Now the AtheniansLivy here summarizes briefly and somewhat inaccurately the events leading up to Roman intervention in the east. In 201 B.C., in consequence of the treaty mentioned in sect. 5 above, Philip had begun operations against the Egyptian possessions in Thrace, northern Asia Minor, and the Cyclades. This brought him into conflict with Pergamum, already allied with Athens, and with Rhodes. At the approach of winter he had withdrawn to Europe, after a campaign somewhat more successful than Livy's account intimates. Athens was not immediately involved in this war, but was embroiled with Philip in the manner described in the following sections. The alignment is then: Philip and the Aetolian League vs. Athens, Pergamum, Rhodes, Rome. Antiochus, allied with both Rome and Philip, was not involved directly, nor was Ptolemy, allied with Rome, although Philip's attack on his possessions precipitated the war. had undertaken the warB.C. 200 against Philip for no sufficient reason, since they retained nothing of their ancient greatness except their spirit. Two young men from Acarnania,Acarnania, in the north-west, was a part of the Aetolian League. during the celebration of the mysteries at Eleusis, though not initiated, had entered the temple of Ceres, ignorant that they were committing a sacrilege, and merely following the crowd. Their words easily betrayed them, since they asked foolish questions, and though it was clear that they had come in openly and by mistake they were put to death as if they had committed some heinous crime. The Acarnanians reported this revolting and unfriendly act to Philip, and prevailed upon him to send them Macedonian aid and permit them to attack Athens. This army at first laid waste Attica with fire and sword and returned to Acarnania laden with every kind of booty. This was the original provocation; later regular war was declared and waged by decree of the state after formal notification. Now when King Attalus and the Rhodians had arrived at Aegina in pursuit of Philip, who was retiring to Macedonia, Attalus crossed to Piraeus to renew and confirm his alliance with the Athenians.See, for this alliance, XXIX. xii. 14. The whole body of citizens,Polybius (XVI. xxv. 5) similarly describes this scene. with their wives and children, poured out to meet him; the priests in theirB.C. 200 vestments and the very gods, so to speak, starting up from their thrones, welcomed him as he entered the city.

The citizens were at once summoned to an assembly, that the king might declare publicly what he desired; then it seemed more consonant with his dignity that he should write his message, on whatever matters he pleased, than deliver it in person and be embarrassed by his own recital of his services to the state or by the extravagant applause and eulogies of the crowd, which would overwhelm his modesty with its uncontrolled adulation. The letter which was sent and read to the assembly contained, first, a review of his acts of generosity towards Athens; second, an account of the campaigns he had carried on against Philip, and, lastly, an exhortation to undertake the war against Philip while they had him, the Rhodians, and now particularly the Romans also as allies; in vain, later on, if they now hesitated, would they seek to grasp the opportunity they had let slip. The Rhodian envoys were next heard, whose recent display of good-will had consisted in sending back four Athenian war-vessels which had, not long before, been captured by the Macedonians and recovered.This is not confirmed by other testimony. So by a roar of voices war was declared on Philip. Extravagant honours were conferred first upon Attalus and then upon the Rhodians as well. At this time occurs the first mention of the tribe which they called Attalis, to be added to the ten old tribes.Livy's statement, if properly understood, is correct so far as it goes, but might be misleading unless supplemented by the facts which have been ascertained in recent years from the evidence furnished by the Attic inscriptions. The original ten tribes of Clisthenes were increased to twelve in 307/6 by the creation of Antigonas and Demetrias and to thirteen by the creation of Ptolemais between 229/8 and 222/1 (probably in 224/3 or 226/5). But in the early part of 201/0 Antigonis and Demetrias had been abolished, leaving eleven tribes. This number was therefore increased to twelve when Attalis was added in the latter part of 201/0. I owe this exact statement to the kindness of Mr. Sterling Dow, who refers to W. S. Ferguson, Hellenistic Athens and W. B. Dinsmoor, The Archons of Athens. The people of Rhodes, moreover, was presented with a golden crown, -B.C. 200 the symbol of valour, and the Athenian citizenship was given the Rhodians, just as they had previously granted the same distinction to the Athenians. After this Attalus rejoined his fleet at Aegina; the Rhodians went back from Aegina to Cia, thence to Rhodes by way of the islands, receiving into their alliance all of them but Andros, Paros and Cythnos, which were held by Macedonian garrisons. Attalus was kept idle for some time in Aegina, by sending messengers to AetoliaThere was an alliance between Pergamum and the Aetolians: cf. XXVII. xxix. 10. and waiting for ambassadors from there. But he could not induce them to declare war, since they felt satisfaction at the composition —however accomplished —of their difficulties with Philip;See note on i. 8 above. and Attalus and the Rhodians, although, if they had pressed their campaign against Philip, they might have won the fair fame of having liberated Greece, by permitting him to cross again to the Hellespont and to increase his army by the occupation of strongholds in Thrace, protracted the war and left to the Romans the glory of conducting and finishing it.

Philip displayed a spirit that more befitted a king.At this point Livy begins the narrative of Philip's campaign of 200 B.C. against the possessions of Ptolemy in Thrace (sects. 3-4) and the Thracian Chersonesus, to the north-west of the Hellespont (sects. 5 ff.). These events precede the arrival of the Romans in Greece (xiv. 2 above). Though he had not withstood Attalus and the Rhodians, he was unterrified even by the threatening war with Rome. Sending Philocles, one of his prefects, with two thousand infantry and two hundred horse to harry the Athenian country, and entrusting a fleet to Heraclides, that he might proceed to Maronea, he himself set out by land to that place with two thousand light-armed infantry and two hundred cavalry. And Maronea, indeed, -B.C. 200 he took at the first assault; Aenus then, after great labour in besieging it, he finally captured through the treachery of Callimedes, the prefect of Ptolemy. Next he occupied other fortresses, Cypsela, Doriscus, and Serrheum. Proceeding thence toward the Chersonesus, he received in voluntary submission Elaeus and Alopeconnesus. Callipolis too and Madytus were surrendered, and some unimportant strongholds. The people of Abydus,See xiv. 4 above and the note. not even admitting his ambassadors, closed their gates against the king. This siege delayed Philip a long time, and the people could have been quickly relieved of the siege if Attalus and the Rhodians had not delayed. Attalus sent only three hundred soldiers for the garrison, the Rhodians one quadrireme from the fleet, although it was lying off Tenedos. Later, the city being by that time scarce able to resist the siege, when Attalus in person arrived there, he gave only the hope of aid from near by, but did not help the allies by either land or sea.

