Rhodios, ut iterum morarentur—certamini adesset, magno sibi nauium numero opus fore, ut uiribus et magnitudine classem hostium aequaret. itaque et Hannibalem in Syriam miserat ad Phoenicum accersendas naues, et Polyxenidam, quo minus prospere res gesta erat, eo enixius et eas, quae erant, reficere et alias parare naues iussit.
[8] After the naval battle at Corycus, Antiochus, since he had had the whole winter free for terrestrial and maritime preparations, had been intent chiefly on refitting the fleet, lest he be driven from the entire possession of the sea. It occurred to him that he had been overcome when the fleet of the Rhodians had been absent; and if that also—nor would the Rhodians allow it, that they should be delayed again—were present at the contest, he would need a great number of ships, in order to equal the enemy’s fleet in forces and in magnitude. And so he had sent Hannibal into Syria to summon ships of the Phoenicians, and he ordered Polyxenidas, the less prosperously the affair had gone, by so much the more strenuously both to repair those which existed and to prepare other ships.
he himself wintered in Phrygia, summoning auxiliaries from every side. He had even sent into Gallo-Greece; they were more warlike at that time, still preserving Gallic spirits, the stock of the nation not yet worn out. He had left his son Seleucus in Aeolis with an army to restrain the maritime cities, which Eumenes, on that side from Pergamum, and the Romans, on this side from Phocaea and Erythrae, were soliciting.
The Roman fleet, as was said before, was wintering at Canae; there, in about the middle of winter, King Eumenes came with 2,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. When he said that a great booty could be driven from the enemy’s territory which was around Thyatira, by urging he prevailed upon Livius to send 5,000 soldiers with him. The men sent carried off an enormous booty within a few days.
[9] Inter haec Phocaeae seditio orta quibusdam ad Antiochum multitudinis animos auocantibus. grauia hiberna nauium erant, graue tributum, quod togae quingentae imperatae erant cum quingentis tunicis, grauis etiam inopia frumenti, propter quam naues quoque et praesidium Romanum excessit. tum uero liberata metu factio erat, quae plebem in contionibus ad Antiochum trahebat; senatus et optimates in Romana societate perstandum censebant; defectionis auctores plus apud multitudinem ualuerunt.
[9] Meanwhile, at Phocaea sedition arose, certain men diverting the minds of the multitude toward Antiochus. The winter-quarters of the ships were burdensome, the tribute grievous—for five hundred togas had been requisitioned along with five hundred tunics—grievous also was the scarcity of grain, on account of which even the ships and the Roman garrison withdrew. Then indeed the faction which was dragging the plebs in the assemblies toward Antiochus was freed from fear; the senate and the optimates judged that one must persevere in the Roman alliance; the authors of defection prevailed more with the multitude.
The Rhodians, the more delay there had been the prior summer, by so much the earlier at the vernal equinox sent the same Pausistratus, prefect of the fleet, with 36 ships. By now Livius, from Canis with his 30 ships and seven quadriremes, which King Eumenes had brought with him, was making for the Hellespont, in order to prepare what things were needful for the crossing of the army, which he supposed would come by land. He first brought the fleet into the harbor which they call “of the Achaeans”; from there he went up to Ilium, and, a sacrifice having been made to Minerva, he graciously heard neighboring legations from Elaeus and Dardanus and Rhoeteum, handing over their cities into his good faith.
thence he sails to the straits of the Hellespont, and with ten ships left on station opposite Abydos he carried over the rest of the fleet into Europe to attack Sestus. As the armed men were already approaching the walls, fanatic Gauls first, in solemn attire, run to meet them before the gate; they declare that, by the order of the Mother of the Gods, they come as the goddess’s servants to beseech the Roman to spare the walls and the city. None of them was violated.
[10] Dum haec in Hellesponto geruntur, Polyxenidas regius praefectus—erat autem exul Rhodius—cum audisset profectam ab domo popularium suorum classem, et Pausistratum praefectum superbe quaedam et contemptim in se contionantem dixisse, praecipuo certamine animi aduersus eum sumpto nihil aliud dies noctesque agitabat animo, quam ut uerba magnifica eius rebus confutaret. mittit ad eum hominem et illi notum, qui diceret et se Pausistrato patriaeque suae magno usui, se liceat, fore, et a Pausistrato se restitui in patriam posse. cum, quonam modo ea fieri possent, mirabundus Pausistratus percunctaretur, fidem petenti dedit agendae communiter rei aut tegendae silentio.
[10] While these things were being transacted in the Hellespont, Polyxenidas, the king’s prefect—he was, however, a Rhodian exile—when he had heard that a fleet of his compatriots had set out from home, and that Pausistratus the prefect, in a public harangue, had said certain things arrogantly and with contempt against him, having taken up a singular contest of spirit against him, revolved nothing else in mind day and night than to confute his magnificent words by realities. He sends to him a man known to him as well, to say that he would, if it be permitted, be of great use both to Pausistratus and to his own fatherland, and that he could be restored to his fatherland by Pausistratus. When Pausistratus, in amazement, inquired by what means these things could be done, he gave a pledge to the one asking, for either jointly prosecuting the affair or covering it with silence.
then the go-between: that the royal fleet, either whole or the greater part of it, Polyxenidas would deliver to him; that he would bargain for no other price of so great a merit than a return to his fatherland. The magnitude of the affair caused him neither to believe the words nor to spurn them. He made for Panhormus in the land of Samos, and there he halted to explore the matter that had been offered.
Messengers were running to and fro, and no credence was given to Pausistratus before Polyxenidas, in the presence of his messenger, wrote with his own hand that he would do the things he had promised and sent tablets impressed with his own seal. By that pledge indeed he supposed the betrayer as it were engaged under contract to him; for one living under a king would not have committed himself to give proofs attested by his own hand against himself. Thereupon a plan of simulated treason was composed.
Polyxenidas declared that he would abandon the whole apparatus of operations; that he would not keep either rowers or naval associates in numbers for the fleet; that he would haul up certain ships under the simulation of refitting, and dismiss others to neighboring ports; that he would keep a few on the open sea before the harbor of Ephesus, which, if the situation compelled him to put out, he would throw forward to the encounter. The negligence which Pausistratus heard Polyxenidas would have in his fleet, he himself immediately adopted: he sent part of the ships to Halicarnassus to fetch supplies, part to Samos to the city, <he himself remained at Panhormus,> so that he might be ready when he had received from the betrayer the signal for attacking. Polyxenidas, by feigning, augments the error: he hauls up certain ships, others, as if he were going to haul them up, he refits the dockyards; he does not summon the rowers from the winter quarters to Ephesus, but covertly musters them at Magnesia.
[11] Forte quidam Antiochi miles, cum Samum rei priuatae causa uenisset, pro speculatore deprehensus deducitur Panhormum ad praefectum. is percunctanti, quid Ephesi ageretur, incertum metu an erga suos haud sincera fide, omnia aperit: classem instructam paratamque in portu stare; remigium omne Magnesiam [ad Sipylum] missum; perpaucas naues subductas esse et naualia detegi; numquam intentius rem naualem administratam esse. haec ne pro ueris audirentur, animus errore et spe uana praeoccupatus fecit.
[11] By chance a certain soldier of Antiochus, when he had come to Samos for a private matter, being caught as a spy is led down to Panormus to the prefect. He, when asked what was going on at Ephesus, whether from fear or because his good faith toward his own was not sincere—uncertain—discloses everything: that the fleet, equipped and prepared, was standing in the harbor; that all the oar-crews had been sent to Magnesia [at Sipylus]; that very few ships had been hauled up and the dockyards were being uncovered; that the naval business had never been administered more intently. It was a mind preoccupied with error and empty hope that brought it about that these things were not listened to as true.
Polyxenidas, with all things sufficiently prepared, by night having summoned the oar-crew from Magnesia, and, the ships which had been hauled up having been hurriedly launched, since he had spent the day not so much in apparatus as because he did not wish a fleet setting out to be seen, after sunset departed with seventy decked ships, and with the wind adverse before dawn made the harbor of Pygela. There, since by day he kept quiet for the same reason, in the next night he crossed over to the land of Samos. From here he ordered a certain Nicander, an arch‑pirate, to make for Palinurum with five decked ships, and from there to lead armed men, by the route which was nearest through the fields, to Panormus, to the enemy’s rear; he himself meanwhile, the fleet having been divided, in order that he might hold the jaws of the harbor from either side, makes for Panormus.
Pausistratus at first, as in an unexpected affair, was disturbed for a little; then, a veteran soldier, with his mind quickly collected, thinking that the enemies could be better warded off by land than by sea, he leads the armed men in two columns to the promontories, which, with horns thrown out, from the deep form a harbor, from there intending easily to remove the enemy with missiles from both sides. When Nicander, seen from the land, had thrown this undertaking of his into confusion, suddenly, with his plan changed, he orders all to embark on the ships. Then indeed a huge trepidation alike of soldiers and sailors arose, and, as it were, a flight into the ships took place, since they perceived themselves surrounded by sea and land at once.
Pausistratus, thinking there was one way of safety, if he could use force through the narrows of the harbor and break out into the open sea, after he saw that his men had embarked, ordering the rest to follow, he himself, leader in person, with his ship hastened by oars, makes for the mouth of the harbor. As his ship was now clearing the narrows, Polyxenidas hems it in with three quinqueremes. The ship, struck by the rams, is pressed under; the defenders are overwhelmed with missiles, among whom also Pausistratus, fighting energetically, is slain.
of the remaining ships, some were caught before the harbor, others in the harbor, and certain ones were seized by Nicander while they were laboring to get off from shore; only five Rhodian ships, together with two Coan ships, escaped, a way for themselves having been made between the crowded vessels by the terror of a flashing flame; for with two poles projecting from the prow they carried before them a great quantity of fire contained in iron ladles. The Erythraean triremes, when, not far from Samos, they had met the fleeing Rhodian ships—to which they were coming so as to be a protection—turned their course into the Hellespont to the Romans. At about the same time Seleucus took possession of Phocaea, betrayed and opened at one gate by the guards; and Cyme and other cities of the same coast defected to him from fear.
[12] Dum haec in Aeolide geruntur, Abydus cum per aliquot dies obsidionem tolerasset praesidio regio tutante moenia, iam omnibus fessis Philota quoque praefecto praesidii permittente magistratus eorum cum Liuio de condicionibus tradendae urbis agebant. rem distinebat, quod, utrum armati an inermes emitterentur regii, parum conueniebat. haec agentibus cum interuenisset nuntius Rhodiorum cladis, emissa de manibus res est; metuens enim Liuius, ne successu tantae rei inflatus Polyxenidas classem, quae ad Canas erat, opprimeret, Abydi obsidione custodiaque Hellesponti extemplo relicta naues, quae subductae Canis erant, deduxit; et Eumenes Elaeam uenit.
[12] While these things are being done in Aeolis, Abydos, after it had endured the siege for several days with the royal garrison protecting the walls, now that all were exhausted, and with Philotas too, the prefect of the garrison, permitting it, their magistrates were negotiating with Livius about the terms for surrendering the city. The matter was delayed because there was insufficient agreement as to whether the king’s men should be sent out armed or unarmed. While they were handling these things, when a messenger of the Rhodians’ calamity arrived, the matter slipped from their hands; for Livius, fearing lest Polyxenidas, inflated by the success of so great a deed, might overwhelm the fleet which was at Canae, immediately abandoned both the siege of Abydos and the guarding of the Hellespont, and he launched the ships which had been hauled up at Canae; and Eumenes came to Elaea.
Livius with the whole fleet, to which he had adjoined two Mytilenaean triremes, made for Phocaea; and when he had heard that it was held by a strong royal garrison, and that the camp of Seleucus was not far off, having ravaged the maritime shore, and, the booty—chiefly of people—being hastily put aboard the ships, he delayed only so long as until Eumenes might overtake him with the fleet, and aimed to make for Samos. For the Rhodians, the disaster, when first heard, produced at once both immense fear and grief; for, besides the loss of ships and soldiers, they had lost whatever flower and strength there had been in their youth, many nobles having perished, among other things the authority of Pausistratus, which among his own was deservedly greatest; then, because they had been taken by fraud, and that above all by their own fellow-citizen, their grief turned into anger.
at once ten ships, and a few days later ten others, they sent with Eudamus appointed commander of all; whom, in other martial virtues by no means equal to Pausistratus, they believed would prove a more cautious commander, in proportion as he had less audacity of spirit. The Romans and King Eumenes brought their fleet first to Erythraea. There, having stayed one night, on the following day they made the promontory of Corycus [Pelorum].
thence, when they wished to cross over to the nearest part of Samos, not having awaited the rising of the sun, from which the helmsmen could note the state of the sky, they put out into uncertain weather. In mid-course, with the Aquilo veering toward the north, the sea, made rough with waves, began to toss them.
[13] Polyxenidas Samum petituros ratus hostis, ut se Rhodiae classi coniungerent, ab Epheso profectus primo ad Myonnesum stetit; inde ad Macrin, quam uocant, insulam traiecit, ut praeteruehentis classis si quas aberrantis ex agmine naues posset aut postremum agmen opportune adoriretur. postquam sparsam tempestate classem uidit, occasionem primo adgrediendi ratus, paulo post increbrescente uento et maiores iam uoluente fluctus, quia peruenire se ad eos uidebat non posse, ad Aethaliam insulam traiecit, ut inde postero die Samum ex alto petentis nauis adgrederetur. Romani, pars exigua, primis tenebris portum desertum Samiae tenuerunt, classis cetera nocte tota in alto iactata in eundem portum decurrit.
[13] Polyxenidas, thinking the enemy would make for Samos to join the Rhodian fleet, set out from Ephesus and first halted at Myonnesus; then he crossed to the island they call Macrin, so that, as the fleet sailed past, he might either be able to seize any ships straying from the line, or opportunely assail the rear of the column. After he saw the fleet scattered by the tempest, thinking it an occasion for a first attack, a little later, as the wind grew stronger and was already rolling up greater waves, since he saw that he could not reach them, he crossed to the island Aethalia, so that from there on the next day he might attack the ships making for Samos from the open sea. The Romans, a small part, at nightfall held the deserted harbor of Samos; the rest of the fleet, tossed the whole night on the deep, ran down into the same harbor.
there, having learned from the countryfolk that the enemy’s ships were lying off Aethalia, a council was held whether they should decide at once, or await the Rhodian fleet. the matter having been deferred—so it pleased—they crossed over to Corycus, whence they had come. Polyxenidas likewise, since he had lain at anchor in vain, returned to Ephesus.
Then the Roman ships, with the sea void of enemies, crossed over to Samos. To the same place the Rhodian fleet also came after a few days. That it might appear that it had been the one awaited, they set out at once for Ephesus, to either decide it by a naval contest, or, if the enemy declined the fight—something of the utmost moment for the spirits of the cities—to squeeze out a confession of fear.
opposite the mouth of the harbor they stood with the battle-line of ships drawn up. after no one came out to oppose, the fleet being divided, one part lay at anchor in the open sea at the harbor’s mouth, the other put soldiers ashore. against those who, having widely plundered the countryside, were [now] driving an enormous booty and were now approaching the walls, Andronicus the Macedonian, who was in garrison at Ephesus, made a sortie, and, stripping them of a great part of the plunder, drove them back to the sea and the ships.
On the next day, with ambushes set almost in the middle of the road to draw the Macedonian outside the walls, the Romans went in marching column to the city; then, since that very suspicion had deterred anyone from going out, they returned to the ships; and, with the enemy fleeing a contest by land and sea, the fleet made back for Samos, whence it had come. From there the praetor sent two triremes of the allies from Italy and two Rhodian triremes, with the prefect Epicrates the Rhodian, to guard the strait of Cephallenia. That passage the Lacedaemonian Hybristas, together with the youth of the Cephallanians, was making infested with piracy, and the sea was now closed to Italian supplies.
[14] Piraei L. Aemilio Regillo succedenti ad nauale imperium Epicrates occurrit; qui audita clade Rhodiorum, cum ipse duas tantum quinqueremes haberet, Epicratem cum quattuor nauibus in Asiam secum reduxit; prosecutae etiam apertae Atheniensium naues sunt. Aegaeo mari traiecit <Chium>. eodem Timasicrates Rhodius cum duabus quadriremibus ab Samo nocte intempesta uenit, deductusque ad Aemilium praesidii causa se missum ait, quod eam oram maris infestam onerariis regiae naues excursionibus crebris ab Hellesponto atque Abydo facerent. traicienti Aemilio a Chio Samum duae Rhodiae quadriremes, missae obuiam ab Liuio, et rex Eumenes cum duabus quinqueremibus occurrit.
[14] At the Piraeus, as L. Aemilius Regillus was succeeding to the naval command, Epicrates met him; and when the disaster of the Rhodians had been heard, since he himself had only two quinqueremes, he took Epicrates back with four ships into Asia with him; the open-deck ships of the Athenians also accompanied in escort. He crossed the Aegean Sea to <Chios>. To the same place Timasicrates the Rhodian came with two quadriremes from Samos in the dead of night, and, brought to Aemilius, said that he had been sent for the sake of protection, because the king’s ships by frequent excursions from the Hellespont and Abydus were making that stretch of sea unsafe for freighters. As Aemilius was crossing from Chios to Samos, two Rhodian quadriremes, sent to meet him by Livius, and King Eumenes with two quinqueremes, met him.