The citizens of AbydusLivy seems to have borrowed the following account from Polybius (XVI. xxx —xxxiv). at first, placing their artillery along the walls, not only on land denied approach to the assaulting parties, but rendered the anchorage of the fleet dangerous to the enemy; later, when part of the rampart had been laid in ruins, and, in addition, mines had been driven almost to the inner wall which had been hastily constructed, they sent ambassadors to the king regarding terms of surrender for the city. They proposed, however, that they be allowed to send away the Rhodian quadrireme with the naval allies, and the garrison of Attalus, and that they be permitted to leave the city with one garment each. When Philip answered them that there wouldB.C. 200 no peace without their unconditional surrender, the message when reported kindled such passion, arising from anger and despair together, that, imitating the madness of the Saguntines, they ordered all the matrons to be shut up in the temple of Diana, the free-born boys and maidens and even the young babes with their nurses in the gymnasium, the gold and silver to be collected in the market-place and the valuable garments to be placed on the Rhodian and Cyzicene ships which were in the harbour, the priests and victims to be brought and the altars erected for sacrifice. Then they chose certain men who, when they saw their soldiers slaughtered as they fought before the ruined wall, were forthwith to slay their wives and children, throw into the sea all the gold, silver and garments which were in the ships, and set fire to the public and private buildings in every possible place. This crime they bound themselves by oath to commit, while the priests dictated to them the formula of execration.Such a formula invoked a curse upon anyone who failed to carry out whatever order had been given. The soldiers then swore that no one would leave the battle-line alive except as victor, and they, mindful of the gods, fought so courageously that, when night was about to end the battle, the king was the first to retire from the field, in fear of their madness. The chiefs, to whom the more cruel part in the crime had been assigned, when they saw only a few surviving the battle, and these exhausted by wounds and weariness, at daybreak sent the priests, wearing their fillets, to surrender the city to Philip.

Before the surrender, Marcus Aemilius, the youngest of the three ambassadorsSee ii. 3 above. who had been sent to Alexandria, hearing of the siege of Abydus, came to Philip with the consent of hisB.C. 200 colleagues. He protested against the attack on Attalus and the Rhodians, and because Philip was at that very moment besieging Abydus, and when the king replied that Attalus and the Rhodians had made an unprovoked attack upon him, Aemilius asked, Did the people of Abydus also take up arms against you, unprovoked? This speech seemed to the king, who was unused to hearing the truth, too arrogant for delivery in the royal presence. Your age, he replied, your good looks,See the similar dialogue quoted by Polybius (XVI. xxxiv. 5); Polybius adds that Aemilius was the handsomest man of his time. and, above all, the Roman name, make you too arrogant. I should myself prefer first that you remember the treaties and keep the peace with me; but if you attack me in war, you will find that I too have the resolution to make both the kingdom and the name of Macedonia no less renowned than those of Rome. Thus dismissing the envoy,According to Justin (XXX. iii. 3-4), the ambassadors carried instructions to Antiochus and Philip to keep their hands off Egypt, and Aemilius was designated to act as a quasi- guardian to the young Ptolemy. For the alliance between Egypt and Rome see XXVII. iv. 10. Livy has abridged his account of the embassy's activities, but it should be remembered that the embassy left Rome before the declaration of war upon Philip. Philip took possession of all the gold, silver, and other accumulated treasure, but lost all the human booty. For such madness laid hold of the people that all at once, thinking that those who had fallen in the fight had met death from treachery, each reproaching another's perjury, and especially that of the priests, who had delivered alive to the enemy those whom they had consecrated to death, they hastily ran to kill their wives and children and then themselves sought death by every path. The king, astounded by this frenzy, checked the assaults of his soldiers and announced that he would give the Abydenians three days in which to die. In this timeB.C. 200 the conquered did themselves more violence than they would have suffered from their enraged conquerors, and no living man fell into Philip's hands save those whom chains or some other constraint forbade to die. Philip, leaving a garrison at Abydus, returned to his kingdom. When, as Hannibal's destruction of Saguntum had aroused the Romans to war against him, so now the slaughter of the people of Abydus had roused them against Philip, word came that the Roman consul was already in Epirus and had sent his army to Apollonia and his fleet to Corcyra to winter.Livy here abandons Polybius and returns to his usual sources, the works of one or more annalists. Since the military year, which began when conditions permitted active operations, the civil year, which began on March 15, and the calendar year did not coincide, Livy has a good deal of difficulty in adjusting his material to his plan of composition. The events related in chaps. xv-xviii preceded Sulpicius' arrival in the east (xiv. 2 above), and we are now ready for his campaign. But since he reached Greece only in time to go into winter quarters, Livy turns aside to narrate events in Rome in the later months of 200 B.C.

In the meantime, the ambassadors who had been sent to Africa had been informed by the Carthaginians that, regarding Hamilcar, the leader of the Gallic army, they could do nothing but declare him an outlaw and confiscate his property; as to the deserters and fugitives, they had already sent back all they could find after search, and would send an embassy to Rome to give satisfaction to the senate on that point. They sent two hundred thousand modiiThe modius was the practical equivalent of the peck, and equalled one-sixth of the Greek medimnus. of wheat to Rome and the same quantity to the army in Macedonia. The embassy then proceeded to Numidia, where they delivered their gifts and messages to Masinissa. When the king offered them two thousand Numidian cavalry, they accepted one thousand. The king himself supervised their embarkation and sent them to Macedonia with two hundred thousand modii of wheat and as muchB.C. 200 barley. The third errand was to Vermina, who met the ambassadors at the frontier and left it to them to lay down terms of peace satisfactory to Rome, while for his own part he promised to maintain a just and lawful peace with the Roman people. The conditions of peace were imposed, and he was instructed to send an embassy to Rome to ratify them.

At the same time Lucius Cornelius Lentulus the proconsul returned from Spain. When he had given the senate an account of his vigorous and successful administration, extending over many years,Since 206 B.C. (XXVIII. xxxviii. 1). and had asked that he be permitted to enter Rome in triumph, the senate decreed that his achievements deserved the honour, but that there was no precedent handed down from antiquity that one who had not been in command as dictator or consul or praetor should celebrate a triumph. He had held the province of Spain as proconsulAn anachronism is involved in the use of the word proconsul to translate the phrase pro consule. After the time of Sulla consuls and praetors served in administrative and judicial capacities in Rome during their terms of office, but without exercising imperium (cf. the note on iii. 2 above), and were then sent out as proconsuls and propraetors, with the imperium, to govern the territorial provinces. They were thus eligible for triumphs. In the third century, even private citizens, in cases of emergency, could be commissioned to act pro consule, pro praetore, i.e. as substitutes for magistrates. Not being a regularly elected magistrate, exercising command under auspices which he had himself taken, such a person could not be granted a triumph. Scipio had had the same experience in 206 B.C. (XXVIII. xxxviii. 4), although he had cleared Spain of Carthaginian troops. and not as consul or praetor. Nevertheless, it was proposed that he enter the city in ovation,An ovation was a minor dignity conferred on commanders who were adjudged undeserving of triumphs. The conditions of eligibility were probably identical with those for a triumph, and the tribune's position seems to have been technically correct. though the tribune Tiberius Sempronius Longus objected that this would be no more in accordance with ancestral custom or any precedent. Finally, prevailed upon by the general agreement of the senators, the tribune withdrew his veto, and Lucius Cornelius, by authority of the senate, was allowed to enter the city in ovation. HeB.C. 200 brought home forty-three thousand pounds of silver and two thousand four hundred and fifty pounds of gold from the booty, and presented to each of his soldiers a sum amounting to one hundred and twenty asses.

The consular army had now moved from Arretium to Ariminum, and five thousand allies of the Latin confederacy from Gaul to Etruria. Therefore Lucius Furius proceeded by forced marches from Ariminum against the Gauls who were still besieging Cremona, and bivouacked about a mile and a half from the enemy. There was an excellent chance for a victory if he had attacked their camp immediately after his march; the Gauls had scattered through the neighbourhood without leaving a strong guard on duty. But Furius spared his weary troops because he had made a strenuous march. The Gauls, called back by the shouts of their comrades, dropped the booty which they had in hand and hurried back to their camp. The next day they moved out in battle-array, nor did the Roman refuse the engagement. But the Romans had barely time to form inline, with such speed did the enemy advance to the attack. The right squadronThe ala was a normal unit of organization among the allied troops. Perhaps because the allies were often posted on the flanks, with the Roman infantry in the centre, such units were sometimes designated right and left. But the meaning here is uncertain. —he had the allied army divided into squadrons —occupied the front line, with two Roman legions in reserve. Commanders were designated: Marcus Furius of the right squadron, Marcus Caecilius of the legions, Lucius Valerius Flaccus of the cavalry —all were lieutenants.See the note on iii. 4 above. The praetor kept with him two lieutenants, Gaius Laetorius and Publius Titinius, by whose aid he planned to watch the whole engagement and meet all sudden attacks of the enemy. At first the Gauls hoped, concentrating the mass of their force on one place, to be able to overwhelm andB.C. 200 destroy the right squadron which was in the van. When this did not succeed, they tried to outflank and envelop the enemy's line, a plan which seemed easy on account of their great numbers arrayed against a few. When the praetor saw this, that he too might extend his front, he threw in two legions from his reserves on the right and left flanks of the front-line force and vowed a temple to Diiovis if he routed the enemy on that day.Livy (XXXIV. liii. 7) records the dedication of a temple to Jupiter vowed by Furius. The name of the divinity here reported may be corrupt. He ordered Lucius Valerius to send the cavalry of two legions to one side against the flank of the enemy and to the other the allied cavalry, and not to allow the enemy to envelop his lines. Seeing too that the Gallic centre was weakened by the extension of the line, at the same time he gave his men the order to charge in mass formation and to break through, and the flanks were thrown back by the cavalry, the centre by the infantry. The Gauls, suffering heavy losses in every quarter, suddenly broke and in complete rout fled to their camp. The cavalry pursued them in their flight, and presently the legions too followed and stormed the camp. Less than six thousand Gauls escaped; more than thirty-five thousand were killed or captured, along with seventy standards and more than two hundred Gallic wagons laden with abundant spoils. HamilcarAnother version of the fate of Hamilcar is related at XXXII. xxx. 12 and XXXIII. xxiii. 5. the Carthaginian general and three noble Gallic commanders fell in the battle. About two thousand of the captives from Placentia were recovered and restored to the colonists.

This great victory brought joy to Rome, and when the news came a thanksgiving of three days was proclaimed. About two thousand of the Romans and allies perished in that battle, most of them from the right squadron, against which at the first attackB.C. 200 the enemy's main effort had been directed. Although the war had been practically ended by the praetor, the consul Gaius Aurelius, having transacted the necessary business in Rome, also set out for Gaul and took over the victorious army from the praetor.

The other consul,We return to Greece and continue the narrative of the end of the year 200 B.C. and the following spring, interrupted at chap. xix; cf. the note on xviii. 9 above. having arrived in his province near the end of autumn, was wintering around Apollonia. From the fleet which was moored at Corcyra, Gaius Claudius and the Roman triremes, as has been related, had been sent to Athens, and when they arrived at Piraeus they had inspired great hopes in the allies who were now in despair. For the customary raids on the fields which were made by land from Corinth by way of Megara were stopped, and the ships of the pirates from Chalcis,Chalcis in Euboea, Demetrias in Thessaly, and Corinth in Achaea were the three fetters of Greece XXXII. xxxvii. 3-4). This campaign and Philip's retaliation well illustrate the vague strategy of both sides in this war. which had made both the sea and the farm-lands on the coast dangerous for the Athenians, not only would not venture past Sunium, but did not dare to enter the open sea beyond the strait of Euripus. In addition to these, three Rhodian quadriremes arrived, and there were three Athenian vessels without protecting decks, assembled to defend the lands on the coast. Just as Claudius had made up his mind that it was sufficient for the present if the city and fields of the Athenians could be guarded with this fleet, an opportunity for a greater feat was presented to him.