After they had come to Samos, the fleet was received from Livius and, when the sacrifice, as is customary, had been duly performed, Aemilius called a council. There Gaius Livius— for he is the first asked for his opinion— said that no one could give counsel more faithfully than he who would advise another to do what he himself, if he were in the same position, would do: that he had had in mind to make for Ephesus with the whole fleet and to lead the transports, weighed down with much ballast, and to sink them in the jaws of the harbor; and that those barriers would be of the less inconvenience because the mouth of the harbor is, in the manner of a river, long and narrow and shallow. Thus, he would have taken away the use of the sea from the enemy and made their fleet useless.
[15] Nulli ea placere sententia. Eumenes rex quaesiuit, quid tandem? ubi demersis nauibus frenassent claustra maris, utrum libera sua classe abscessuri inde forent ad opem ferendam sociis terroremque hostibus praebendum, an nihilo minus tota classe portum obsessuri?
[15] That opinion pleased no one. King Eumenes inquired, what then? when, after the ships had been sunk and they had bridled the barriers of the sea, would they depart from there with their own fleet free, to bring help to their allies and to offer terror to their enemies, or would they nonetheless besiege the harbor with their whole fleet?
For whether they withdraw, who could doubt that the enemies will haul up the sunken barriers and with less exertion open the harbor than it is to block it? But if, on the other hand, it is nonetheless necessary to remain there, what point is there in the harbor’s being shut? Nay rather, they will be the ones who, enjoying the safest harbor and a most opulent city, with all Asia supplying them, will spend quiet summer quarters; the Romans, on the open sea, exposed to waves and tempests, destitute of everything, will be in continual station, themselves more tied down and hampered—so that they cannot do any of the things that must be done—than keeping the enemy shut in.
Eudamus, prefect of the Rhodian fleet, showed rather that that opinion displeased him than himself stated what he judged ought to be done. Epicrates the Rhodian, leaving Ephesus aside for the present, judged that a part of the ships should be sent into Lycia, and that Patara, the head of the nation, should be joined into alliance. This, he said, would be of use for two great matters: both that the Rhodians, with the lands opposite their island pacified, could with all their forces apply themselves to the care of the one war which is against Antiochus; and that the fleet which was being prepared in Cilicia be cut off, lest it be joined to Polyxenidas.
[16] C. Liuius cum duabus quinqueremibus Romanis et quattuor quadriremibus Rhodiis et duabus apertis Zmyrnaeis in Lyciam est missus, Rhodum prius iussus adire et omnia cum iis communicare consilia. ciuitates, quas praeteruectus est, Miletus Myndus Halicarnassus Cnidus Cous, imperata enixe fecerunt. Rhodum ut uentum est, simul et, ad quam rem missus esset, iis exposuit et consuluit eos.
[16] C. Livius was sent into Lycia with two Roman quinqueremes, four Rhodian quadriremes, and two open Smyrnaean ships, having been ordered first to make for Rhodes and to communicate all counsels with them. The cities which he sailed past, Miletus Myndus Halicarnassus Cnidus Cos, zealously did what was ordered. When Rhodes was reached, at once both he set forth to them the purpose for which he had been sent, and he consulted them.
With all approving, and to that fleet which he had, after taking on three quadriremes, he sails to Patara. At first a favorable wind was carrying them to the city itself, and they were hoping to effect something by sudden terror; after the wind shifted around and the sea began to be tossed in doubtful waves, they did prevail by the oars to keep the land; but neither around the city was there a safe station, nor could they stand in the open sea before the mouth of the harbor, with the sea rough and night impending. Having sailed past the walls, they sought the port Phoenicus, at a distance of less than two miles from there, safe for ships from maritime force; but high cliffs moreover overhung it, which the townsmen, after taking on the king’s soldiers whom they had in garrison, quickly seized.
against whom Livius, although the places were unfair and difficult for exits, sent Issaean auxiliaries and the Smyrnaean light-armed youths. These, while at first the fight was being provoked rather than joined, with missiles and with light excursions against a few, sustained the contest; after more were streaming from the city, and now the whole multitude was pouring out, fear came upon Livius lest both the auxiliaries be surrounded and there be danger to the ships also from the land. Thus he led out into battle not only the soldiers but also the naval allies, the crowd of oarsmen, armed with whatever weapons each man could manage.
Then too the battle was indecisive, and not only did several soldiers fall, but L. Apustius fell in the hasty skirmish; at last, however, the Lycians were routed and put to flight and driven into the city, and the Romans returned to the ships with a not bloodless victory. Thence they set out for the Telmessic gulf, which on one side touches Caria and on the other Lycia, and with the <plan> of attempting Patara further abandoned, the Rhodians were sent home; Livius, having sailed past Asia, crossed over into Greece, in order that, after convening with the Scipios, who were then about Thessaly, he might convey them into Italy.
[17] Aemilius postquam omissas in Lycia res et Liuium profectum in Italiam cognouit, cum ipse ab Epheso tempestate repulsus irrito incepto Samum reuertisset, turpe ratus temptata frustra Patara esse, proficisci eo tota classe et summa ui adgredi urbem statuit. Miletum et ceteram oram sociorum praeteruecti in Bargylietico sinu escensionem ad Iasum fecerunt. urbem regium tenebat praesidium; agrum circa Romani hostiliter depopulati sunt.
[17] Aemilius, after he learned that operations in Lycia had been abandoned and that Livius had set out for Italy, when he himself, driven back by a storm from Ephesus, had returned to Samos with his attempt abortive, judging it disgraceful that Patara had been attempted in vain, decided to set out thither with the whole fleet and to assault the city with the utmost force. Having sailed past Miletus and the rest of the shore of the allies, they made a landing in the Bargyliaean gulf at Iasus. A royal garrison held the city; the Romans ravaged the surrounding countryside in hostile fashion.
then, after sending men to test dispositions through colloquies of the leading men and the magistrates, when they answered that nothing was in their own power, he leads up to the besieging of the city. There were exiles of the Iasans with the Romans; they, in throngs, kept beseeching the Rhodians not to allow a city both neighboring to them and kindred, innocent, to perish; that for themselves there was no other cause of exile than loyalty toward the Romans; that by the same force of the king’s men by which they themselves had been driven out, those who remained in the city were being held; that the mind of all the Iasans was one: to escape royal servitude. The Rhodians, moved by these prayers, and having taken King Eumenes as well, both by recalling their own ties and by pitying the plight of a city beset by a royal garrison, prevailed that the assault be refrained from.
Setting out from there, with the rest pacified, while they were coasting along the shore of Asia, they reached Loryma—there is a harbor opposite Rhodes—. There at headquarters a conversation arose, at first secretly among the military tribunes, then it reached the ears of Aemilius himself: that the fleet was being drawn off from Ephesus, from its own war, so that, the enemy left free at their back, he could attempt everything with impunity against so many neighboring cities of the allies. These things moved Aemilius; and having called in the Rhodians and asked [whether] the whole fleet could lie in harbor at Patara, when they answered that it could not, having found a cause for abandoning the matter he brought the ships back to Samos.
[18] Per idem tempus Seleucus Antiochi filius, cum per omne hibernorum tempus exercitum in Aeolide continuisset partim sociis ferendo opem, partim, quos in societatem perlicere non poterat, depopulandis, transire in fines regni Eumenis, dum is procul ab domo cum Romanis et Rhodiis Lyciae maritima oppugnaret, statuit. ad Elaeam primo infestis signis accessit; deinde omissa oppugnatione urbis agros hostiliter depopulatus ad caput arcemque regni Pergamum ducit oppugnandam. Attalus primo stationibus ante urbem positis et excursionibus equitum leuisque armaturae magis lacessebat quam sustinebat hostem; postremo cum per leuia certamina expertus nulla parte uirium se parem esse intra moenia se recepisset, obsideri urbs coepta est.
[18] At the same time Seleucus, son of Antiochus, since through the whole season of winter-quarters he had kept his army in Aeolis, partly by bringing aid to allies, partly by devastating those whom he could not entice into alliance, decided to cross into the borders of the kingdom of Eumenes, while that man, far from home, together with the Romans and the Rhodians, was oppugning the maritime Lycia. He approached Elaea first with hostile standards; then, abandoning the assault of the city, after ravaging the fields in hostile fashion, he leads against Pergamum—the head and citadel of the kingdom—to be assaulted. Attalus at first, with outposts set before the city and with excursions of cavalry and light-armed troops, was provoking rather than sustaining the enemy; at last, when through slight skirmishes he had learned that in no part of strength was he equal, he withdrew within the walls, and the city began to be besieged.
At about the same time too, Antiochus, having set out from Apamea, had his camp first at Sardis; then, not far from Seleucus’s camp at the head of the river Caicus, he kept fixed quarters with a great army mixed from various nations. The greatest share of terror was in four thousand Gaulish mercenaries. These [soldiers], with a few * mixed in, he sent to ravage far and wide the Pergamene territory.
After these things were reported at Samos, Eumenes, at first called off by a domestic war, made for Elaea with the fleet; thence, when cavalry and light-armed foot were at hand, safe under their protection, before the enemy either perceived it or stirred, he hastened to Pergamum. There again light battles began to be fought by excursions, Eumenes without doubt shrinking from the hazard of a decisive issue. A few days later the Roman and Rhodian fleets, to bring succor to the king, came to Elaea from Samos.
when it was reported to Antiochus that they had put their forces ashore at Elaea and that so many fleets had gathered into one harbor, and at the same time he heard that the consul with the army was already in Macedonia and that the things which were needed for the crossing of the Hellespont were being prepared, thinking that the time had come, before he should be pressed at once by land and by sea, for negotiating about peace [to be], he seized with his camp a certain hill opposite Elaea; there, all the infantry forces having been left, with the cavalry—now there were six thousand horse—he descended into the plains right under the walls of Elaea, a herald having been sent to Aemilius, that he wished to negotiate about peace.
[19] Aemilius Eumene a Pergamo accito adhibitis et Rhodiis consilium habuit. Rhodii haud aspernari pacem; Eumenes nec honestum dicere esse eo tempore de pace agi, nec exitum rei imponi posse: 'qui enim' inquit 'aut honeste, inclusi moenibus et obsessi, uelut leges pacis accipiemus? aut cui rata ista pax erit, quam sine consule, non ex auctoritate senatus, non iussu populi Romani pepigerimus?
[19] Aemilius, with Eumenes summoned from Pergamum and the Rhodians also brought in, held a council. The Rhodians did not spurn peace; Eumenes said that it was neither honorable at that time to treat about peace, nor could an outcome be imposed upon the affair: 'for who,' he said, 'either honorably, shut within the walls and besieged, will accept, as it were, the terms of peace? or for whom will that peace be ratified, which we shall have concluded without the consul, not by the authority of the Senate, not by the order of the Roman People?'
for I ask whether, with peace made through you, you will return immediately to Italy, bringing back the fleet and the army, or will wait to see what about that matter may please the consul, what the senate may decree or the people may order? therefore it remains that you stay in Asia, and that again the forces, withdrawn into winter quarters with the war laid aside, exhaust the allies by the furnishing of provisions; then, if it shall have seemed good to those in whose power it will be, let us re-establish anew from the beginning the war, which we could, if nothing is relaxed by prolonging from this impetus of affairs, have completed before winter, the gods willing.' This opinion prevailed, and it was answered to Antiochus that it was not possible to treat about peace before the consul’s arrival. Antiochus, peace having been tried in vain, after laying waste first the fields of the Elaeans and then of the Pergamenians, leaving there his son Seleucus, made for Adramyttium by a hostile march, and sought the opulent land which they call the plain of Thebe, made notable by the song of Homer; nor in any other place of Asia was greater booty won for the royal soldiers.
[20] Per eosdem forte dies Elaeam ex Achaia mille pedites cum centum equitibus, Diophane omnibus iis copiis praeposito, accesserunt, quos egressos nauibus obuiam missi ab Attalo nocte Pergamum deduxerunt. ueterani omnes et periti belli erant, et ipse dux Philopoemenis, summi tum omnium Graecorum imperatoris, discipulus. qui biduum simul ad quietem hominum equorumque et ad uisendas hostium stationes, quibus locis temporibusque accederent reciperentque sese, sumpserunt.
[20] Around those same days, to Elaea from Achaia there came one thousand infantry with one hundred cavalry, Diophanes being set over all those forces; and, after they had disembarked from the ships, men sent to meet them by Attalus escorted them by night to Pergamum. They were all veterans and experienced in war, and the commander himself was a disciple of Philopoemen, then the supreme commander of all the Greeks. They took two days both for the rest of the men and horses and for viewing the enemy’s posts, to see at what places and at what times they would advance and withdraw.
almost at the foot of the hill on which the city is set, the king’s men were moving up; thus the foraging was free in their rear. with no one from the city—even to hurl from afar at the outposts—sallying forth, after once, driven by fear, they had shut themselves within the walls, contempt for them, and from that negligence, arises among the king’s troops. a great part had their horses neither saddled nor bridled; with a few left under arms and in the ranks, the rest, slipping away, had scattered themselves everywhere over the whole plain—some turned to youthful games and wantonness, some eating under the shade, some even stretched out in sleep.
Observing these things from the lofty city of Pergamum, Diophanes orders his men to take up arms and to stand ready at the gate; he himself goes to Attalus and said that he had in mind to try the enemy’s outpost. Attalus permitting this with difficulty, since he saw that he would be fighting with 100 horsemen against 600, and with 1,000 foot-soldiers against 4,000, he went out by the gate and, not far from the enemy’s post, halted, awaiting an opportunity. And those who were at Pergamum believed this to be madness rather than audacity; and the enemy, having for a little turned their attention toward them, when they saw that nothing was being set in motion, did not themselves change anything of their customary negligence, but in addition, even mocking the paucity, made no change.
Diophanes kept his men quiet for some time, as if led out only for a spectacle; after he saw the enemies slipped away from their ranks, with the infantry ordered to follow as fast as they could, he himself, at the front among the horsemen with his own squadron, with the reins as let out as possible, attacks the enemy station unexpectedly, a shout having been raised at once by all foot and horse. Not men only but even the horses, terrified, when they had broken their tethers, made panic and tumult among their own. A few horses stood unafraid; even those they could not easily saddle, bridle, or mount, while the Achaeans were inflicting a fear far greater than in proportion to the number of cavalry.
the infantry, however, ordered and prepared, assaulted at close quarters men scattered through negligence and half-asleep. Slaughter everywhere and flight across the fields ensued. Diophanes, having pursued the fugitives so far as was safe, having won great honor for the Achaean nation—for from the walls of Pergamum not men only but women too had looked on—returned into the protection of the city.
[21] Postero die regiae magis compositae et ordinatae stationes quingentis passibus longius ab urbe posuerunt castra, et Achaei eodem ferme tempore atque in eundem locum processerunt. per multas horas intenti utrimque uelut iam futurum impetum expectauere; postquam haud procul occasu solis redeundi in castra tempus erat, regii signis collatis abire agmine ad iter magis quam ad pugnam composito coepere. quieuit Diophanes, dum in conspectu erant; deinde eodem, quo pridie, impetu in postremum agmen incurrit, tantumque rursus pauoris ac tumultus incussit, ut, cum terga caederentur, nemo pugnandi causa restiterit; trepidantesque et uix ordinem agminis seruantes in castra compulsi sunt.
[21] On the next day the royal posts, more composed and ordered, pitched camp five hundred paces farther from the city, and the Achaeans advanced almost at the same time and to the same place. For many hours they stood intent on both sides, as though already expecting an assault; when, not far from sunset, it was time to return to camp, the royal troops, with their standards closed together, began to withdraw, the column formed for march rather than for battle. Diophanes kept quiet while they were in sight; then, with the same impetus as on the day before, he charged into the rear‑guard, and again struck in so much fear and tumult that, though their backs were being slashed, no one halted for the sake of fighting; panic‑stricken and scarcely keeping the order of the column, they were driven into their camp.
Antiochus postquam Romanos ad tuendum Adramytteum uenisse audiuit, ea quidem urbe abstinuit; depopulatus agros Peraeam inde, coloniam Mitylenaeorum, expugnauit. Cotton et Corylenus et Aphrodisias et Prinne primo impetu captae sunt. inde per Thyatiram Sardis rediit.
When Antiochus heard that the Romans had come to defend Adramyttium, he indeed abstained from that city; having devastated the fields, he then took by storm the Peraea, a colony of the Mytileneans. Cotton, Corylenus, Aphrodisias, and Prinne were captured at the first assault. Thence through Thyatira he returned to Sardis.