Exiles from Chalcis, driven out by the violence of Philip's garrison, brought the news that Chalcis could be captured without any opposition: for the Macedonians, because there was no fear of an enemy near by, were straggling about the country, and the citizens likewise, trusting in their MacedonianB.C. 200 garrison, were careless in their guarding of the city. Acting on this information, Claudius started out, and although he reached Sunium so early that he could have made the opening of the Euboean straits, he held his fleet at anchor until night-fall, lest he be seen after rounding the promontory; at dusk he moved, and after a calm voyage reached Chalcis a little before daybreak. With a few soldiers using scaling ladders, he captured the nearest tower and the adjoining wall in a thinly-populated section of the city, the sentinels being found in some places asleep, in others absent from their posts. The Romans then advanced to the centre of the city, and killing the guards and breaking down the gates they admitted the rest of their forces. Thence they scattered throughout the town, the confusion being further increased by a fire which broke out in the buildings around the forum. Both the royal granaries and the arsenal were burned, with a great store of munitions and artillery. Indiscriminate slaughter of fugitives and fighting men followed. When there was no longer anyone of military age who had not perished or fled, Sopater the Acarnanian, commander of the garrison, having fallen, all the booty was first collected in the forum and then loaded on the ships. The prison also was broken open by the Rhodians, who released the captives whom Philip had confined there, thinking they would be in safest custody. The king's statues were then thrown down and broken up, and when the recall was sounded the Romans embarked and returned to Piraeus, whence they had set out. But if the Roman force had been large enough, so that they could have held Chalcis without abandoning the defence of Athens, this event wouldB.C. 200 have been an auspicious beginning of hostilities: Chalcis and the Euripus would have been lost to the king, for as on the land the pass of Thermopylae is the gateway to Greece, so by sea is the strait of Euripus.

Philip was then at Demetrias. When the news of the destruction of Chalcis reached him there, although it was too late to send aid, the city having been lost, nevertheless, seeking revenge, as the next best thing after assistance, he at once set out with five thousand light infantry and three hundred cavalry and made all speed for Chalcis, not doubting that the Romans could be destroyed. Disappointed in this hope, and finding only the ugly spectacle of the friendly town lying half-ruined, with its embers still smoking, and only a few left to bury those who were slain in the battle, he recrossed the strait by the bridge as rapidly as he had come and hurried through Boeotia toward Athens, thinking that a not dissimilar result would follow a similar course of action.Philip hoped to take Athens by surprise as the Romans had taken Chalcis. And this would have happened, had not a scout-the Greeks call them all-day runners, and they cover great distances in a day's run —seen the king's army from a watch-tower, set out at midnight and reached Athens before him. There was the same sleep and the same carelessness that had betrayed Chalcis a few days earlier. The Athenian praetorLivy frequently applies the Latin term to the commanders of foreign military forces. The usual title in Greece was strategus. and Dioxippus, who commanded an auxiliary force of mercenaries, aroused by the alarming message, assembling the soldiers in the forum, ordered the trumpet sounded from the citadel, to inform all that the enemy was coming. So there was a rush from all sides to the walls and gates. Some hours later, but still before daybreak, Philip approached the city, and seeing the numerous lights and hearing theB.C. 200 shouts of frightened men, usual in such a crisis, halted and ordered his men to pitch camp and rest, intending to employ open force, since stratagem had failed. He attacked on the side of the Dipylon Gate.The gate, which, as its name implies, accommodated twoway traffic, lay on the north-west side of the city and was the principal exit towards the west. The gate was double in depth also; cf. in angustiis in sect. 15 below, where Philip was caught in the court between the two parts. Livy's weakness in detailed topography and the aimlessness of the campaign make it difficult to determine Philip's route of approach. The easy route from Boeotia was byway of Eleusis, the Sacred Way, and the pass of Daphne to the Dipylon Gate; the road past the Academy led over the difficult pass of Phyle. The question seems to be avoided by modern historians and the mobility of Philip would have enabled him to come by one road and attack by another. This gate, placed, so to speak, at the forefront of the city, was somewhat wider and more extensive than the rest, and inside and outside there were wide avenues, so that the citizens could form their line from the market-place to the gate, and so that the road, about a mile long, outside the city and leading to the gymnasium of the Academy, offered ample space for infantry and cavalry. The Athenians with the garrison of Attalus and the mercenaries of Dioxippus, formed their array within the gate and marched out by this road. Philip, seeing this, thought that he had the Athenians in his hands and that he was about to sate his rage with long-desired slaughter —r he hated no other Greek city so much as Athens —and urged his soldiers to take him as their example in the fight and to remember that the standards and the battle-line should be where their king was, and put spurs to his horse, inspired by rage and by the hope of glory alike, because he thought that his fighting would be a glorious sight, since the walls were lined with a great crowd, as for a show. Riding with a few companions far in front of the line, and even into the press of the enemy, he inspired both enthusiasm in his own troops and terror in his foes. Pursuing many soldiers whom he had wounded, either at longB.C. 200 range or hand to hand, and driving them inside the gate, when he had done greater damage to the Athenians as they crowded together in the narrow space, yet he escaped safely after his rash venture, since the troops who manned the towers on the walls withheld their weapons, from fear of harming their own men mingled with the enemy. Afterwards when the Athenians held their men within the walls, Philip, giving the signal for a retirement, pitched camp at Cynosarges,This suburb lay to the eastward, at the foot of Mount Lycabettus. where there was a temple to Hercules and a gymnasium with a grove around it. But Cynosarges, the Lyceum, and all the sacred and pleasant sites around the city were burned; the buildings and even the tombs were destroyed, and nothing consecrated to divine or human use escaped his uncontrollable passion.