Seleucus, remaining on the seacoast, was a terror to some, a protection to others. The Roman fleet, with Eumenes and the Rhodians, put in at Mytilene first, then back, whence it had set out, returned to Elaea. Thence, making for Phocaea, they made landfall at the island which they call Bacchium —it overlooks the city of the Phocaeans—, and the temples and statues from which they had previously abstained —moreover the island was splendidly adorned—, after they had plundered in hostile fashion, they passed over to the city itself.
when they were attacking it, the parts having been divided among themselves, and it seemed that without siege-works it could be taken by arms and ladders, once the garrison of three thousand armed men sent by Antiochus had entered the city, immediately, the assault being abandoned, the fleet withdrew to the island, having done nothing other than to devastate the enemy’s land around the city.
[22] Inde placuit Eumenen domum dimitti et praeparare consuli atque exercitui, quae ad transitum Hellesponti opus essent, Romanam Rhodiamque classem redire Samum atque ibi in statione esse, ne Polyxenidas ab Epheso moueret. rex Elaeam, Romani ac Rhodii Samum redierunt. ibi M. Aemilius frater praetoris decessit.
[22] From there it was decided to send Eumenes home and to prepare for the consul and the army the things which were needed for the crossing of the Hellespont; that the Roman and Rhodian fleet should return to Samos and be on station there, lest Polyxenidas move from Ephesus. The king returned to Elaea; the Romans and Rhodians returned to Samos. There Marcus Aemilius, the praetor’s brother, died.
The Rhodians, the exequies having been celebrated, against the fleet which rumor said was coming from Syria, with thirteen of their own ships and one Coan quinquereme, another Cnidian, set out for Rhodes, so that they might be on station there. Two days before Eudamus would come with the fleet from Samos, thirteen ships from Rhodes, with Pamphilidas as commander, were sent against that same Syrian fleet; after taking on four ships which were for the protection of Caria, while the king’s forces were attacking Daedala and certain other forts of the Peraea, they relieved them from siege. It was resolved that Eudamus should put out at once.
To him there were added also, to that fleet which he had, six open ships. Having set out, when he had made speed as much as he could, he overtook those who had gone ahead at the harbor which they call Megiste. From there, when they had come in one column to Phaselis, it seemed best to await the enemy there.
[23] In confinio Lyciae et Pamphyliae Phaselis est; prominet penitus in altum conspiciturque prima terrarum Rhodum a Cilicia petentibus et procul nauium praebet prospectum. eo maxime, ut in obuio classi hostium essent, electus locus est; ceterum, quod non prouiderunt, et loco graui et tempore anni—medium enim aestatis erat—, ad hoc insolito odore ingruere morbi uulgo, maxime in remiges, coeperunt. cuius pestilentiae metu profecti cum praeterueherentur Pamphylium sinum, ad Eurymedontem amnem appulsa classe audiunt ab Aspendiis ad Sidam hostis esse.
[23] On the confines of Lycia and Pamphylia is Phaselis; it juts far out into the deep and is seen as the first of the lands by those making for Rhodes from Cilicia, and from afar it affords a prospect of ships. For that reason especially the place was chosen, so that they might be in the way of the enemy fleet; however, what they did not foresee—both in the oppressive character of the place and in the season of the year (for it was the middle of summer)—in addition to this, diseases began to sweep in upon the common crowd with an unusual stench, especially upon the rowers. Setting out in fear of this pestilence, when they had sailed past the Pamphylian bay, with the fleet brought in to land at the river Eurymedon they hear from the Aspendians that the enemy is at Sida.
The king’s ships had sailed more slowly with the season of the Etesian winds adverse, which is, as it were, a settled season of Favonian breezes. The Rhodians had 32 quadriremes and 4 triremes; the royal fleet was of 37 ships of the larger type, among which it had 3 hepteres and 4 hexeres. Besides these there were 10 triremes.
and they too learned from a certain lookout that the enemy was present. On the following day, at first light, both fleets, as if intending to fight that day, put out from the harbor; and after the Rhodians had rounded the promontory which projects into the deep from Side, at once they were both seen by the enemy and they themselves saw them. On the royal side Hannibal was in command of the left wing, which was thrust out toward the open sea; Apollonius, one of the purpurati, of the right; and already they had their ships aligned into a front.
The Rhodians were coming in a long column; the foremost praetorial ship was Eudamus’s; Chariclitus was driving the column; Pamphilidas was commanding the middle squadron. After Eudamus saw the enemy’s battle line drawn up and prepared for a concurrence, he himself also puts out into the deep, and then orders those following, keeping their order, to be directed into a front. That action at first produced tumult; for he had not put out into the deep so far that the order of all the ships could be deployed out toward the land, and hurrying he himself too precipitately met Hannibal with five ships only; the rest, because they had been ordered to be directed into a front, were not following.
[24] Sed momento temporis et nauium uirtus et usus maritimae rei terrorem omnem Rhodiis dempsit. nam et in altum celeriter euectae naues locum post se quaeque uenienti ad terram dedere, et si qua concurrerat rostro cum hostium naue, aut proram lacerabat, aut remos detergebat, aut libero inter ordines discursu praeteruecta in puppim impetum dabat. maxime exterruit hepteris regia a multo minore Rhodia naue uno ictu demersa; itaque iam haud dubie dextrum cornu hostium in fugam inclinabat.
[24] But in a moment of time both the ships’ valor and their experience in maritime affairs removed all terror from the Rhodians. For the ships, quickly carried out into the deep, each gave behind itself room toward the land to the one coming up; and if any had met an enemy ship with its ram, it either tore the prow, or sheared off the oars, or, having passed with free course between the ranks, delivered an attack upon the stern. Most of all it struck terror that the royal hepteris was sunk by a much smaller Rhodian ship with a single blow; and so now, without doubt, the enemy’s right wing was inclining to flight.
Hannibal was pressing Eudamus on the open sea with a multitude of ships, far surpassing all the rest, and would have surrounded him, had not, when the signal was raised from the praetorian ship—by which it was the custom for a scattered fleet to be collected into one—all the ships which had won on the right wing run together to bring aid to their own. Then Hannibal and the ships that were around him take to flight; nor were the Rhodians able to pursue, their oarsmen for the most part sick and on that account the sooner wearied. When, out at sea where they had come to a halt, they were restoring their strength with food, Eudamus, having looked upon the enemy towing by tow‑rope their crippled and mutilated ships with open ships, and a little more than twenty intact withdrawing, from the tower of the flagship, silence having been made, said: ‘Rise up and seize with your eyes a distinguished spectacle.’ They all rose, and, after gazing upon the panic and flight of the enemy [and] with almost one voice, they all shouted that they should pursue.
the ship of Eudamus himself had been wounded by many blows; he ordered that they pursue Pamphilidas and Chariclitus, so far as they should judge it safe. for some time they followed; after Hannibal was approaching the land, fearing lest they be hemmed in by the wind into the very mouth of the enemy, they returned to Eudamus, and the captured hepteris, which had been struck in the first encounter, they with difficulty dragged to Phaselis. from there they returned to Rhodes, not so much joyful at the victory as each accusing the other, because, although it had been possible, not all the enemy’s fleet had been sunk or captured.
Hannibal, struck by one adverse battle, not even then dared to sail past Lycia, though he very much wished to be joined as soon as possible to the old royal fleet; and, in order that it might not be free for him to do this, the Rhodians sent Chariclitus with twenty rostrate ships to Patara and the harbor of Megiste. They ordered Eudamus, with seven very large ships from that fleet which he had commanded, to return to Samos to the Romans, so that, by as much as he availed in counsel and as much as in authority, he might compel the Romans to take Patara by storm.
[25] Magnam Romanis laetitiam prius uictoriae nuntius, deinde aduentus attulit Rhodiorum; et apparebat, si Rhodiis ea cura dempta fuisset, uacuos eos tuta eius regionis maria praestaturos. sed profectio Antiochi ab Sardibus <metusque inde>, ne opprimerentur maritimae urbes, abscedere custodia Ioniae atque Aeolidis prohibuerunt; Pamphilidam cum quattuor nauibus tectis ad eam classem, quae circa Patara erat, miserunt. Antiochus non ciuitatium modo, quae circa se erant, contrahebat praesidia, sed ad Prusiam Bithyniae regem legatos miserat litterasque, quibus transitum in Asiam Romanorum increpabat: uenire eos ad omnia regna tollenda, ut nullum usquam [orbis] terrarum nisi Romanum imperium esset; Philippum, Nabim expugnatos; se tertium peti; ut quisque proximus ab oppresso sit, per omnis uelut continens incendium peruasurum; ab se gradum in Bithyniam fore, quando Eumenes in uoluntariam seruitutem concessisset.
[25] Great joy to the Romans was brought first by the news of the victory, then by the arrival of the Rhodians; and it was apparent that, if that care had been taken off the Rhodians, they would render the seas of that region free and safe. But the departure of Antiochus from Sardis <and the fear from there>, lest the maritime cities be overwhelmed, prevented them from withdrawing their guard from Ionia and Aeolis; they sent Pamphilidas with four covered ships to that fleet which was around Patara. Antiochus not only was concentrating garrisons of the communities which were around him, but had sent legates to Prusias, king of Bithynia, and letters, in which he was reproaching the passage of the Romans into Asia: that they were coming to take away all kingdoms, so that nowhere in the [world] would there be any empire except the Roman; Philip and Nabis had been subdued; he himself was being sought as the third; that, as each one is nearest to the one crushed, it would spread through all like a continuous conflagration; that from himself the step would be into Bithynia, since Eumenes had gone over into voluntary servitude.
By these things Prusias—who had been stirred—was turned away from such a suspicion by the letters of Scipio the consul, but more by those of his brother Africanus, who, besides the perpetual custom of the Roman people of augmenting with every honor the majesty of allied kings, constrained Prusias by personal examples to win his friendship: that he had taken petty kings into his protection in Spain and left them as kings; that he had established Masinissa not only in his paternal kingdom, but had imposed upon him the kingdom of Syphax, by whom he had previously been driven out; and that he is not only by far the most opulent of the kings of Africa, but in the whole orb of the lands equal to any of the kings either in majesty or in strength. Philip and Nabis, enemies and defeated in war by T. Quinctius, were nevertheless left in their kingdoms. To Philip indeed, in the previous year, even the tribute was remitted and his son, a hostage, was returned; and he recovered certain cities outside Macedonia, with the Roman commanders permitting it.
that Nabis too would have been in the same dignity, had not first his own fury and then the fraud of the Aetolians consumed him. The spirit of the king was most confirmed after Gaius Livius, who previously as praetor had commanded the fleet, came to him as legate from Rome and instructed him how much both the hope of victory was more certain for the Romans than for Antiochus, and the friendship with the Romans would be more sacrosanct and firmer.
[26] Antiochus postquam a spe societatis Prusiae decidit, Ephesum ab Sardibus est profectus ad classem, quae per aliquot menses instructa ac parata fuerat, uisendam, magis quia terrestribus copiis exercitum Romanum et duos Scipiones imperatores uidebat sustineri non posse, quam quod res naualis ipsa per se aut temptata sibi umquam feliciter aut tunc magnae et certae fiduciae esset. erat tamen momentum in praesentia spei, quod et magnam partem Rhodiae classis circa Patara esse et Eumenen regem cum omnibus nauibus suis consuli obuiam in Hellespontum profectum audierat; aliquid etiam inflabat animos classis Rhodia ad Samum per occasionem fraude praeparatam absumpta. his fretus, Polyxenida cum classe ad temptandam omni modo certaminis fortunam misso, ipse copias ad Notium ducit.
[26] After Antiochus fell away from the hope of an alliance with Prusias, he set out from Sardis to Ephesus to view the fleet, which had been equipped and prepared for several months—more because he saw that with terrestrial forces the Roman army and the two Scipios as commanders could not be withstood, than because the naval affair in itself, either when tried had ever turned out happily for him, or was then of great and assured confidence. There was, nevertheless, at the moment a momentum of hope, because he had heard both that a great part of the Rhodian fleet was around Patara, and that King Eumenes had set out with all his ships to meet the consul in the Hellespont; something also inflated their spirits by the Rhodian fleet off Samos having been destroyed by a stratagem prepared for the occasion. Relying on these things, having sent Polyxenidas with the fleet to try by every method the fortune of the contest, he himself leads his forces to Notium.
That Colophonian town, overhanging the sea, is distant from old Colophon by about two miles. And he wanted the city itself to be under his own power, so near to Ephesus that he could do nothing by land or sea which was not under the eyes of the Colophonians and through them immediately known to the Romans; and he did not doubt that, when the siege was heard of, these would move the fleet from Samos to bring aid to an allied city; that would be an occasion for Polyxenidas to carry out the operation. Therefore, having set about to attack the city with siege-works, with fortifications drawn down in two divisions equally to the sea, on both sides he joined vineae (mantlets) and a mound to the wall and, under tortoises (testudines), brought up the battering rams.
Terrified by these evils, the Colophonians sent envoys to Samos to L. Aemilius, imploring the good faith of the praetor and of the Roman People. Aemilius too was offended by the long, sluggish delay at Samos, supposing least of all that Polyxenidas, twice in vain provoked by him, would afford the opportunity of battle; and he thought it disgraceful that Eumenes’ fleet should help the consul to ferry the legions over into Asia, while he himself was tied down, with aid to besieged Colophon, to an undertaking that would have an uncertain end. Eudamus the Rhodian—who had also held him at Samos when he wished to set out for the Hellespont—and all alike pressed and [said]: how much more preferable it was either to free the allies from the siege, or to defeat once again a fleet already conquered once, and to snatch the entire possession of the sea from
[27] Profecti ab Samo ad petendos commeatus consumptis iam omnibus Chium parabant traicere; id erat horreum Romanis, eoque omnes ex Italia missae onerariae derigebant cursum. circumuecti ab urbe ad auersa insulae—obiecta aquiloni ad Chium et Erythras sunt—cum pararent traicere, litteris certior fit praetor frumenti uim magnam Chium ex Italia uenisse, uinum portantes naues tempestatibus retentas esse; simul adlatum est Teios regiae classi commeatus benigne praebuisse, quinque milia uasorum uini esse pollicitos. Teum ex medio cursu classem repente auertit, aut uolentibus iis usurus commeatu parato hostibus, aut ipsos pro hostibus habiturus.
[27] Setting out from Samos to seek supplies, now that all were spent, they were preparing to cross to Chios; that was a storehouse for the Romans, and to it all the cargo-ships sent from Italy directed their course. Having sailed around from the city to the far side of the island—the parts exposed to the north wind, toward Chios and Erythrae—when they were preparing to cross, the praetor is informed by letters that a great quantity of grain had come to Chios from Italy, and that the ships carrying wine had been detained by storms; at the same time it was reported that the Teians had kindly furnished supplies to the royal fleet, promising 5,000 vessels of wine. He suddenly diverted the fleet from mid-course to Teos, intending either to make use, with their consent, of the supplies prepared for the enemy, or to regard them themselves as enemies.
when they had directed their prows toward land, about fifteen ships appeared to them around Myonnesus, which at first the praetor, supposing to be from the royal fleet, set himself to pursue; then it became clear that they were piratical celoces and lembi. Having ravaged the maritime shore of the Chians, and returning with booty of every kind, after they saw the fleet from the offing, they turned to flight. And they outmatched in speed, with lighter vessels and crafted for that very purpose, and they were nearer to the land; and so, before the fleet could draw near, they took refuge at Myonnesus, whence, supposing that he would draw the ships out of the harbor, the praetor, ignorant of the place, kept following.
Myonnesus is a promontory between Teos and Samos. It is itself a hill in the manner of a meta (turning-post), tapered to a sharp summit from a base fairly broad; from the continent it has access by narrow footpaths, from the sea it is shut in by cliffs gnawed away by the waves, such that in some places overhanging rocks project farther out into the deep than the ships that are in the anchorage. The ships, not daring to approach around those parts, lest they be within the strike of pirates standing above on the cliffs, wore out the day.
[28] Teii, cum in oculis populatio esset, oratores cum infulis et uelamentis ad Romanum miserunt. quibus purgantibus ciuitatem omnis facti dictique hostilis aduersus Romanos, et iuuisse eos commeatu classem hostium arguit, et quantum uini Polyxenidae promisissent; quae si eadem Romanae classi darent, reuocaturum se a populatione militem; si minus, pro hostibus eos habiturum. hoc tam triste responsum cum rettulissent legati, uocatur in contionem a magistratibus populus, ut, quid agerent, consultarent.
[28] When the devastation was before their eyes, the Teians sent envoys with fillets and veils to the Roman commander. While they were clearing their city of any hostile deed or word against the Romans, he charges that they had aided the enemy fleet with provisions, and how much wine they had promised to Polyxenides; if they would give the same to the Roman fleet, he would recall the troops from the ravaging; if not, he would consider them as enemies. When the envoys had reported this so grim answer, the people were called by the magistrates into an assembly to consult what they should do.
on that very day by chance Polyxenidas, having set out from Colophon with the royal fleet, after he heard that the Romans had moved from Samos and, pursuing the pirates toward Myonnesus, were devastating the territory of the Teians, that the ships were riding at anchor in the Geraestic harbor, he himself cast anchors opposite Myonnesus at an island—which the sailors call Macris—in a hidden harbor. thence, reconnoitering from close by what the enemies were doing, at first he was in great hope that, in the same way as he had taken by storm the Rhodian fleet at Samos, the jaws of the harbor at the outlet being beset, so he would take the Roman [fleet] as well. nor is the nature of the place dissimilar: with promontories meeting one another, the harbor is so shut in that scarcely two ships can go out from there at the same time.
[thence] Polyxenidas had in mind by night to seize the narrows, and, with ten ships standing off the promontories, which from either wing would engage the flanks of the ships as they came out, from the rest of the fleet—just as he had done at Panormus—after putting armed men ashore, to overwhelm the enemy by land and sea at once. Which plan would not have been vain for him, if the Teii had not promised that they would do what was commanded, and it had seemed more fitting to the Romans, for the receiving of supplies, to move the fleet into that harbor which is before the city. It is said too that Eudamus the Rhodian pointed out the defect of the other harbor, when by chance two ships, in its narrow mouth, had broken their oars, entangled; and, among other things, this also moved the praetor to transfer the fleet, that there was danger from the land, Antiochus having his standing camp not far from there.
[29] Traducta classe ad urbem ignaris omnibus egressi milites nautaeque sunt ad commeatus et uinum maxime diuidendum in naues, cum medio forte diei agrestis quidam ad praetorem adductus nuntiat alterum iam diem classem stare ad insulam Macrin, et paulo ante uisas quasdam moueri tamquam ad profectionem naues. re subita perculsus praetor tubicines canere iubet, ut, si qui per agros palati essent, redirent; tribunos in urbem mittit ad cogendos milites nautasque in naues. haud secus quam in repentino incendio aut capta urbe trepidatur, aliis in urbem currentibus ad suos reuocandos, aliis ex urbe naues cursu repetentibus, incertisque clamoribus, quibus ipsis tubae obstreperent, turbatis imperiis tandem concursum ad naues est.
[29] With the fleet transferred across to the city, while all were unaware, the soldiers and sailors went ashore to divide the provisions, and especially the wine, into the ships, when, at about the middle of the day by chance, a certain countryman, brought to the praetor, announces that the fleet has been lying off the island Macris for a second day now, and that a little before some ships had been seen to be moving as if for departure. Struck by the sudden news, the praetor orders the trumpeters to sound, so that, if any had been scattered through the fields, they might return; he sends tribunes into the city to drive the soldiers and sailors into the ships. There is panic no otherwise than in a sudden conflagration or a captured city, some running into the city to call back their own men, others from the city hastening back to the ships, and with confused shouts, over which the trumpets themselves were blaring, the commands thrown into disorder, at length there was a rush to the ships.
Hardly could each man recognize or reach his own vessel because of the tumult; and there would have been panic with peril both on sea and on land, had not, the forces being divided, Aemilius, with the praetorian ship first borne out from the harbor into the deep, and, receiving those who followed, arrayed each in his proper order into the front, while Eudamus and the Rhodian fleet had taken station close to the shore, so that they might embark without trepidation and that each ship, as soon as it was prepared, might put out. Thus the leading ships unfolded their order in the praetor’s sight, and a column was assembled by the Rhodians; and the battle line, as though they beheld the king’s forces, advanced into the deep. They were between Myonnesus and the promontory of Corycus when they caught sight of the enemy.
and the royal fleet, coming in a long column by twos into line, likewise deployed an opposing battle line, with only its left wing borne out, so that it might enfold and go around the Roman right wing. When Eudamus, who was marshalling the column, saw this—that the Romans could not equal the order and were all but already being encircled on their right wing—he spurred on the ships—and the Rhodian were by far the swiftest of the whole fleet—and, the wing brought abreast, he threw his own against the flagship, on which Polyxenidas was.
[30] Iam totis classibus simul ab omni parte pugna conserta erat. ab Romanis octoginta naues pugnabant, ex quibus Rhodiae duae et uiginti erant; hostium classis undenonaginta nauium fuit; maximae formae naues tres hexeres habebat, duas hepteres. robore nauium et uirtute militum Romani longe praestabant, Rhodiae naues agilitate et arte gubernatorum et scientia remigum; maximo tamen terrori hostibus fuere, quae ignes prae se portabant, et quod unum iis ad Panhormum circumuentis saluti fuerat, id tum maximum momentum ad uictoriam fuit.
[30] Now with the entire fleets at once from every quarter the battle had been joined. On the Roman side 80 ships were fighting, of which 22 were Rhodian; the enemy’s fleet was 89 ships; it had, of the largest type, three hexeres and two hepteres. In the robustness of their ships and the valor of their soldiers the Romans far excelled; the Rhodian ships in agility and in the art of the helmsmen and the skill of the oarsmen; yet those which carried fires before them were a very great terror to the enemy, and that which alone had been a salvation to them when they were surrounded at Panormus then had the greatest momentum toward victory.
for, from fear of the opposing fire, the royal ships, lest their prows should run together, when they had sheered off, neither could strike the enemy with the ram, and they themselves offered themselves oblique to blows; and if any had collided, it was overwhelmed by fire poured in, and they were more agitated for conflagration than for combat. nevertheless, as is its wont, the valor of the soldiers prevailed most in war. for when the Romans had broken the middle line of the enemy, having sailed around to the rear of the king’s forces fighting against the Rhodians, they hurled themselves upon them; and in a moment of time both the center of Antiochus’s line and the ships in the left wing, having been surrounded, were sinking.
the right wing, intact, of the allies were being terrified more by the slaughter than by their own danger; however, after they saw other ships surrounded, and the flagship of Polyxenidas, with his allies abandoned, giving sail, they, lifting in haste their grapnels—and the wind was favorable for those making for Ephesus—take to flight, with forty‑two ships lost in that battle, of which thirteen were captured and came into the enemy’s power, the rest burned or sunk. Of the Romans two ships were broken, several damaged; one Rhodian was captured in a memorable incident. For when it had struck a Sidonian ship with its beak, the anchor, shaken out of its own ship by the very blow, with its hooked tooth, as if an iron hand cast in, fastened to the other’s prow; then, with tumult arising, as the Rhodians, wishing to tear themselves away from the foe, were held back, the anchor‑cable, drawn taut and entangled with the oars, swept clean one flank; the ship that had been struck and had clung fast captured the other, weakened by that very thing.
[31] Quo territus Antiochus, quia possessione maris pulsus longinqua tueri diffidebat se posse, praesidium ab Lysimachia, ne opprimeretur ibi ab Romanis, deduci prauo, ut res ipsa postea docuit, consilio iussit. non enim tueri solum Lysimachiam a primo impetu Romanorum facile erat, sed obsidionem etiam tota hieme tolerare et obsidentis quoque ad ultimam inopiam adducere extrahendo tempus et interim spem pacis per occasionem temptare. nec Lysimachiam tantum hostibus tradidit post aduersam naualem pugnam, sed etiam Colophonis obsidione abscessit et Sardis recepit se; atque inde in Cappadociam ad Ariarathen, qui auxilia accerserent, et quocumque alio poterat, ad copias contrahendas, in unum iam consilium, ut acie dimicaret, intentus misit.
[31] Frightened by this, Antiochus, because, driven from the possession of the sea, he distrusted that he could guard distant holdings, ordered the garrison to be withdrawn from Lysimachia, lest it be overwhelmed there by the Romans—a faulty plan, as the event itself later taught. For it was easy not only to protect Lysimachia from the first onset of the Romans, but also to endure a siege through the whole winter and to bring the besiegers too to utter want by spinning out the time, and in the meantime to test the hope of peace as opportunity offered. Nor did he only hand over Lysimachia to the enemy after the adverse naval battle, but he also withdrew from the siege of Colophon and retired to Sardis; and from there he sent to Cappadocia to Ariarathes, to summon auxiliaries, and wherever else he could, for the purpose of concentrating forces, now intent upon one plan—to decide it by pitched battle.
Regillus Aemilius post uictoriam naualem profectus Ephesum, derectis ante portum nauibus, cum confessionem ultimam concessi maris hosti expressisset, Chium, quo ante nauale proelium cursum ab Samo intenderat, nauigat. ibi naues in proelio quassatas cum refecisset, L. Aemilium Scaurum cum triginta nauibus Hellespontum ad exercitum traiciendum misit, Rhodios parte praedae et spoliis naualibus decoratos domum redire iubet. Rhodii impigre praeuertere ad traiciendas copias consulis [iere]; atque eo quoque functi officio, tum demum Rhodum rediere.
After the naval victory Aemilius Regillus set out for Ephesus; with the ships drawn up before the harbor, when he had wrung from the enemy the final admission that command of the sea had been conceded, he sails to Chios, whither before the naval battle he had directed his course from Samos. There, when he had repaired the ships shattered in the engagement, he sent L. Aemilius Scaurus with thirty ships to the Hellespont to ferry the army across; he orders the Rhodians, adorned with a share of the booty and with naval spoils, to return home. The Rhodians, energetically hurrying ahead to transport the consul’s troops, went; and, having discharged that duty also, then at last returned to Rhodes.
the Roman fleet crossed over from Chios to Phocaea. This city is set in the inmost bay of the sea, of an oblong form; a wall embraces a space of 2,500 paces, then from either side it comes together into a narrower shape, as if a wedge—they themselves call it Lamptera. There the width extends 1,200 paces; from there a tongue running out into the deep for 1,000 paces marks off almost the middle of the bay, as by a sign; where it joins by narrow throats, it has two very safe harbors turned toward either region.
[32] Hos portus tutissimos cum occupasset Romana classis, priusquam aut scalis aut operibus moenia adgrederetur, mittendos censuit praetor, qui principum magistratuumque animos temptarent. postquam obstinatos uidit, duobus simul locis oppugnare est adortus. altera pars infrequens aedificiis erat; templa deum aliquantum tenebant loci; ea prius ariete admoto quatere muros turresque coepit; dein cum eo multitudo occurreret ad defendendum, altera quoque parte admotus aries; et iam utrimque sternebantur muri.
[32] When the Roman fleet had occupied these very safe harbors, before he would attack the walls either with ladders or with works, the praetor judged that men should be sent to test the minds of the leading men and magistrates. After he saw them obstinate, he set about attacking in two places at once. One sector was sparse in buildings; the temples of the gods occupied a fair amount of the ground; there first, the battering-ram having been brought up, he began to shake the walls and towers; then, since a crowd ran up there to defend, a ram was brought up on the other side as well; and already on both sides the walls were being laid low.
At the fall of these, when the Roman soldiers were making a charge through the very shambles of the ruins, and others were even attempting an ascent onto the walls with ladders, the townsmen resisted so obstinately that it was easy to see there was more aid in arms and virtue than in walls. Therefore, compelled by the danger to the soldiers, the praetor ordered the retreat to be sounded, lest he expose the incautious to men raging with desperation and frenzy. The battle having been broken off, not even then did they turn to rest, but from every side all ran together to fortify and to pile up obstructions against the places that had been laid low by the ruins.
While they were intent on this work, Q. Antonius, sent by the praetor, arrived, to show—after rebuking their pertinacity—that the Romans had more concern than they, that battle not be carried on to the city’s ruin; if they were willing to desist from their frenzy, permission would be given them, on the same condition under which previously they had come into the good faith of C. Livius, to surrender themselves. When they had heard this, with a space of five days taken for deliberation, and meanwhile a hope of aid from Antiochus having been tried—after the legates sent to the king reported that there was in him no protection—then they opened the gates, having bargained that they should suffer nothing hostile. When the standards were being borne into the city and the praetor had proclaimed that he wished to spare those who had surrendered, a shout was raised on every side that it was an outrageous deed that the Phocaeans—never faithful allies, always inimical enemies—should elude punishment with impunity.
From this outcry, as if a signal had been given by the praetor, they ran everywhere to plunder the city. Aemilius at first tried to resist and recall them, saying that cities taken by storm, not those that had surrendered, are plundered, and that even in those the decision belongs to the commander, not to the soldiers. After anger and avarice proved more powerful than authority, having sent heralds through the city he orders all free persons to assemble to him in the forum, so that they might not be violated; and in all things which were within his own power the good faith of the praetor stood firm: he restored to them the city and fields and their own laws; and, because winter was already approaching, he chose the harbors of Phocaea for the fleet to winter.
[33] Per idem fere tempus consuli, transgresso Aeniorum Maronitarumque finis, nuntiatur uictam regiam classem ad Myonnesum relictamque a praesidio Lysimachiam esse. id multo quam de nauali uictoria laetius fuit, utique postquam eo uenerunt, refertaque urbs omnium rerum commeatibus uelut in aduentum exercitus praeparatis eos excepit, ubi inopiam ultimam laboremque in obsidenda urbe proposuerant sibi. paucos dies statiua habuere, impedimenta aegrique ut consequerentur, qui passim per omnia Thraciae castella, fessi morbis ac longitudine uiae, relicti erant.
[33] At about the same time it was announced to the consul, after he had transgressed the frontiers of the Aenians and the Maronitae, that the royal fleet had been vanquished off Myonnesus and that Lysimachia had been abandoned by its garrison. This was far more gladsome news than the naval victory, especially after they came thither, and the city, packed with supplies of every kind, prepared as if for the advent of an army, received them—where they had set before themselves utter want and toil in besieging the city. They held a standing camp for a few days, in order that the baggage-train and the sick might come up, who had been left here and there through all the forts of Thrace, worn out by diseases and the length of the road.
with all having been brought in, they set out again on the march through the Chersonese and reached the Hellespont. there, with everything prepared for the crossing by the care of King Eumenes, as if to pacified shores, with no one forbidding, the ships ferrying different parties to different points, they crossed without tumult. this in truth increased the spirits of the Romans, as they saw that passage into Asia had been granted to them—a matter which they had believed would be of great contest.
they then held a stationary camp at the Hellespont for some time, because by chance the days on which the ancilia are moved—religiously inauspicious for a journey—had fallen. The same days had separated P. Scipio from the army by an even more immediate religious obligation, since he was a Salian; and he himself was a cause of delay, while he caught up.
[34] Per eos forte dies legatus ab Antiocho in castra uenerat Byzantius Heraclides, de pace adferens mandata; quam impetrabilem fore magnam ei spem attulit mora et cunctatio Romanorum, quos, simul Asiam attigissent, effuso agmine ad castra regia ituros crediderat. statuit tamen non prius consulem adire quam P. Scipionem, et ita mandatum ab rege erat. in eo maximam spem habebat, praeterquam quod et magnitudo animi et satietas gloriae placabilem eum maxime faciebat, notumque erat gentibus, qui uictor ille in Hispania, qui deinde in Africa fuisset, etiam quod filius eius captus in potestate regis erat.
[34] About those same days a legate from Antiochus came into the camp, Heraclides of Byzantium, bringing mandates concerning peace; the delay and hesitation of the Romans brought him great hope that it would be obtainable, for he had believed that, once they touched Asia, they would go in a streaming column straight to the royal camp. He resolved, however, not to approach the consul before P. Scipio, and so it had been mandated by the king. In him he had the greatest hope, besides the fact that both greatness of spirit and satiety of glory made him most placable; and it was known among the peoples what a victor he had been in Spain, and then in Africa, and also because his son, having been captured, was in the power of the king.
As to where and when and by what chance he was captured, as with most other things, there is little agreement among the authors. Some relate that, at the beginning of the war, when from Chalcis he was seeking Oreus, he was surrounded by the royal ships; others, after the crossing into Asia, that, when he had been sent with a Fregellan troop to reconnoiter the royal camp, and, the cavalry having been poured out to meet him, he was withdrawing, in that tumult he fell from his horse and, together with two horsemen, was overpowered, and so was led to the king. This is sufficiently agreed: if peace with the Roman People should remain and if there were private hospitality between the king and the Scipios, the youth could not have been treated and honored more liberally nor more benignly than he was.
[35] Aduocato frequenti consilio legati uerba sunt audita. is, multis ante legationibus ultro citroque nequiquam de pace missis, eam ipsam fiduciam impetrandi sibi esse dixit, quod priores legati nihil impetrassent: Zmyrnam enim et Lampsacum et Alexandriam Troadem et Lysimachiam in Europa iactatas in illis disceptationibus esse; quarum Lysimachia iam cessisse regem, ne quid habere eum in Europa dicerent; eas quae in Asia sint ciuitates tradere paratum esse, et si quas alias Romani, quod suarum partium fuerint, uindicare ab imperio regio uelint; impensae quoque in bellum factae partem dimidiam regem praestaturum populo Romano. hae condiciones erant pacis; reliqua oratio fuit, ut memores rerum humanarum et suae fortunae moderarentur et alienam ne urgerent.