Next day, when the gates had been closed and then suddenly thrown open, because troops of Attalus from Aegina and Romans from Piraeus had entered the city, the king moved his camp about three miles from the city. Thence, making for Eleusis, in the hope of capturing, by an unexpected attack, the temple and the citadel which commands and surrounds the temple, when he found that vigilance was not in the least relaxed and that reinforcements were coming from the fleet at Piraeus, he gave up that plan and marched toward Megara and straight on to Corinth, and hearing that the Achaean councilSee the Introductory Note. was in session at Argos, he suddenly appeared at the meeting itself, to the surprise of the Achaeans. They were deliberating about a war against Nabis,Nabis had seized authority at Sparta (see the Introductory Note). The war against him conducted by the Romans and their allies is described in XXXIV. xxii. 5 ff. the tyrant of Sparta, who, -B.C. 200 seeing that the military power of the Achaeans had declined with the transfer of command from Philopoemen to Cycliadas,The Achaean League elected a strategus annually, and frequent changes occurred, both in the military efficiency and in the political sympathies of the administration. Philopoemen had been a vigorous and independent magistrate: see Plutarch's biography of him. Cycliadas was an inferior soldier and was suspected of pro-Macedonian tendencies. by no means his equal as a general, had renewed the war and was ravaging their territories and was now even threatening their towns. While they were debating how many men should be enlisted from each city for the war against this enemy, Philip promised that, so far as Nabis and the Spartans were concerned, he would free them from that responsibility, and by the immediate despatch of an army would not only prevent Nabis from ravaging the lands of the allies, but would transfer the whole terror of the war into Laconia itself. When this offer was received with great applause, nevertheless, he said, it is proper that your possessions be defended by my arms in such a way that meantime mine shall not be deprived of protection. Prepare, then, if it seems wise, a force of soldiers sufficient to hold Oreus and Chalcis and Corinth, that, with my rear protected, I may safely make war upon Nabis and the Spartans. The Achaeans were not deceived as to the real meaning of so generous an offer and promise of aid against the Lacedaemonians: the purpose was to lead the Achaean youth as hostages from the Peloponnesus in order to commit the people to war with Rome. So Cycliadas, praetor of the Achaeans, thinking it not at all to the point to argue about that, when he had simply replied that it was not allowable under the laws of the Achaeans to vote upon other subjects than those for which the meeting was called, after passing a decree regarding raising an army againstB.C. 200 Nabis, adjourned the congress that was held fearlessly and spiritedly, although up to that time he had been counted among the king's partisans. Philip, disappointed in this great hope, enlisted a few volunteer soldiers and returned to Corinth and to the land of Attica.

During this same period while Philip was in Achaea, his prefect Philocles left Euboea with two thousand Thracians and Macedonians to plunder the territory of the Athenians in the region of Eleusis, and crossed the pass of Cithaeron. Sending half his force to plunder far and wide through the country, he with the rest made camp secretly in a suitable place for an ambuscade, that, if an attack were made by the Eleusinians from the citadel upon his foragers, he might fall upon the enemy suddenly and unexpectedly as they were dispersed. His ambush did not go undetected. So recalling the troops that had gone forth to forage and forming them for battle, he set out for Eleusis to assault the citadel, but was repulsed from there with many casualties and joined Philip on his return from Achaea. An attack on the same fortress was attempted by the king as well; but Roman ships arriving from the Piraeus and the garrison admitted into the city compelled him to abandon his undertaking. The king then divided his army and sent Philocles to Athens with half of them and himself proceeding to Piraeus, in the hope that while Philocles was keeping the Athenians within the city by approaching the walls and threatening an attack, the opportunity might be offered himself of taking Piraeus, left with a small guard. But, with practically the same defenders, the capture of Piraeus was in no wise easier for him than thatB.C. 200 of Eleusis. Suddenly he marched from Piraeus to Athens. Driven thence by a sudden sally of cavalry and infantry in the narrow space between the half-ruined wallsThemistocles had built a double wall from Athens to the harbour, but this had been partially destroyed during the Peloponnesian War and had not been maintained. which with their two arms join Piraeus and Athens, he gave up the attempt on the city and, again dividing his force with Philocles and setting out to plunder the country districts, while he had devoted his former raid to destroying the tombs around the city, that he might leave nothing inviolate, he ordered the temples of the gods which the Athenians had consecrated in all the demes to be torn down and burned; and the land of Attica, with its wonderful adornment of works of art and its abundance of native marble and the skill of its artists offered material for his rage. For he was not satisfied merely to destroy the temples and statues themselves, but even ordered the separate stones to be broken up, lest they be left whole upon the piles of ruins. And after his wrath, or rather objects on which to expend his wrath, had been exhausted, he retired from the enemy's country to Boeotia, and did nothing else worth mentioning in Greece.

The consul SulpiciusThe arrival of Sulpicius was recorded in xviii. 9, on which see the note. The events now described may belong to the end of the year 200 B.C. or, more probably, to the following spring. was at that time encamped along the Apsus river between Apollonia and Dyrrachium, and summoning to him there his lieutenant Lucius Apustius he sent him with part of the troops to ravage the enemy's country. Apustius, having plundered the frontiers of Macedonia and having captured at the first assault the towns of Corrhagum, Gerronius and Orgessum, arrived atB.C. 200 Antipatrea, a city situated in a narrow pass. There he first summoned the leading men to a conference and tried to induce them to put themselves under Roman protection; then, when they scorned his suggestions, relying on the size and walls and site of the city, he stormed and captured it by force of arms and killing all the men of military age and giving the booty to the soldiers he tore down the walls and burned the city. Fear of a similar fate caused Codrio, a strong and well-fortified town, to be surrendered to the Romans without resistance. Leaving a garrison there, he took by storm Cnidus —a name better known than the town because of the other Cnidus in Asia. As the lieutenant was returning to the consul with a satisfactory amount of booty, Athenagoras, one of the king's prefects, attacked his rear while it was crossing a river and caused some confusion to his rearguard. The lieutenant, hastily riding back when he heard their shouts and uproar, faced the troops about and formed line of battle, placing the baggage in the centre, whereupon the king's soldiers did not withstand the Romans' charge. Many of them were killed and more captured. The lieutenant returned to the consul with his army intact and thence was at once sent back to the fleet.