[35] With a numerous council convened, the words of the legate were heard. He said that, since many embassies had previously been sent to and fro about peace to no purpose, he had for himself that very confidence of obtaining it for the reason that the earlier legates had obtained nothing: for Smyrna and Lampsacus and Alexandria Troas and Lysimachia in Europe had been bandied about in those disputations; of these, Lysimachia the king had now yielded, so that they might say he had nothing in Europe; he was prepared to hand over the cities which are in Asia, and, if there are any others which the Romans, on the ground that they had been of their party, wish to vindicate from the royal dominion; the king would also furnish to the Roman people half of the expenses incurred in the war. These were the conditions of peace; the rest of his oration was that, mindful of the vicissitudes of human affairs and of their own fortune, they should show moderation and not press hard upon another’s.
let them confine their imperium to Europe; that too is immense; and that it had been easier to procure things one by one by acquisition than to be able to hold them all together; and if they should wish to detach some part of Asia also, provided they set the boundary in undisputed regions, the king would allow his own moderation to be overcome by Roman cupidity for the sake of peace and concord. those things which to the legate seemed great for obtaining peace seemed small to the Romans: for they judged it equitable that the king, through whose fault the war had been stirred up, should make good all the expense that had been incurred in the war, and that royal garrisons should be withdrawn not only from Ionia and Aeolis, but that, just as all Greece had been liberated, so too all the cities which are in Asia should be liberated; that this could not be effected otherwise than that Antiochus cede possession of Asia on this side of Mount Taurus.
[36] Legatus postquam nihil aequi in consilio impetrare se censebat, priuatim—sic enim imperatum erat—P. Scipionis temptare animum est conatus. omnium primum filium ei sine pretio redditurum regem dixit; deinde ignarus et animi Scipionis et moris Romani, auri pondus ingens <est> pollicitus, et nomine tantum regio excepto societatem omnis regni, si per eum pacem impetrasset. ad ea Scipio: 'quod Romanos omnis, quod me, ad quem missus es, ignoras, minus miror, cum te fortunam eius, a quo uenis, ignorare cernam.
[36] After the envoy judged that he was obtaining nothing equitable in the council, privately—for so it had been ordered—he attempted to test the mind of P. Scipio. First of all, he said the king would return his son to him without a price; then, ignorant both of Scipio’s spirit and of the Roman custom, he promised an immense weight of gold, and—save only the royal title—a partnership in the entire kingdom, if through him he should obtain peace. To these things Scipio said: 'That you are ignorant of all Romans, that you are ignorant of me, to whom you have been sent, I marvel at less, since I perceive that you are ignorant of the fortune of him from whom you come.'
Lysimachia had to be held, lest we enter the Chersonese, or we had to be withstood at the Hellespont, lest we carry across into Asia, if you were going to seek peace as from men anxious about the outcome of the war; but with passage into Asia granted, and not only the reins but even a yoke accepted, what disputation on equal terms is left, when dominion must be endured? I, from royal munificence, shall have the greatest gift—my son; as for others, I pray the gods that my fortune may never be in need of others; my spirit certainly will not be in need. For so great a favor toward me he will find me grateful to himself, if he desires private gratitude for a private benefaction; publicly I will neither receive anything from him nor give.
what I can give for the present is faithful counsel. Go, announce in my words: let him desist from war, let him refuse no condition of peace.' Those things moved the king not at all, deeming the hazard of war would be safe, since terms were already being dictated to him as to one conquered. Therefore, with mention of peace set aside for the present, he directed his whole care to the apparatus of war.
[37] Consul omnibus praeparatis ad proposita exsequenda cum ex statiuis mouisset, Dardanum primum, deinde Rhoeteum utraque ciuitate obuiam effusa uenit. inde Ilium processit, castrisque in campo, qui est subiectus moenibus, positis in urbem arcemque cum escendisset, sacrificauit Mineruae praesidi arcis et Iliensibus in omni rerum uerborumque honore ab se oriundos Romanos praeferentibus et Romanis laetis origine sua. inde profecti sextis castris ad caput Caici amnis peruenerunt.
[37] The consul, with everything prepared for executing the proposals, when he had moved out from the fixed camp, came first to Dardanus, then to Rhoeteum, each city pouring out to meet him. Thence he advanced to Ilium, and, the camp having been pitched in the plain which lies beneath the walls, when he had gone up into the city and the citadel, he sacrificed to Minerva, protectress of the citadel; and the Ilians, with every honor of deeds and words, were proclaiming the Romans to be sprung from themselves, and the Romans were glad of their origin. Thence they set out, and at the sixth encampment they reached the head of the river Caïcus.
There also came King Eumenes, who at first had tried to bring the fleet back from the Hellespont into winter quarters at Elaea; then, with contrary winds, when for several days he had been unable to round the promontory of Lectum, having gone ashore, so as not to be lacking at the beginnings of operations, by the nearest way he hastened with a small band to the Roman camp. Sent back from the camp to Pergamum to expedite supplies, after delivering the grain to those to whom the consul had ordered, he returned to the same quarters. Then, provisions for several days having been prepared, the plan was to go against the enemy before winter should overtake them.
Regia castra circa Thyatiram erant. ubi cum audisset Antiochus P. Scipionem aegrum Elaeam delatum, legatos, qui filium ad eum reducerent, misit. non animo solum patrio gratum munus, sed corpori quoque salubre gaudium fuit; satiatusque tandem complexu filii 'renuntiate' inquit 'gratias regi me agere, referre aliam gratiam nunc non posse, quam ut suadeam, ne ante in aciem descendat, quam in castra me redisse audierit.' quamquam sexaginta milia peditum, plus duodecim milia equitum animos interdum ad spem certaminis faciebant, motus tamen Antiochus tanti auctoritate uiri, in quo ad incertos belli euentus omnis fortunae posuerat subsidia, recepit se et transgressus Phrygium amnem circa Magnesiam, quae ad Sipylum est, posuit castra; et ne, si extrahere tempus uellet, munimenta Romani temptarent, fossam sex cubita altam, duodecim latam cum duxisset, extra duplex uallum fossae circumdedit, interiore labro murum cum turribus crebris obiecit, unde facile arceri transitu fossae hostis posset.
The royal camp was around Thyatira. When Antiochus heard that P. Scipio, ill, had been carried down to Elaea, he sent envoys to bring his son back to him. It was a gift pleasing not only to a father’s spirit, but a joy healthful to his body as well; and, at last sated with the embrace of his son, he said, “Report back that I give thanks to the king; that I cannot now return another favor than to advise him not to descend into the battle-line before he has heard that I have returned to camp.” Although sixty thousand infantry and more than twelve thousand cavalry at times lifted his spirits to the hope of contest, nevertheless Antiochus, moved by the authority of so great a man, in whom, against the uncertain events of war, he had placed all the reserves of his fortune, withdrew and, having crossed the Phrygian river, pitched camp around Magnesia, which is at Sipylus; and lest, if he should wish to draw out the time, the Romans might try his defenses, after he had drawn a ditch six cubits deep and twelve wide, outside he surrounded the ditch with a double rampart, and along the inner lip he set a wall with frequent towers, whence the enemy could easily be kept from crossing the ditch.
[38] Consul circa Thyatiram esse regem ratus, continuis itineribus quinto die ad Hyrcanum campum descendit. inde cum profectum audisset, secutus uestigia citra Phrygium amnem, quattuor milia ab hoste posuit castra. eo mille ferme equites— maxima pars Gallograeci erant, et Dahae quidam aliarumque gentium sagittarii equites intermixti—tumultuose amni traiecto in stationes impetum fecerunt.
[38] Thinking that the king was around Thyatira, the consul, by continuous marches, on the fifth day descended to the Hyrcanian plain. Thence, when he heard that he had set out, following the tracks on this side of the Phrygian river, he pitched camp four miles from the enemy. To that place about a thousand horsemen— for the greatest part they were Gallo-Greeks, and certain Dahae and intermingled mounted archers of other nations— with the river crossed in disorder, made an attack upon the outposts.
at first they threw the unformed ranks into turmoil; then, when the contest grew longer
[39] Consul postquam detractari certamen uidit, postero die in consilium aduocauit, quid sibi faciendum esset, si Antiochus pugnandi copiam non faceret? instare hiemem; aut sub pellibus habendos milites fore, aut, si concedere in hiberna uellet, differendum esse in aestatem bellum. nullum umquam hostem Romani aeque contempserunt.
[39] The consul, after he saw the engagement being declined, on the following day called a council as to what he ought to do, if Antiochus should not afford the opportunity of fighting. Winter was pressing; either the soldiers would have to be kept under the hides, or, if he should wish to withdraw into winter quarters, the war must be deferred to summer. Never did the Romans despise any enemy so much.
It was shouted from all sides that he should lead at once and make use of the ardor of the soldiers, who, as though there were not to be fighting with so many thousands of enemies but rather an equal number of cattle to be slaughtered, were ready, through the ditches, over the rampart, to invade the camp, if the enemy would not come out into battle. Gnaeus Domitius, sent to reconnoiter the route and by what part the enemy’s rampart could be approached, after he reported everything with certainty, it was resolved that on the next day the camp be brought nearer; on the third, the standards were brought forth into the middle of the field and the battle line began to be drawn up. Nor did Antiochus think it right to temporize longer, lest by declining the contest he both diminish the spirits of his own men and increase the hope of the enemy; he too led out his forces, having advanced only so far from the camp as made it apparent he meant to fight.
Romana acies unius prope formae fuit et hominum et armorum genere. duae legiones Romanae, duae socium ac Latini nominis erant; quina milia et quadringenos singulae habebant. Romani mediam aciem, cornua Latini tenuerunt; hastatorum prima signa, dein principum erant, triarii postremos claudebant.
the Roman battle line was of nearly a single form in both the kind of men and the kind of arms. two Roman legions, two of the allies and of the Latin name; each had 5,400. the Romans held the middle of the line, the Latins the wings; the foremost ranks were of the hastati, then of the principes, the triarii closed the rearmost.
outside this, as it were, regular battle-line, on the right side the consul drew up, with an even front, the Achaean auxiliaries and those of Eumenes, targeteers intermixed, nearly three thousand foot-soldiers; beyond them he set over against the enemy fewer than three thousand horsemen, of whom eight hundred were Eumenes’s, the whole remainder Roman cavalry; at the extremities he stationed Trallians and Cretans— each side made up the number of five hundred—. the left wing seemed not to need such auxiliaries thrown out in front, because a river on that side and precipitous banks enclosed it; nevertheless four troops of horse were posted over there. this was the sum of the Roman forces, and two thousand mixed Macedonians and Thracians, who had followed of their own will; these were left behind as a garrison for the camp.
they placed 16 elephants behind the triarii in reserve; for, besides the fact that they did not seem able to sustain the multitude of the king’s elephants—there were 54 —African [elephants] do not even in equal number resist Indian [elephants], whether because by magnitude—for those far excel—or by strength of spirits they are conquered.
[40] Regia acies uaria magis multis gentibus, dissimilitudine armorum auxiliorumque erat. decem et sex milia peditum more Macedonum armati fuere, qui phalangitae appellabantur. haec media acies fuit, in fronte in decem partes diuisa; partes eas interpositis binis elephantis distinguebat; a fronte introrsus in duos et triginta ordines armatorum acies patebat.
[40] The royal battle-line was made more variegated by the many nations, by the dissimilarity of arms and of the auxiliaries. Sixteen thousand infantry were armed in the Macedonian manner, who were called phalangites. This was the middle of the line, divided at the front into ten sections; pairs of elephants inserted between distinguished those sections; from the front inward the line extended in thirty-two ranks of armed men.
This was both a source of strength in the royal forces, and likewise, by its appearance—especially with the elephants standing out so prominently among the armed men—it produced great terror. They themselves were huge; frontlets and crests and towers set upon the back added to the spectacle, and on the towers, besides the driver, there stood four armed men. On the right flank of the phalangites he posted 1,500 infantry of the Gallo-Greeks.
to these he added three thousand armored horsemen—they themselves call them cataphracts. Added to these was a wing of about one thousand horsemen; they called it an agema; they were Medes, chosen men, and mixed with them were horsemen of many nations from the same region. Contiguous to these, a herd of 16 elephants was posted in reserve.
from the same side, with the wing a little advanced, there was the royal cohort; they were called Argyraspids from the kind of their arms; then the Dahae, mounted archers, 1,200; then light-armed troops, 3,000, in nearly equal number, part Cretans, part Trallians; 2,500 Mysian archers were added to these. the extreme wing was closed by 4,000, a mixed body of Cyrtian slingers and Elymaean archers. on the left wing to the phalangites there had been joined Gallo-Greek infantry, 1,500, and, armed similarly to these, 2,000 Cappadocians — they had been sent to the king by Ariarathes —; then auxiliaries mixed of every kind, 2,700, and 3,000 cataphract horsemen and 1,000 other horsemen, the royal wing with lighter coverings for themselves and their horses, in other respects a not dissimilar appearance; for the most part they were Syrians, intermixed with Phrygians and Lydians.
in front of this cavalry were scythed four-horse chariots and camels, which they call dromedaries. On these sat Arab archers, having slender swords four cubits long, so that from such a height they might be able to reach the enemy. Then another multitude, equal to that which was on the right wing: first the Tarentines, then 2,500 Gallo‑Greek horse; next 1,000 Neo‑Cretans and, with the same equipment, 1,500 Carians and Cilicians, and as many Trallians; and 4,000 caetrati—these were Pisidians and Pamphylians and Lycians; then auxiliaries of the Cyrtii and Elymaei, matching those stationed on the right wing, and sixteen elephants spaced at a modest interval apart.
[41] Rex ipse in dextro cornu erat; Seleucum filium et Antipatrum fratris filium in laeuo praeposuit; media acies tribus permissa, Minnioni et Zeuxidi et Philippo, magistro elephantorum. nebula matutina, crescente die leuata in nubes, caliginem dedit; umor inde ab austro uelut * perfudit omnia; quae nihil admodum Romanis, eadem perincommoda regiis erant; nam et obscuritas lucis in acie modica Romanis non adimebat in omnis partes conspectum et umor toto fere graui armatu nihil gladios aut pila hebetabat; regii tam lata acie ne ex medio quidem cornua sua conspicere poterant, nedum extremi inter se conspicerentur, et umor arcus fundasque et iaculorum amenta emollierat. falcatae quoque quadrigae, quibus se perturbaturum hostium aciem Antiochus crediderat, in suos terrorem uerterunt.
[41] The king himself was on the right wing; he placed Seleucus his son and Antipater his brother’s son in command on the left; the center of the line was entrusted to three—Minnio, Zeuxides, and Philip, the master of the elephants. A morning mist, as the day increased, lifted into clouds and gave a murk; a dampness then from the south, as if *, drenched everything; which was scarcely anything to the Romans, but the same were very troublesome to the royal troops; for the dimness of the light, with a battle line of modest breadth, did not deprive the Romans of sight in all directions, and the damp, since almost all their gear was heavy armor, dulled neither their swords nor their javelins at all; the king’s men, with a line so broad, could not see their own wings even from the middle, to say nothing of the extremities seeing one another, and the moisture had softened their bows and slings and the thongs of the javelins. The scythed chariots too, with which Antiochus had believed he would throw the enemy’s line into disorder, turned into a terror against his own men.
however they were armed most especially in this fashion: they had spearheads around the pole, projecting ten cubits from the yoke, like horns, with which they might transfix whatever was presented in the way; and at the ends of the yokes two sickles apiece projected on each side, one level with the yoke, the other lower, sloping down to the ground—the former so that it might cut off whatever was thrust at them from the flank, the latter so that it might catch those who had fallen and those coming up underneath; likewise from the axles of the wheels on either side two sickles apiece were fastened, set at different angles in the same manner. chariots armed thus, because, if they were placed on the wing or in the center, they would have to be driven through their own men, the king had stationed in the front line, as was said before. when Eumenes saw this, not unaware how two‑edged a kind both of combat and of auxiliary force it was, if someone should inspire panic in the horses rather than undertake a regular fight, he orders the Cretan archers and slingers and javelin‑throwers <cum aliquot turmis> of cavalry, not in close order, but as dispersed as they could possibly be, to dash out and to pour in missiles from all sides at once.
These things, like a squall, partly by the wounds of missiles hurled from every side, partly by dissonant shouts, so threw the horses into consternation that suddenly, as if unbridled, they were borne here and there at an uncertain run; and their onset both the light-armed, and the nimble slingers, and the swift Cretan would evade in a moment; and the cavalry, by pursuing, increased the tumult and panic among the horses and camels—these too at the same time being thrown into consternation—by shouting and by the manifold addition of another surrounding throng. Thus the chariots are driven out into the ground between the two battle lines; and, the empty mockery removed, then at last, with the signal given on both sides, there was a rush to a regular battle.
[42] Ceterum uana illa res uerae mox cladis causa fuit. auxilia enim subsidiaria, quae proxima locata erant, pauore et consternatione quadrigarum territa et ipsa in fugam uersa nudarunt omnia usque ad cataphractos equites. ad quos cum dissipatis subsidiis peruenisset equitatus Romanus, ne primum quidem impetum sustinuerunt; pars eorum fusi sunt, alii propter grauitatem tegumentorum armorumque oppressi [sunt]. totum deinde laeuum cornu inclinauit, et turbatis auxiliaribus, qui inter equitem et quos appellant phalangitas erant, usque ad mediam aciem terror peruenit.