The war having been begun with this sufficiently successful expedition, the petty kings and princes, neighbours to the Macedonians, came to the Roman camp; Pleuratus, son of Scerdilaedus, and Amynander, king of the Athamanes, and from the Dardani Bato, son of Longarus. Longarus on his own account had waged war with Demetrius, father of Philip. To their proffers of assistance, the consul replied that he would accept the aid of the DardaniB.C. 200 and Pleuratus when he led the army into Macedonia; to Amynander he assigned the task of winning the AetoliansThe Aetolian League (see the Introductory Note) was in alliance with Philip, but its assistance was sought by both sides: see section 6 below. Its general policy is well presented in xxxii. 5 below. over for the war. To the ambassadors of Attalus —for they too had arrived at this time —he gave instructions that the king should await the Roman fleet at Aegina, where he was wintering, and uniting with it should continue as before the naval warfare on Philip. Ambassadors were sent to the Rhodians also, that they should take up their share in the war. Nor did Philip —for he had by now reached Macedonia —carry on less vigorously his preparations for the war. He sent his son Perseus, who was still a boy, with guardians from among his friends to guide his youth, with part of the troops to hold the passes which lead to Pelagonia. He destroyed Sciathus and Peparethus, cities not unknown to fame, to prevent their becoming prize and prey to the fleet of the enemy. He sent ambassadors to the Aetolians, lest that restless people should, on the arrival of the Romans, change its allegiance.

The council of the Aetolians, which they call Panaetolian,This council, attended by delegates from all the Aetolian cities, was regularly held in the autumn at Naupactus or Thermum. was to be held on the appointed day. To be present at it, both the king's representatives hastened their journey and Lucius Furius PurpurioIf the name is correct, this is probably not the same Purpurio who is mentioned in chap. xxi. the lieutenant, arrived, sent by the consul; ambassadors of the Athenians also came to this council. The Macedonians, with whom the latest treatyThe Macedonian alliance in 205 B.C. (XXIX. xii. 2) superseded the treaty with Rome of 211 B.C. (XXVI. xxv. 1). had been made, were first heard. They said that they had nothing new to say since nothing new had happened; inasmuch as, for theB.C. 200 same reasons for which they had made peace with Philip after trying the useless Roman alliance, they should wish to keep a peace once for all established. Or do you prefer, said one of the ambassadors, to imitate Roman presumption, or shall I call it fickleness? After ordering that your ambassadors at Rome should receive the answer, 'Why do you come to us, Aetolians, when without our authority you made peace with Philip? ', these same Romans now demand that you make war -on Philip along with them; as they formerly pretended that they had taken arms against him on your account and for your sakes, now they forbid you to be at peace with Philip. They crossed to Sicily first to assist Messina; the second time, to rescue and restore to liberty Syracuse, besieged by the Carthaginians; now they themselves hold both Messina and Syracuse and all Sicily and they have made it a province, tributary and subject to their rods and axes.The aid rendered to Messina brought on the First Punic War, as a result of which part of Sicily became a province, governed by magistrates whose servants carried the rods and axes as symbols of the imperium. The implication is that the assistance was merely the beginning of conquest. For Syracuse cf. xxxi. 8 and note. No doubt, just as you hold your council at Naupactus, under your own laws, with magistrates elected by yourselves, able to choose freely whomsoever you wish as friend and enemy, able to have peace or war at your own discretion, so a council of the Sicilian cities is called at Syracuse or Messina or Lilybaeum: the Roman praetor presides at the council; the men whom he has summoned by his authority assemble; they see him seated on his lofty platform, rendering haughty justice, with a throng of lictors around him; their rods threaten their backs, the axes their throats; and year by year the lots grant them one master after another. At that they should not marvel, nor can they, when they see the Italian cities, Rhegium, Tarentum, Capua, subject toB.C. 200 the same rule, not to mention the nearer cities on whose ruins Rome rose to power. Capua indeed, tomb and monument of the Campanian race, survives, its people buried, exiled, driven away, a city despoiled, without senate, without people, without magistrates, a monstrosity, more cruelly left habitable than if it had been destroyed. It is madness to hope that anything will remain in the same condition if foreigners, separated from us more by language, manners and laws than by the space of land and sea, shall gain control. The rule of Philip seems to interfere somewhat with your liberty; but he, though he would justly be angry with you, has asked nothing from you except peace and to-day desires nothing but your loyalty to your pledge of peace. Make foreign armies at home in this land and wear their yoke: too late and all in vain will you call upon Philip to aid you when you have the Roman as master. The Aetolians, the Acarnanians, the Macedonians, men of the same speech, are united or disunited by trivial causes that arise from time to time; with aliens, with barbarians, all Greeks wage and will wage eternal war; for they are enemies by the will of nature, which is eternal, and not from reasons that change from day to day. But my speech shall end just where it began: in this same place you, the same men, decided three yearsProbably the orator minimizes the time for rhetorical effect: the most recent known treaty was that of 205 B.C. (see note to sect. 2). ago on peace with this same Philip, with the disapproval of these same Romans who are now trying to break the peace we pledged and signed. In this situation fortune has made no change; why you should change, I do not see.

After the Macedonians, with the permission and indeed at the bidding of the Romans themselves, -B.C. 200 the Athenians were brought in, who were able, having suffered dreadfully, to assail with greater reason the savageness and cruelty of the king. They lamented the devastation and miserable ruin of their land: they did not complain because they suffered the treatment of an enemy from an enemy, for there are certain laws of war which are legitimately to be experienced as well as practised: it is sad, rather than unjust to the sufferer, that crops be burned, homes be destroyed, men and animals driven off as booty; but they did, however, complain that he who calls the Romans aliens and barbarians had so polluted human and divine law alike that on his first raid he had waged impious war on the gods of the world below, on his second, with the gods above. All the tombs and monuments in their land had been destroyed, the shades of all the dead left naked, no man's bones left with their covering of earth. They had had shrines, which their ancestors dwelling in the country demes had once consecrated in their little villages and towns and which, even when united in one city,The unification (sunoikismo/s) of the Attic demes into the city (a)/stu) of Athens was traditionally ascribed to Theseus (Thucydides II. xv. 2) and assigned to the year 1259 B.C. they had not left deserted. About all these temples Philip had built his destroying fires; half-burned, mutilated images of gods lay amid the fallen portals of their shrines. The sort of land he had made of Attica, once so rich in art and treasure, such, if he were permitted, he would make of Aetolia and all Greece. Their city too would have suffered the same despoliation if the Romans had not come to its aid. For in the same criminal fashion the gods that keep the city and Athena, guardian of its citadel, had been attacked, so too the temple of Demeter at Eleusis, so Zeus and Athena at Piraeus; but, repulsed not only from their temples but also from the walls by force ofB.C. 200 arms, he had spent his wrath on those shrines which were protected by a sense of reverence alone. They therefore begged and besought the Aetolians to pity the Athenians and under the leadership, first of the immortal gods, second of the Romans, who were next to the gods in power, to undertake the war.