[42] However, that vain affair was soon the cause of a true disaster. For the subsidiary auxiliaries, which had been posted nearest, terrified by the panic and consternation of the chariots and themselves turned to flight, laid everything bare all the way to the cataphract cavalry. When the Roman cavalry reached these, the supports having been scattered, they did not even withstand the first charge; some of them were routed, others were overwhelmed on account of the heaviness of their coverings and armor. Then the whole left wing gave way, and with the auxiliaries—who were between the cavalry and those whom they call phalangites—thrown into disorder, terror reached as far as the middle of the battle-line.
There, at once the ranks were perturbed, and the use of their very-long spears was impeded by the interrunning of their own men—the Macedonians call them sarissas—; the Roman legions advanced their standards and hurled their pila into the disordered. Not even the interposed elephants deterred the Roman soldier, already habituated by the African wars both to avoid the beast’s charge and, from the flank, either to assail it with pila or, if he could come nearer, to cut the sinews with his sword. By now almost the whole center had been laid low from the front, and the reserves, having been surrounded, were being cut down from the rear, when in another quarter they perceived the rout of their own and the shouting of the panic-stricken, now almost at the very camp.
for Antiochus, from the right wing, since there, owing to confidence in the river, he discerned no reserves except four squadrons of horse—and these, while they were joining themselves to their own, stripping the bank—made an assault on that part with auxiliaries and cataphract cavalry; nor was he pressing only from the front, but, the wing having been wheeled around from the river, he was now pressing them from the flank, until the cavalry were routed first, then the nearest of the infantry were driven at full speed into the camp.
[43] Praeerat castris M. Aemilius tribunus militum, M. Lepidi filius, qui post paucos annos pontifex maximus factus est. is qua fugam cernebat suorum, cum praesidio omni occurrit et stare primo, deinde redire in pugnam iubebat pauorem et turpem fugam increpans; minae exinde erant, in perniciem suam caecos ruere, ni dicto parerent; postremo dat suis signum, ut primos fugientium caedant, turbam insequentium ferro et uulneribus in hostem redigant. hic maior timor minorem uicit; ancipiti coacti metu primo constiterunt; deinde et ipsi rediere in pugnam, et Aemilius cum suo praesidio— erant autem duo milia uirorum fortium—effuse sequenti regi acriter obstitit, et Attalus, Eumenis frater, ab dextro cornu, quo laeuum hostium primo impetu fugatum fuerat, <ut> ab sinistro fugam suorum et tumultum circa castra uidit, in tempore cum ducentis equitibus aduenit.
[43] In command of the camp was M. Aemilius, a military tribune, the son of M. Lepidus, who a few years later was made pontifex maximus. He, wherever he saw the flight of his men, ran to meet it with all his guard and ordered them first to stand, then to return into the fight, rebuking fear and disgraceful flight; from that point there were threats that they would, blind, rush to their own ruin, unless they obeyed the word; at last he gives his men the signal to cut down the foremost of the fugitives, to drive the crowd that followed, with steel and wounds, back against the enemy. Here the greater fear overcame the lesser; compelled by a double dread they first stood firm; then they too returned into the fight, and Aemilius with his guard— there were, moreover, two thousand brave men— stoutly withstood the king as he was pursuing in disorder, and Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, from the right wing, where the enemy’s left had been routed at the first onset, when he saw on the left the flight of his own men and the tumult around the camp, arrived in time with two hundred horsemen.
After Antiochus, when he caught sight both of those whose backs he had just seen, now returning to renew the fight, and of another throng streaming in both from the camp and from the battle line, turned his horse to flight. Thus on both wings the Romans, victors, push on through heaps of bodies, which they had piled up especially in the middle of the battle line—where both the hard core of the bravest men and the heaviness of their arms had hindered flight—and they proceed to the camp for plundering. The horsemen of Eumenes first of all, then also the other cavalry, pursue the enemy everywhere over the whole field and cut down the hindmost, as they overtook each in turn.
However, for the fleeing the greater disaster was their own throng, with chariots, elephants, and camels intermingled, since, their ranks loosened, as if blind they were rushing one over another and were trampled by the charge of the beasts. In the camp likewise an enormous slaughter, almost greater than in the battle line, was wrought; for both the flight of the foremost inclined especially toward the camp, and, in confidence of this multitude, those who were in the garrison fought the more pertinaciously before the rampart. The Romans, held up at the gates and the rampart—which they had believed they would capture by the very rush—after at last they broke through, out of wrath inflicted the heavier slaughter.
[44] Ad quinquaginta milia peditum caesa eo die dicuntur, equitum tria milia; mille et quadringenti capti et quindecim cum rectoribus elephanti. Romanorum aliquot uulnerati sunt; ceciderunt non plus trecenti pedites, quattuor et uiginti equites et de Eumenis exercitu quinque et uiginti.
[44] About fifty thousand foot-soldiers are said to have been cut down that day, three thousand horsemen; one thousand four hundred were captured, and fifteen elephants with their drivers. Of the Romans several were wounded; not more than three hundred infantry fell, twenty-four cavalry, and from the army of Eumenes twenty-five.
Et illo quidem die uictores direptis hostium castris cum magna praeda in sua reuerterunt; postero die spoliabant caesorum corpora et captiuos contrahebant. legati ab Thyatira et Magnesia ab Sipylo ad dedendas urbes uenerunt. Antiochus cum paucis fugiens, in ipso itinere pluribus congregantibus se, modica manu armatorum media ferme nocte Sardis concessit.
And on that day indeed the victors, the enemy camps having been plundered, returned to their own camp with great booty; on the following day they were despoiling the bodies of the slain and gathering in the captives. Envoys from Thyatira and from Magnesia by Sipylus came to surrender their cities. Antiochus, fleeing with a few, as more were gathering to him on the very road, with a modest band of men-at-arms withdrew to Sardis about the middle of the night.
Thence, when he had heard that Seleucus his son and certain of his friends had advanced to Apamea, he himself at the fourth watch, with his wife and daughter, made for Apamea. The custody of the city was entrusted to Xenon, with Timon set over Lydia; these being spurned, by the consensus of the townspeople and the soldiers who were in the citadel, legates were sent to the consul.
[45] Sub idem fere tempus et ab Trallibus et a Magnesia, quae super Maeandrum est, et ab Epheso ad dedendas urbes uenerunt. reliquerat Ephesum Polyxenidas audita pugna, et classi usque ad Patara Lyciae peruectus, metu stationis Rhodiarum nauium, quae ad Megisten erant, in terram egressus cum paucis itinere pedestri Syriam petit. Asiae ciuitates in fidem consulis dicionemque populi Romani sese tradebant.
[45] About the same time also from Tralles and from Magnesia, which is above the Maeander, and from Ephesus they came to surrender their cities. Polyxenidas had left Ephesus when the battle was heard of, and, having conveyed the fleet as far as Patara in Lycia, for fear of the station of the Rhodian ships, which were at Megiste, he disembarked and with a few men by a pedestrian route made for Syria. The cities of Asia were delivering themselves into the good faith of the consul and the dominion of the Roman People.
Sub idem fere tempus caduceator ab Antiocho per P. Scipionem a consule petit impetrauitque, ut oratores mittere liceret regi. paucos post dies Zeuxis, qui praefectus Lydiae fuerat, et Antipater, fratris filius, uenerunt. prius Eumene conuento, quem propter uetera certamina auersum maxime a pace credebant esse, et placatiore eo et sua et regis spe inuento, tum P. Scipionem et per eum consulem adierunt; praebitoque iis petentibus frequenti consilio ad mandata edenda, 'non tam, quid ipsi dicamus, habe<ntes ueni>mus' inquit Zeuxis, 'quam ut a uobis quaeramus, Romani, quo piaculo expiare errorem regis, pacem ueniamque impetrare a uictoribus possimus.
At about the same time a herald from Antiochus, through P. Scipio, asked and obtained from the consul that it be permitted the king to send envoys. A few days later Zeuxis, who had been prefect of Lydia, and Antipater, his brother’s son, came. First, having conferred with Eumenes—whom, on account of old contests, they believed to be most averse to peace—and finding him more placated and buoyed both by his own and the king’s hope, then they approached P. Scipio and through him the consul; and, a full council having been granted them at their request for setting forth their mandates, “we have come,” said Zeuxis, “not so much having what we ourselves should say, as to ask of you, Romans, by what expiation we may purge the king’s error, and be able to obtain peace and pardon from the victors.”
you have always, with the greatest magnanimity, pardoned defeated kings and peoples; how much the more, and with a more placated and calmer spirit, does it befit you to do this in this victory, which has made you lords of the world? with contests now laid aside against all mortals, it behooves you, no less than gods, to take counsel for and to spare the human race.' already before the envoys came, it had been decreed what would be replied. it was decided that Africanus should respond.
he is reported to have spoken in this manner: 'Romans, of those things which were in the power of the immortal gods, we have those which the gods have given; the spirits, which are of our own mind, we have borne and do bear the same in every fortune, and neither prosperous circumstances have exalted them nor adverse ones diminished them. Of this fact—if I should omit others—I would give you your Hannibal as a witness, if I were not able to give you yourselves. After we crossed the Hellespont, before we saw the royal camp, before we saw the battle-line, while Mars was common and the outcome of war uncertain, when you were treating about peace we were proposing conditions as equals to equals; the same terms we now, as victors, offer to the vanquished: abstain from Europe; withdraw from all Asia which is on this side of Mount Taurus.'
for the expenses then incurred in the war you shall pay fifteen thousand Euboic talents, five hundred immediately, two thousand five hundred when the senate and the Roman people shall have ratified the peace; then <milia> talents over twelve years. It is resolved also that four hundred talents be restored to Eumenes, and whatever grain remains out of that which is owed to his father. When we have covenanted these things, that we may hold it for certain that you will carry them out, there will indeed be some pledge if you give twenty hostages at our discretion; but it will never be sufficiently clear to us that there is peace for the Roman people where Hannibal shall be; him before all things we demand.
you will also surrender Thoas the Aetolian, the instigator of the Aetolian war, who, by their confidence armed you, and by your confidence armed them, against us, and along with him Mnasilochus the Acarnanian, and Philon of Chalcis, and Eubulides. the king will make peace in a worse fortune, because he makes it later than he could have made it. if he shall now delay, let him know that the majesty of kings is more difficult to be drawn down from the highest pinnacle to the middle than to be precipitated from the middling heights to the depths.' with those mandates, envoys had been sent by the king to accept every condition of peace; and so it pleased that envoys be sent to Rome.
the consul divided the army into winter quarters at Magnesia on the Maeander, and at Tralles and Ephesus. To Ephesus, to the consul, a few days later hostages were brought by the king, and envoys, who were to go to Rome, arrived. Eumenes likewise at the same time set out for Rome, whither the king’s envoys were going.
[46] Dum haec in Asia geruntur, duo fere sub idem tempus cum triumphi spe proconsules de prouinciis Romam redierunt, Q. Minucius ex Liguribus, M'. Acilius ex Aetolia. auditis utriusque rebus gestis Minucio negatus triumphus, Acilio magno consensu decretus; isque triumphans de rege Antiocho et Aetolis urbem est inuectus. praelata in eo triumpho sunt signa militaria ducenta triginta, et argenti infecti tria milia pondo, signati tetrachmum Atticum centum decem tria milia, cistophori ducenta undequinquaginta, uasa argentea caelata multa magnique ponderis; tulit et suppellectilem regiam argenteam ac uestem magnificam, coronas aureas, dona sociarum ciuitatium, quadraginta quinque, spolia omnis generis.
[46] While these things were being done in Asia, two proconsuls returned to Rome from their provinces with the hope of a triumph, almost at the same time, Q. Minucius from the Ligurians, M'. Acilius from Aetolia. When the deeds of each had been heard, a triumph was denied to Minucius; to Acilius, by great consensus, it was decreed; and he, triumphing over King Antiochus and the Aetolians, was carried into the city. In that triumph there were borne 230 military standards, and 3,000 pounds of unwrought silver, 113,000 Attic tetradrachms struck, 249 cistophori, many silver vessels chased and of great weight; he also carried royal silver furnishings and magnificent clothing, golden crowns—the gifts of the allied communities—45, and spoils of every kind.
He led 36 noble captives, Aetolians and royal commanders. Damocritus, leader of the Aetolians, a few days earlier, after he had escaped from prison by night, when the guards overtook him on the bank of the Tiber, before he could be apprehended, pierced himself through with a sword. Only the soldiers to follow the chariot were lacking; otherwise the triumph was magnificent both in spectacle and in the fame of the deeds.
Huius triumphi minuit laetitiam nuntius ex Hispania tristis, aduersa pugna in Bastetanis ductu L. Aemilii proconsulis apud oppidum Lyconem cum Lusitanis sex milia de Romano exercitu cecidisse, ceteros pauentis intra uallum compulsos aegre castra defendisse et in modum fugientium magnis itineribus in agrum pacatum reductos. haec ex Hispania nuntiata. ex Gallia legatos Placentinorum et Cremonensium L. Aurunculeius praetor in senatum introduxit.
The joy of this triumph was diminished by a sad message from Spain: in an adverse battle among the Bastetani, under the leadership of L. Aemilius, proconsul, near the town Lycon, six thousand from the Roman army had fallen in fighting with the Lusitanians; the rest, panic‑stricken, driven within the rampart, had with difficulty defended the camp, and, in the manner of fugitives, by great marches had been led back into a pacified countryside. These things were reported from Spain. From Gaul, the praetor L. Aurunculeius introduced into the senate the envoys of the Placentines and the Cremonese.
As they complained of a lack of colonists—some having been consumed by the casualties of war, others by disease, and that certain persons, out of weariness at the neighboring Gauls, had abandoned the colonies—the senate decreed that C. Laelius, consul, if it seemed good to him, should enroll six thousand families, to be divided into those colonies, and that L. Aurunculeius, praetor, should appoint triumvirs for conducting those colonists. Appointed were M. Atilius Serranus, L. Valerius P. F. Flaccus, L. Valerius C. F. Tappo.
[47] Haud ita multo post, cum iam consularium comitiorum appeteret tempus, C. Laelius consul ex Gallia Romam rediit. is non solum ex facto absente se senatus consulto in supplementum Cremonae et Placentiae colonos scripsit, sed, ut nouae coloniae duae in agrum, qui Boiorum fuisset, deducerentur, et rettulit et auctore eo patres censuerunt.
[47] Not very long after, when now the time of the consular elections was drawing near, C. Laelius the consul returned to Rome from Gaul. He not only, on the basis of a senatorial decree passed while he was absent, enrolled colonists as a reinforcement for Cremona and Placentia, but he both brought a measure that two new colonies be led out into the territory which had been the Boii’s, and, with him as sponsor, the Fathers so decreed.
eodem tempore litterae L. Aemilii praetoris adlatae de nauali pugna ad Myonnesum facta, et L. Scipionem consulem in Asiam exercitum traiecisse. uictoriae naualis ergo in diem unum supplicatio decreta est, in alterum diem, quod exercitus Romanus tum primum in Asia posuisset castra, ut ea res prospera et laeta eueniret. uicenis maioribus hostiis in singulas supplicationes sacrificare consul est iussus.
at the same time letters of L. Aemilius the praetor were brought about the naval battle fought at Myonnesus, and that L. Scipio the consul had transported his army into Asia. therefore, for the naval victory, a supplication was decreed for one day; and for another day, because the Roman army then for the first time had pitched camp in Asia, that this matter might turn out prosperous and joyful. the consul was ordered to sacrifice twenty greater victims for each supplication.
Then the consular elections were held with great contention. M. Aemilius Lepidus was standing for office with the unfavorable opinion of all against him, because he had left the province of Sicily for the purpose of canvassing, without the senate having been consulted that it might be permitted to him to do this. Standing with him were M. Fulvius Nobilior, Cn. Manlius <Uulso>, and M. Valerius Messalla.
Fulvius was elected sole consul, since the others had not filled the centuries; and on the following day he named Cn. Manlius as colleague, Lepidus having been cast down—for Messalla lay low—. Thereafter the praetors were appointed: the two Q. Fabii, Labeo and Pictor—Pictor had that year been inaugurated Flamen Quirinalis—, M. Sempronius Tuditanus, Sp. Postumius Albinus, L. Plautius Hypsaeus, L. Baebius Dives.
[48]M. Fuluio Nobiliore et Cn. Manlio Uulsone consulibus Ualerius Antias auctor est rumorem celebrem Romae fuisse et paene pro certo habitum, recipiendi Scipionis adulescentis causa consulem L. Scipionem et cum eo P. Africanum in colloquium euocatos regis et ipsos comprehensos esse, et ducibus captis confestim ad castra Romana exercitum ductum, eaque expugnata et deletas omnis copias Romanorum esse. ob haec Aetolos sustulisse animos et abnuisse imperata facere, principesque eorum in Macedoniam et in Dardanos et in Thraeciam ad conducenda mercede auxilia profectos. haec qui nuntiarent Romam, A. Terentium Uarronem et M. Claudium Lepidum ab A. Cornelio propraetore ex Aetolia missos esse.
[48] In the consulship of M. Fulvius Nobilior and Cn. Manlius Vulso, Valerius Antias is the author that a celebrated rumor was current at Rome, and was held almost for certain, that, for the sake of receiving back the young Scipio, the consul L. Scipio, and with him P. Africanus, had been called by the king to a conference, and that they themselves had been arrested; and, the commanders having been captured, the army was forthwith led against the Roman camp, and it was taken by storm and all the forces of the Romans were annihilated. Because of these things the Aetolians took heart and refused to do what was enjoined, and their chiefs set out into Macedonia and to the Dardanians and into Thrace to hire auxiliaries for pay. To announce these things to Rome, A. Terentius Varro and M. Claudius Lepidus had been sent by A. Cornelius, the propraetor, from Aetolia.
he then interwove with this tale that the Aetolian envoys in the senate, among other things, were also interrogated as to whence they had heard that the Roman commanders in Asia had been captured by King Antiochus and the army annihilated; that the Aetolians replied they had been made more certain by their own envoys who had been with the consul. as I have no other author of this rumor, the matter has neither been affirmed by my opinion nor, as empty, been passed over.
[49] Aetoli legati in senatum introducti, cum et causa eos sua et fortuna hortaretur, ut confitendo seu culpae seu errori ueniam supplices peterent, orsi a beneficiis in populum Romanum et prope exprobrantes uirtutem suam in Philippo bello et offenderunt aures insolentia sermonis et eo, uetera et oblitterata repetendo, rem adduxerunt, ut haud paulo plurium maleficiorum gentis quam beneficiorum memoria subiret animos patrum, et quibus misericordia opus erat, iram et odium irritarent. interrogati ab uno senatore, permitterentne arbitrium de se populo Romano, deinde ab altero, habiturine eosdem quos populus Romanus socios et hostis essent, nihil ad ea respondentes egredi templo iussi sunt. conclamatum deinde prope ab uniuerso senatu est totos adhuc Antiochi Aetolos esse et ex unica ea spe pendere animos eorum; itaque bellum cum haud dubiis hostibus gerendum perdomandosque feroces animos esse.
[49] The Aetolian envoys, introduced into the senate, although both their cause and their fortune urged them to beg as suppliants for pardon by confessing, whether for guilt or for error, began from their benefactions toward the Roman people and, almost upbraiding their own valor in the war with Philip, offended the ears by the insolence of their discourse; and by this, by repeating things old and obliterated, they brought the matter to the point that in the minds of the Fathers there arose the memory of far more malefactions of the nation than benefactions, and they, who had need of mercy, provoked anger and hatred. Asked by one senator whether they would permit the decision about themselves to the Roman people, then by another whether they would hold the same allies and enemies as the Roman people held, making no answer to these they were ordered to depart from the temple. Then it was cried out almost by the entire senate that the Aetolians were still wholly Antiochus’s and that their spirits hung upon that single hope; and so war must be waged with by no means doubtful enemies, and their fierce minds must be thoroughly subdued.
That matter too inflamed them, because at the very time when they were asking peace from the Romans, they were carrying war into Dolopia and Athamania. A decree of the senate was passed in accordance with the opinion of Manius Acilius, who had defeated Antiochus and the Aetolians, that the Aetolians be ordered on that day to set out from the city and to leave Italy within fifteen days. Aulus Terentius Varro was sent to guard their route, and it was proclaimed that, if thereafter any embassy from the Aetolians should come to Rome, unless with the permission of the commander who held that province and together with a Roman legate, all would be treated as enemies.
[50] De prouinciis deinde consules rettulerunt; sortiri eos Aetoliam et Asiam placuit; qui Asiam sortitus esset, exercitus ei, quem L. Scipio haberet, est decretus et in eum supplementum quattuor milia peditum Romanorum, ducenti equites, et sociorum ac Latini nominis octo milia peditum, quadringenti equites; his copiis ut bellum cum Antiocho gereret. alteri consuli exercitus, qui erat in Aetolia, est decretus, et ut in supplementum scriberet permissum ciuium sociorumque eundem numerum, quem collega. naues quoque idem consul, quae priore anno paratae erant, ornare iussus ac ducere secum; nec cum Aetolis solum bellum gerere, sed etiam in Cephallaniam insulam traicere.
[50] Then the consuls reported about the provinces; it was decided that they should draw lots for Aetolia and Asia; for the one who should draw Asia, the army which L. Scipio had was decreed, and to it a reinforcement of 4,000 Roman foot-soldiers, 200 horsemen, and of the allies and the Latin name 8,000 foot-soldiers, 400 horsemen; with these forces he was to wage war with Antiochus. To the other consul the army which was in Aetolia was decreed, and he was permitted to enroll, as a supplement, the same number of citizens and allies as his colleague. The same consul also was ordered to equip the ships which had been prepared in the previous year and to lead them with him; and not only to wage war with the Aetolians, but also to cross over to the island of Cephallenia.
the same man was given a mandate that, if he could do so with advantage to the republic, he should come to Rome for the elections (comitia); for, besides the fact that the annual magistrates had to be subrogated, it was also decided that censors be created. if any matter detained him, he should inform the senate that he could not be present at the time of the comitia. Aetolia fell by lot to Marcus Fulvius, Asia to Gnaeus Manlius.
then the praetors cast lots: Sp. Postumius Albinus for the urban jurisdiction and the one among foreigners; M. Sempronius Tuditanus for Sicily; Q. Fabius Pictor, flamen of Quirinus, for Sardinia; Q. Fabius Labeo for the fleet; L. Plautius Hypsaeus for Hither Spain; L. Baebius Dives for Further Spain. For Sicily one legion and the fleet which was in that province were decreed, and that the new praetor should impose two tithes of grain upon the Sicilians; of these he should send one to Asia, the other to Aetolia. The same was ordered to be exacted from the Sardinians, and that grain to be carried to the same armies to which the Sicilian [grain] was conveyed.
To L. Baebius a reinforcement for Spain was given: one thousand Roman infantry, fifty cavalry, and six thousand infantry of the Latin name, two hundred cavalry; to Plautius Hypsaeus in Hither Spain one thousand Roman infantry were assigned, two thousand allies of the Latin name and two hundred cavalry; with these reinforcements, so that each of the two Spains might have a single legion. For the magistrates of the previous year, the imperium of C. Laelius with his own army was prolonged for a year; prolonged likewise to P. Junius, propraetor in Etruria, with that army which was in the province, and to M. Tuccius, propraetor in Bruttium and Apulia.
[51] Priusquam in prouincias praetores irent, certamen inter P. Licinium pontificem maximum fuit et Q. Fabium Pictorem flaminem Quirinalem, quale patrum memoria inter L. Metellum et Postumium Albinum fuerat. consulem illum cum C. Lutatio collega in Siciliam ad classem proficiscentem ad sacra retinuerat Metellus, pontifex maximus; praetorem hunc, ne in Sardiniam proficisceretur, P. Licinius tenuit. et in senatu et ad populum magnis contentionibus certatum, et imperia inhibita ultro citroque, et pignera capta, et multae dictae, et tribuni appellati, et prouocatum ad populum est.
[51] Before the praetors went into their provinces, there was a contest between P. Licinius, the pontifex maximus, and Q. Fabius Pictor, the Quirinal flamen, such as in the memory of the fathers had been between L. Metellus and Postumius Albinus. That consul, as he was setting out with his colleague C. Lutatius to Sicily to the fleet, Metellus, the pontifex maximus, had held back for the rites; this praetor P. Licinius detained, that he might not set out to Sardinia. Both in the senate and before the people the struggle was contested with great contentions, and commands were inhibited on both sides, and pledges were seized, and fines were pronounced, and the tribunes were appealed to, and there was an appeal to the people.
At last religious scruple prevailed; the flamen was ordered to be obedient to the pontifex; and many fines were remitted to him by order of the people. The senators, by their authority, deterred the praetor—angry at the province having been snatched away and attempting to abdicate his magistracy—from resigning, and decreed that he should pronounce the law among the peregrines. Then, with the levies completed within a few days —for not many soldiers had to be enrolled— the consuls and praetors set out to their provinces.
then a rumor about the things done in Asia, rashly promulgated without an author, and after a few days sure reports and the letters of the commander were brought to Rome, which brought joy not so much from the recent fear—for they had ceased to fear the king, defeated in Aetolia—as from his old repute, because at the inception of that war he had seemed a grievous enemy both by his own forces, and because he had Hannibal as commander of the army. nevertheless they judged that nothing should be changed either about sending a consul to Asia, or that his forces should be diminished, for fear lest there should have to be fighting with the Gauls.
[52] Haud multo post M. Aurelius Cotta legatus L. Scipionis cum Antiochi regis legatis et Eumenes rex Rhodiique Romam uenerunt. Cotta in senatu primum, deinde in contione iussu patrum, quae acta in Asia essent, exposuit. supplicatio inde in triduum decreta est, et quadraginta maiores hostiae immolari iussae.
[52] Not long after, M. Aurelius Cotta, legate of L. Scipio, together with the legates of King Antiochus, and King Eumenes and the Rhodians, came to Rome. Cotta, in the senate first, then in a public assembly by order of the fathers, set forth what had been done in Asia. Then a supplication for three days was decreed, and forty greater victims were ordered to be immolated.
then, first of all, a hearing before the senate was given to Eumenes. He, when he had briefly both given thanks to the Fathers because they had lifted himself and his brother out of siege and had vindicated his kingdom from the injuries of Antiochus, and had offered congratulations that by land and sea they had conducted affairs prosperously, and that they had routed and put to flight King Antiochus and stripped him of his camp, and had expelled him first from Europe, afterwards also from Asia which is on this side of Mount Taurus, said next that he preferred that they learn of his own merits from their commanders and legates rather than from his own recounting. As all approved these things and bade him himself to speak, laying aside modesty for that purpose, what he judged equitable to be conferred upon him by the Senate and People of Rome—adding that the senate would act more readily and more cumulatively, if in any way it could, proportionally to his merits—the king replied that, if the choice of rewards were offered to him by others, he would gladly, provided only the opportunity were given of consulting the Roman senate, have used the counsel of that most august order, lest anything might seem either to have been desired immoderately or to have been requested with too little modesty; but indeed, since they themselves were to be the givers, their munificence toward himself and his brothers ought all the more to be of their own discretion.
By this oration of his the enrolled fathers were in no way deterred from ordering him to speak; and when for some time—a contest being waged, here by indulgence, there by modesty, between parties yielding in turn with a deference not so much mutual as inexplicably compliant—Eumenes straightway withdrew. The senate persisted in the same opinion, declaring it absurd that the king should be ignorant with what hope or request he had come; what things are accommodated to his own kingdom he himself knows best; he knows Asia far better than the senate; therefore he must be called back and compelled to express what he wished and what he thought.
[53] Reductus a praetore in templum rex et dicere iussus 'perseuerassem' inquit 'tacere, patres conscripti, nisi Rhodiorum legationem mox uocaturos uos scirem, et illis auditis mihi necessitatem fore dicendi. quae quidem eo difficilior oratio erit, quod ea postulata eorum futura sunt, ut non solum nihil, quod contra me sit, sed ne quod ad ipsos quidem proprie pertineat, petere uideantur. agent enim causam ciuitatium Graecarum, et liberari eas dicent debere.
[53] Brought back by the praetor into the temple, the king, ordered to speak, said: “I would have persisted in keeping silent, Conscript Fathers, if I did not know that you are soon about to summon the embassy of the Rhodians, and that, after they have been heard, there will be a necessity for me to speak. And indeed my oration will for that reason be the more difficult, because their demands will be such that they will seem to ask not only nothing that is against me, but not even anything that properly pertains to themselves. For they will be pleading the cause of the Greek cities, and will say that they ought to be set free.”
with that obtained, who doubts that they will alienate from us not only those cities which will be liberated, but even our old stipendiary ones as well, while they themselves, bound by so great a benefaction, will have them in word as allies, in reality as subjects to their imperium and liable? and, if it pleases the gods, even while they aspire to such great resources and power, they will in every respect dissemble that it pertains to themselves; they will only say that it befits you and is congruent with your previous acts. you must take precautions that this discourse not deceive you, and see to it not only that you do not unequally press down some of your allies too much and exalt others beyond measure, but also that those who have taken up arms against you be not in a better condition than your allies and friends.
As for me, in other matters I would rather seem to have yielded within the boundary of my right to anyone at all than to have strained too pertinaciously in maintaining it; but in the contest of your friendship, your benevolence toward me, the honor that will be held from you, I can by no means bear to be outdone. This greatest inheritance I received from my father, who, first of all those inhabiting Asia and Greece, entered into your friendship and carried it through with perpetual and constant fidelity to the very end of his life; nor did he furnish to you merely a loyal and good spirit, but he took part in all the wars that you waged in Greece, on land and on sea, with every kind of supplies, aiding you in such wise that no one of your allies could in any respect be equaled to him; finally, when he was exhorting the Boeotians to your alliance, in that very assembly he fainted away, and not long after breathed his last. Following in his footsteps, in goodwill indeed and zeal in cultivating your favor I could add nothing—for these were insuperable; but that I might surpass him in the things themselves, in merits and in the expenditures of services, Fortune, the times, Antiochus, and the war waged in Asia furnished the material.
Antiochus, king of Asia and of a part of Europe, was giving his daughter to me in matrimony; he was at once restoring the cities that had defected from us; he was holding out great hope of amplifying the realm hereafter, if I had waged war with him against you. I will not vaunt myself on this, that I have committed nothing against you; rather I will recount those things which are worthy of the most ancient friendship of our house with you. With infantry and naval forces, so that none of your allies could equal me, I aided your commanders; I supplied provisions by land and sea; at the naval battles, which were fought in many places, I was present at all; and I spared neither my toil nor my danger anywhere.
What is most miserable in war, I suffered a siege, shut in at Pergamum, with the last peril at once to life and to kingdom. Then, freed from the siege, when Antiochus on one side and Seleucus on the other had their camps around the citadel of my realm, leaving my own affairs, with my whole fleet I went to meet your consul L. Scipio at the Hellespont, so that I might aid him in transporting the army across. After your army crossed over into Asia, I never left the consul; no Roman soldier was more assiduous in your camp than I and my brothers; no expedition, no cavalry engagement was undertaken without me; I stood in the battle-line there, I defended that sector in which the consul wished me to be.
I am not going to say this, Conscript Fathers: who in this war can be compared with me for merits toward you? I would not dare to compare myself to any, whether of peoples or of kings, whom you hold in great honor. Masinissa was an enemy to you before he was an ally, and not with his kingdom intact together with his auxiliaries, but as an exile, expelled, with all his forces lost, he fled with a squadron of cavalry into your camp; nevertheless, because in Africa he stood with you faithfully and energetically against Syphax and the Carthaginians, you restored him not only to his paternal kingdom, but, with the most opulent part of Syphax’s realm added, you made him prepotent among the kings of Africa.
With what, then, at last, reward and honor are we deemed worthy in your eyes, we who have never been enemies, always allies? My father, I, and my brothers have borne arms for you not only in Asia, but also far from home in the Peloponnesus, in Boeotia, in Aetolia, in the wars with Philip and Antiochus, and in the Aetolian war, by land and sea. What, then, do you demand?
let someone say it. as for me, Conscript Fathers, since in any case your will in what is to be said must be complied with, if you have driven Antiochus beyond the ridges of Taurus with this intention, that you yourselves should hold those lands, I would rather have no dwellers-around nor borderers than you, nor do I hope that by any other means my kingdom will be safer and more stable; but if it is in your mind to withdraw from there and lead away your armies, I would dare to say that no one among your allies is more worthy to possess what has been won by you in war than I. but indeed, it is magnificent to free enslaved cities.
[54] Grata oratio regis patribus fuit, et facile apparebat munifice omnia et propenso animo facturos. interposita Smyrnaeorum breuis legatio est, quia non aderat quidam Rhodiorum. collaudatis egregie Smyrnaeis, quod omnia ultima pati quam se regi tradere maluissent, introducti Rhodii sunt.
[54] The king’s oration was pleasing to the Fathers, and it was easy to see that they would do everything munificently and with a propense spirit. A brief embassy of the Smyrnaeans was interposed, since a certain one of the Rhodians was not present. The Smyrnaeans having been excellently commended, because they had preferred to suffer every extremity rather than to hand themselves over to the king, the Rhodians were ushered in.
The leader of the legation, after setting out the beginnings of friendship with the Roman People and the merits of the Rhodians in the war with Philip first, then with Antiochus, said: 'In our whole course of action, Conscript Fathers, nothing is for us neither more difficult nor more vexatious than that we have a dispute with Eumenes, with whom alone among kings there is for individuals in private a bond of hospitality, and—what moves us more—there is a public hospitality for our civitas. Moreover, it is not our disposition, Conscript Fathers, that separates us, but the nature of things, which is most powerful, such that we, being free, plead the cause of freedom even for others, while kings wish all things to be servile and subject to their imperium. However the matter stands, our modesty toward the king hinders us more than the dispute itself either has been hampering to us or seems likely to offer to you a perplexing deliberation.'
for if otherwise no honor could be shown to an allied and friendly king, well-deserving in this very war, the prizes of which are under discussion, unless you were to deliver free cities into servitude to him, the deliberation would be a two-edged one, lest either you dismiss a friendly king without honor, or depart from your established practice and now disfigure, by the servitude of so many cities, the glory won in the war with Philip; but from this necessity—either of diminishing your grace toward a friend or of diminishing your own glory—Fortune splendidly sets you free. for by the benignity of the gods your victory is not more glorious than it is rich, which easily releases you from that, as it were, debt. for Lycaonia and both Phrygias and all Pisidia and the Chersonese, and the regions which lie around it in Europe, are in your power, of which any one, if added to the king, can multiply the realm of Eumenes, while if all were granted, they could make him equal to the greatest kings.