Then the Roman delegate spoke: First the Macedonians, then the Athenians, have changed the whole tenor of my argument. For the Macedonians, when I had come to complain of the injuries inflicted by Philip upon so many states allied with us, by taking the lead in accusing the Romans, have caused me to prefer a defence of ourselves to an accusation of them, and when the Athenians have described his cruel and inhuman crimes against the gods above and below, what have they left for me or anyone else with which to reproach him further? Consider that these same complaints are made by the people of Cius,The towns named in this list had all at one time or another suffered at Philip's hands. Furius maintains that Rome's treatment of Capua and other towns was kind and generous in comparison. Abydus, Aenus, Maronea, Thasos, Paros, Samos, Larisa, Messene here from Achaea, and that those complaints are of more grievous and cruel treatment wherever he had greater power to do harm. For as to those matters with which he has charged us, unless they merit glory, I confess that they cannot be defended. He has reproached us with Rhegium and Capua and Syracuse. Take Rhegium: in the war with Pyrrhus a legion sent by us when the townspeople of Rhegium themselves begged us to send troops for their protection, criminally seized the city it was sent to guard. Did we, then, approve this crime? Or did we, making war upon the guilty legion and reducing it to submission, when we had made it pay to the allies the penalty, with scourgingsB.C. 200 and beheadings, did we restore to the people of Rhegium their city, their lands and all their possessions along with their liberty and laws? When we had given aid to the Syracusans, oppressed by foreign tyrants, a thing which made their fate more pitiable, and when we had been worn out by besieging, for nearly three years, the city strongly fortified by land and sea, since now the Syracusans themselves preferred to be ruled by tyrants to being captured by us, we delivered to them a city taken and liberated by these same arms.After the death of Hieronymus, tyrant of Syracuse, Hippocrates and Epicydes, born in Carthage but descended on their father's side from a Syracusan exile, persuaded the Syracusans to join Carthage. After a three years' siege (214-212 B.C.) the city was taken by Marcellus. The Roman victory meant both the capture (captain) by the Romans and the liberation (liberatam) of the city from its foreign tyrants Hippocrates and Epicydes. See XXIV-XXV, passim. We do not deny that Sicily is our province and that the cities which were on the side of Carthage and in agreement with her made war on us are our vassals and tributaries; nay, on the contrary, we wish both you and all nations to know this, that each one's fortune is proportioned to his services to us. Or should we be ashamed of the punishment of the Campanians, of which not even they can complain? These people, when we had warred with the Samnites on their behalf for almost seventy years, with great losses to ourselves, and when after that we had bound them to us, first by treaty, then by intermarriages and personal ties, finally by the gift of citizenship, were the first of all the states of Italy who in our time of stress foully murdered our garrison and went over to Hannibal, and then, enraged because they were besieged by us, sent Hannibal to attack Rome. If neither their city nor any man of them survived, who could say that they had been punished more severely than theyB.C. 200 themselves deserved? More of them, from consciousness of their guilt, committed suicide than were punished by us. From the rest we did indeed take away their town and their fields, but in such a way that we left them enough land and room to dwell in, and we permitted the city itself to stand safe and uninjured, so that he who sees it to-day finds no sign of its assault and capture. But why do I mention Capua, when we gave peace and liberty to conquered Carthage? This is the greater danger, that by treating the vanquished too generously we may thereby incite more peoples to try the fortune of war against us. Let this be our defence of ourselves and our answer to Philip, whose murders within his family, whose slaughterings of friends and relatives, whose passions, more unnatural almost than his cruelty, you know better than I, as you are nearer neighbours to Macedonia. So far as you are concerned, men of Aetolia, we undertook the war with Philip for you and you made peace with him without us. And perhaps you will argue that when we were busy with the Punic war, you, compelled by fear, received terms of peace from him who was at that time more powerful; and that we, in the press of greater matters, ourselves neglected the war which you abandoned. But now, by the grace of the gods, having finished the Punic war, we have addressed ourselves with all our energy to Macedonia, and to you, accordingly, is offered the opportunity of reinstating yourselves in our alliance and friendship, unless you prefer perishing with Philip to conquering with the Romans.

After this had been said by the Roman commissioner, and the opinions of all were turningB.C. 200 toward the Romans, Damocritus, chief of the Aetolians, bribed —so men say —by the king, argued, not agreeing in any way with either side, that nothing was so inconsistent with wisdom in a great crisis as haste; for repentance, swift yet none the less late and unavailing, followed, when hastily-formed plans could not be recalled or annulled. The time for making the decision, the ripe moment for which should, in his judgment, be awaited, could be fixed even now: since it was provided by the laws that questions concerning peace or war should not be debated except at the Panaetolian and PylaicThis is probably the other stated meeting of the League, but this name is not used elsewhere in this connection. Possibly, as Professor Capps suggests to me, the Pylaic meeting was that of the Amphictyonic Council, now dominated by Aetolia, at Thermopylae; one expects, however, action by an Aetolian and not by an Amphictyonic agency. Cf. xxxv. 8. council, they should at once decree that the praetor should call a council, in good faith, when he wished to discuss the question of peace or war, and that whatever was then proposed and decreed should be valid and legal just as if determined at a Panaetolian or Pylaic session.Damocritus seems to propose that the council adjourn to meet on call, and that this adjourned meeting be regarded as a continuation of the regular meeting, and that the laws of the League be stretched to this extent. The ambassadors being thus dismissed with the decision hanging in the balance, he said that this was wise conduct for the League: for whichever side enjoyed the better fortune of war, to an alliance with that side they would turn. Such were the proceedings of the Aetolian council.