It is therefore permitted to you both to enrich your allies with the prizes of war and not to depart from your established practice, and to remember what title you put forward before against Philip, now against Antiochus, for war—what you did with Philip conquered, what now is desired and expected from you, not so much because you did it as because it is fitting that you do it. For to different men different causes of arms are both honorable and plausible: those men [seek] land, others villages, others towns, others ports and some stretch of the sea-shore to possess; you neither coveted these things before you had them, nor now, when the circle of the lands is under your dominion, can you desire them. You have fought for dignity and glory among the whole human race, which for a long time now regards your name and imperium side by side with the immortal gods.
What was hard to prepare and to acquire, I do not know whether it is more difficult to guard. You have undertaken to maintain from royal servitude the freedom of a nation most ancient and most noble, to be safeguarded either by the fame of its deeds accomplished or by every commendation of culture and learning; it befits you to furnish this patronage, perpetual, to the entire nation received into your faith and clientship. Nor are the cities which stand upon ancient soil more Greek than their colonies, once set forth from there into Asia; nor has a land changed altered the stock or the customs.
we have dared to contend in a pious contest of any good art and virtue with our forefathers, and each city with its own founders. most of you have visited the cities of Greece, you have visited the cities of Asia; save that we are farther distant from you, in no other respect are we surpassed. the Massilians—whom, if inborn nature could be overcome, as though by the very genius of the soil, long ago so many untamed nations encircling them would have made savage—we hear to be among you in that honor, in that deserved dignity, as if they inhabited the very navel of Greece. for they have preserved not only the sound of the tongue and their garb and attire, but before all things their morals and laws and a character sincere and integral, from the contagion of their neighbors.
The mountain Taurus is now the terminus of your empire; whatever is within that boundary ought to seem nothing far to you; wherever your arms have reached, let law, having gone forth from here, reach to the same place. The barbarians, for whom the commands of masters have always stood in place of laws, let them have kings, wherein they rejoice; the Greeks bear their own fortune, and they carry your spirit. Once by domestic forces they even embraced empire; now they desire that the empire, where it is, may there be perpetual; they count it enough to guard liberty by your arms, since by their own they cannot.
But indeed certain cities sided with Antiochus. And others earlier with Philip, and the Tarentines with Pyrrhus; not to enumerate other peoples, Carthage is free under its own laws. See, Conscript Fathers, how much you owe to this your example; you will bring yourselves to deny to Eumenes’s cupidity what you denied to your most righteous wrath.
The Rhodians <and in this> and in all the wars which you have waged on that coast, how by brave and faithful service we have aided you, we leave to your judgment. Now in peace we bring this counsel: if you shall have approved it, all will be about to think that you have used victory more magnificently than to have conquered.' The speech seemed apt to Roman magnitude.
[55] Post Rhodios Antiochi legati uocati sunt. ii uulgato petentium ueniam more errorem fassi regis obtestati sunt patres conscriptos, ut suae potius clementiae quam regis culpae qui satis superque poenarum dedisset, memores consulerent; postremo pacem datam a L. Scipione imperatore, quibus legibus dedisset, confirmarent auctoritate sua. et senatus eam pacem seruandam censuit, et paucos post dies populus iussit.
[55] After the Rhodians, the legates of Antiochus were summoned. They, in the well-known custom of those seeking pardon, having confessed the king’s error, implored the Conscript Fathers to be mindful rather of their own clemency than of the king’s fault—he who had paid penalties enough and to spare—and to take thought; finally, that the peace granted by L. Scipio the commander, on whatever terms he had granted it, they would confirm by their authority. And the senate decreed that that peace must be kept, and a few days later the People ordered it.
Auditae deinde et aliae legationes ex Asia sunt. quibus omnibus datum responsum decem legatos more maiorum senatum missurum ad res Asiae disceptandas componendasque; summam tamen hanc fore, ut cis Taurum montem, quae intra regni Antiochi fines fuissent, Eumeni attribuerentur praeter Lyciam Cariamque usque ad Maeandrum amnem; ea ut ciuitatis Rhodiorum essent; ceterae ciuitates Asiae, quae Attali stipendiariae fuissent, eaedem uectigal Eumeni penderent; quae uectigales Antiochi fuissent, eae liberae atque immunes essent. decem legatos hos decreuerunt: Q. Minucium Rufum L. Furium Purpurionem Q. Minucium Thermum Ap. Claudium Neronem Cn. Cornelium Merulam M. Iunium Brutum L. Aurunculeium L. Aemilium Paulum P. Cornelium Lentulum P. Aelium Tuberonem.
Then other embassies also from Asia were heard. To all of them the answer was given that the senate, according to the custom of the ancestors, would send ten legates to adjudicate and compose the affairs of Asia; the sum, however, would be this: that on this side of Mount Taurus, those territories which had been within the bounds of the kingdom of Antiochus should be assigned to Eumenes, except Lycia and Caria as far as the river Maeander; that these should belong to the state of the Rhodians; the other cities of Asia which had been stipendiary to Attalus should pay the same tribute to Eumenes; those which had been vectigales of Antiochus should be free and immune. They decreed these ten legates: Q. Minucius Rufus L. Furius Purpureo Q. Minucius Thermus Ap. Claudius Nero Cn. Cornelius Merula M. Iunius Brutus L. Aurunculeius L. Aemilius Paulus P. Cornelius Lentulus P. Aelius Tubero.
[56] His, quae praesentis disceptationis essent, libera mandata; de summa rerum senatus constituit. Lycaoniam omnem et Phrygiam utramque et Mysiam <quam Prusia rex ademerat, restituit> regi et Milyas et Lydiam Ioniamque extra ea oppida, quae libera fuissent, quo die cum rege Antiocho pugnatum est, et nominatim Magnesiam ad Sipylum, et Cariam, quae Hydrela appellatur, agrumque Hydrelitanum ad Phrygiam uergentem, et castella uicosque ad Maeandrum amnem et oppida, nisi quae libera ante bellum fuissent, Telmessum item nominatim et castra Telmessium, praeter agrum, qui Ptolemaei Telmessii fuisset. haec omnia, quae supra sunt scripta, regi Eumeni iussa dari.
[56] As to those matters that pertained to the present disceptation, they had free mandates; but the senate determined the overall settlement. The whole of Lycaonia and both Phrygias and Mysia <which King Prusias had taken away, he restored> to the king, and Milyas and Lydia and Ionia, except those towns which had been free on the day when battle was fought with King Antiochus; and, expressly by name, Magnesia at Sipylus; and Caria, which is called Hydrela, and the Hydrelitan territory inclining toward Phrygia; and the forts and villages by the river Maeander and the towns, unless they had been free before the war; likewise, expressly by name, Telmessus and the Telmessian camp, except the land which had belonged to Ptolemy of Telmessus. All these things, which are written above, were ordered to be given to King Eumenes.
Lycia was given to the Rhodians, apart from that same Telmessus and the Telmessian camp and the land which had been Ptolemaeus of Telmessus’s; this was excepted both by Eumenes and by the Rhodians. Also that part of Caria was given to them which lies nearer to the island of Rhodes across the river Maeander—the towns, villages, forts, fields, which incline toward Pisidia—except such of those towns as had been free on the day before it was fought with King Antiochus in Asia. In return for these things, when the Rhodians had given thanks, they dealt with regard to the city of Soli, which is in Cilicia: that they too, like themselves, were sprung from Argos; from that kinship they had a fraternal affection toward them; they asked this extraordinary boon, to exempt that community from royal servitude.
the legates of King Antiochus were summoned, and conference was held with them, and nothing was obtained, Antipater attesting the treaties, against which it was being sought by the Rhodians not for Soli, but for Cilicia, and that the passes of Taurus be crossed. the Rhodians having been called back into the senate, when they had set forth with how great effort the royal legate was pressing, they added that, if the Rhodians should judge that matter in any case to pertain to the dignity of their commonwealth, the senate would in every way storm the pertinacity of the legates. then indeed the Rhodians gave thanks more earnestly than before, and said they would rather yield to the arrogance of Antipater than provide a cause for disturbing the peace.
[57] Per eos dies, quibus haec gesta sunt, legati Massiliensium nuntiarunt L. Baebium praetorem in prouinciam Hispaniam proficiscentem ab Liguribus circumuentum, magna parte comitum caesa uulneratum ipsum cum paucis sine lictoribus Massiliam perfugisse et intra triduum exspirasse. senatus ea re audita decreuit, uti P. Iunius Brutus, qui propraetor in Etruria esset, prouincia exercituque traditis uni, cui uideretur, ex legatis, ipse in ulteriorem Hispaniam proficisceretur, eaque ei prouincia esset. hoc senatus consultum litteraeque a Sp. Postumio praetore in Etruriam missae sunt, profectusque in Hispaniam est P. Iunius propraetor.
[57] In those days during which these things were done, the envoys of the Massilians announced that L. Baebius, the praetor, as he was setting out for the province of Spain, had been surrounded by the Ligurians; with a great part of his companions cut down, he himself, wounded, had fled for refuge to Massilia with a few, without lictors, and within three days had expired. On hearing this, the senate decreed that P. Iunius Brutus, who was propraetor in Etruria, after handing over the province and army to whichever one of the legates he should deem fitting, should himself set out into Farther Spain, and that that should be his province. This senatorial decree and letters were sent into Etruria by the praetor Sp. Postumius, and P. Iunius the propraetor set out for Spain.
in which province somewhat before his successor arrived, L. Aemilius Paulus, who afterward conquered King Perseus with great glory, since in the prior year he had managed the affair not prosperously, after a tumultuary army had been collected, fought with standards joined in a pitched battle with the Lusitanians. The enemies were routed and put to flight; eighteen thousand armed men were cut down; 2,300 were captured, and the camp was taken by storm. The fame of this victory made affairs in Spain more tranquil.
eodem anno censuram multi et clari uiri petierunt. quae res, tamquam in se parum magni certaminis causam haberet, aliam contentionem multo maiorem excitauit. petebant T. Quinctius Flamininus P. Cornelius Cn. F. Scipio L. Ualerius Flaccus M. Porcius Cato M. Claudius Marcellus M'. Acilius Glabrio, qui Antiochum ad Thermopylas Aetolosque deuicerat.
in the same year many and illustrious men sought the censorship. This matter, as though it had in itself too little a cause of great contestation, aroused another contention much greater. The candidates were Titus Quinctius Flamininus, Publius Cornelius Scipio, son of Gnaeus, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, Marcus Porcius Cato, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, and Manius Acilius Glabrio, who had defeated Antiochus at Thermopylae and the Aetolians.
Toward this man especially, because he had distributed many congiaries, by which he had obligated a great part of the people, the favor of the populace inclined. Since so many nobles could scarcely endure that a “new man” should be so preferred before them, P. Sempronius Gracchus and C. Sempronius Rutilus, <tribunes of the plebs,> named a day for him, on the charge that he had neither displayed in his triumph nor entered into the treasury some portion of the royal money and of the booty captured in Antiochus’s camp. The testimonies of the legates and of the military tribunes were various.
M. Cato was conspicuous as a witness before the others; the authority which he had acquired by the perpetual tenor of his life he was lightening by the candid (candidate’s) toga. He as witness said that the golden and silver vessels which he had seen, when the camp was captured, among other royal booty, he had not seen in the triumph. Finally, Glabrio said that he was desisting from his canvassing chiefly to the odium of this man, since the very thing at which the noble men were silently indignant, the new competitor was likewise assailing with an intestable perjury.
[58] Centum milium multa irrogata erat; bis de ea certatum est; tertio, cum de petitione destitisset reus, nec populus de multa suffragium ferre uoluit, et tribuni eo negotio destiterunt censores T. Quinctius Flamininus M. Claudius Marcellus creati.
[58] A fine of one hundred thousand had been imposed; twice there was contention over it; for the third time, when the defendant had withdrawn from his canvassing, and the people were unwilling to cast a vote on the fine, and the tribunes desisted from that business, the censors T. Quinctius Flamininus and M. Claudius Marcellus were elected.
Per eos dies L. Aemilio Regillo, qui classe praefectum Antiochi regis deuicerat, extra urbem in aede Apollinis cum senatus datus esset, auditis rebus gestis eius, quantis cum classibus hostium dimicasset, quot inde naues demersisset aut cepisset, magno consensu patrum triumphus naualis est decretus. triumphauit Kal. Februariis.
During those days, when a session of the senate was held outside the city in the Temple of Apollo for Lucius Aemilius Regillus, who with the fleet had defeated the admiral of King Antiochus, after his deeds were heard—how great enemy fleets he had engaged, how many ships he had sunk or captured—by the great consensus of the Fathers a naval triumph was decreed. He triumphed on 1 February.
in that triumph forty-nine golden crowns were carried in procession; the money was by no means so great for the show of a royal triumph: Attic tetradrachms 34,200, cistophori 132,300. Then there were supplications by decree of the senate, because L. Aemilius had conducted the public business successfully in Spain.
Haud ita multo post L. Scipio ad urbem uenit; qui ne cognomini fratris cederet, Asiaticum se appellari uoluit. et in senatu et in contione de rebus ab se gestis disseruit. erant qui fama id maius bellum quam difficultate rei fuisse interpretarentur: uno memorabili proelio debellatum, gloriamque eius uictoriae praefloratam ad Thermopylas esse.
Not very long afterward, L. Scipio came to the city; and, so as not to yield to his brother’s cognomen, he wished to be called Asiaticus. Both in the senate and in the public assembly he discoursed about the affairs accomplished by himself. There were those who interpreted that war as greater in fame than in the difficulty of the affair: that it had been brought to an end by one memorable battle, and that the glory of that victory had put forth its early bloom at Thermopylae.
[59] Merito ergo et diis immortalibus, quantus maximus poterat, habitus est honos, quod ingentem uictoriam facilem etiam fecissent, <et> imperatori triumphus est decretus. triumphauit mense intercalario pridie Kal. Martias.
[59] Rightly, therefore, to the immortal gods honor as great as could possibly be was paid, because they had even made the mighty victory easy, and a triumph was decreed to the general. He triumphed in the intercalary month, on the day before the Kalends of March.
This triumph was greater to the spectacle of the eyes than that of Africanus, his brother; yet in the recollection of deeds and the estimation of peril and contest it was no more to be compared, than if you were to compare a commander with a commander, or Antiochus the leader with Hannibal. He carried in his triumph 224 military standards; 134 models of towns; 1,231 ivory tusks; 234 golden crowns; of silver, by weight, 137,420 pounds; 224,000 Attic tetradrachms; 321,070 cistophori; 140,000 Philippic gold coins; of silver vessels—all were chased—1,423 pounds; and of gold, 1,023 pounds. And royal commanders, prefects, purpurati (purple-clad courtiers), 32 in number, were led before the chariot.
to the soldiers five-and-twenty denarii were given, double to the centurion, triple to the horseman. And both military stipend and double grain were given after the triumph; <already> after the battle in Asia had been fought he had given double. He triumphed almost a year after he departed from the consulship.
[60] Eodem fere tempore et Cn. Manlius consul in Asiam et Q. Fabius Labeo praetor ad classem uenit. ceterum consuli non deerat cum Gallis belli materia. mare pacatum erat deuicto Antiocho, cogitantique Fabio, cui rei potissimum insisteret, ne otiosam prouinciam habuisse uideri posset, optimum uisum est in Cretam insulam traicere.
[60] At about the same time both Cn. Manlius, the consul, arrived in Asia, and Q. Fabius Labeo, the praetor, came to the fleet. However, for the consul there was no lack of material for war with the Gauls. The sea was pacified with Antiochus defeated, and to Fabius, as he was considering what matter he should most of all insist upon, lest he might seem to have held an idle province, it seemed best to cross over to the island of Crete.
Cydoniatae were waging war against the Gortynians and the Gnossians, and a great number of captives of Roman and Italian stock were said to be in servitude throughout the whole island. Setting out with the fleet from Ephesus, as soon as he touched the shore of Crete, he sent messengers around the communities, that they should desist from arms and should bring back the captives, sought out in each one’s own cities and fields, and should send envoys to him, with whom he might deal concerning matters pertaining equally to the Cretans and the Romans. These things did not greatly move the Cretans; none restored the captives, save the Gortynians.
Valerius Antias wrote that four thousand captives, because they had feared threats of war, were returned from the whole island; and that this was the ground for Fabius—though he had carried out no other action—for obtaining from the senate a naval triumph. From Crete Fabius returned to Ephesus; then, after sending three ships to the shore of Thrace, he ordered the garrisons of Antiochus to be withdrawn from Aenus and Maronea, so that those cities might be in liberty.