XXXIII. Philip was energetically preparing for war on land and sea. He assembled his navy at Demetrias in Thessaly; expecting that Attalus and the Roman fleet would move from Aegina in the beginning of spring, he placed Heraclides, to whomB.C. 200 he had previously given the same post, in command of the fleet and the coast; he himself collected the land forces, thinking that he had detached from the Romans two powerful allies, the Aetolians on one side, the Dardani on the other, since the passes to Pelagonia were held by his son Perseus. The consul was not preparing, but actually waging, war.Livy here resumes the narrative interrupted at xxviii. 6 above. He was leading the army through the territory of the Dassaretii, carrying with him untouched the grain he had brought from winter quarters, since the country supplied adequately the needs of the soldiers. The forts and towns surrendered, some voluntarily, others through fear; some were carried by assault, some were found abandoned as the barbarians fled to the neighbouring mountains. He established a base near Lyncus on the river Bevus; from there he sent troops to forage among the granaries of the Dassaretii. Philip, it is true, saw that everything round about was in confusion and that the people were greatly terrified, but not knowing in which direction the consul had marched, he sent a squadron of cavalry to ascertain where the enemy had gone. The consul was equally at a loss; he knew that the king had left his winter quarters, though ignorant of the region to which he had marched. He too sent out cavalry to scout. These two cavalry forces, coming from different directions, after they had wandered long and aimlessly over the roads in the land of the Dassaretii, finally met on the same highway. Neither was unaware, since they heard the sound of men and horses from far off, that the enemy was approaching. So, before they came in sight of one another, they had prepared horses and arms for battle, nor was there any delay in charging as soonB.C. 200 as the enemy came in sight. Not unequal, as it chanced, in either numbers or courage, since both consisted of picked men, they fought on equal terms for some hours. The weariness of men and horses ended the struggle without a decision in favour of either party. Of the Macedonians, forty troopers fell; of the Romans, thirty-five. Nor did either side, the king's or the consul's, have to report any more definite information as to where the enemy's camp lay; but this information was secured through deserters, whom in every war their fickleness causes to furnish information to the enemy.

Philip, thinking that he would do something to secure the affection of his people and increase their readiness to encounter danger on his behalf if he undertook the burial of the cavalrymen who had fallen on the expedition, ordered their bodies brought into camp, that the funeral honour might be seen by all. Nothing is so uncertain or so unpredictable as the mental reaction of a crowd. What he thought would make them more ready to enter any conflict caused, instead, reluctance and fear; for men who had seen the wounds dealt by javelins and arrows and occasionally by lances, since they were used to fighting with the Greeks and Illyrians, when they had seen bodies chopped to pieces by the Spanish sword,The long and heavy sabre, adapted to slashing blows, carried by Roman cavalry: cf. Dion. Hal. VIII. 67. The short infantry weapon, used for both cutting and thrusting, was called gladius Hispanus in XXII. xlvi. 5. arms torn away, shoulders and all, or heads separated from bodies, with the necks completely severed, or vitals laid open, and the other fearful wounds, realized in a general panic with what weapons and what men they had to fight. Fear seized the king as well, who had never met the Romans in ordered combat. So, recalling his son and the guard which was at the passes to Pelagonia, -B.C. 200 that he might increase his own strength with these forces, he opened to Pleuratus and the Dardani the road into Macedonia. Using deserters as guides, he himself marched towards the enemy with twenty thousand infantry and two thousand cavalry, and fortified with a wall and ditch a hill near Athacus, a little more than a mile from the Roman camp, and seeing the Roman camp which lay at his feet, it is said that he admired its whole arrangement and each section allotted its own place, with the rows of tents and also the well-spaced streets between, and that he remarked that no one could believe that that camp belonged to barbarians. For two days the consul and the king remained in camp, each waiting for the other to assume the offensive; on the third day the Roman led out all his forces to the battleground.

The king, fearing the gamble of a decisive battle at this early moment, sent four hundred Tralles —a people of Illyria, as I have elsewhereCf. XXVII. xxxii. 4. said —and three hundred Cretans, adding to the infantry an equal number of cavalry under command of Athenagoras, one of his nobles, to harass the Roman cavalry. The Romans, on the other hand —their battle-line was a little more than half a mile away —sent out skirmishers and about two squadrons of cavalry, that the infantry and cavalry might equal the enemy in number also. The king's forces assumed that the type of fighting would be that to which they were accustomed, that the cavalry, alternately advancing and retreating, would now discharge their weapons and now retire, that the swift movements of the Illyrians would be useful for sallies and sudden charges, and that the Cretans would shower arrowsB.C. 200 upon the enemy advancing in disorder. The Roman attack, no more vigorous than stubborn, prevented the carrying out of this plan; for just as if they were in regular line of battle, both the skirmishers, after hurling their spears, came to a hand-to-hand combat with their swords, and the cavalry, as soon as they had charged the enemy, stopping their horses either fought from horseback or leaped from their saddles and fought mingled with the footmen. So neither the king's cavalry, unused to a stationary battle, could stand against the Romans, nor his infantry, running to and fro and almost unprotected by armour, against the light-armed Romans, equipped with shield and sword and prepared alike for defence or offence. So they did not sustain the struggle, but relying on nothing else than their swiftness of foot they fled to the camp.

Then, after an interval of a day, when the king was determined to engage with all his cavalry and light infantry, he had concealed his targeteers,The caetra was a small, light shield (cf. pe/ltn). those whom they call peltasts, in ambush in a suitable place between the two camps, and had instructed Athenagoras and the cavalry that if things went well in the open battle they should exploit their advantage, but if not, they should by retiring gradually draw the enemy towards the place of ambush. And the cavalry did in fact retire, but the commanders of the peltasts, not waiting long enough for the signal and disclosing their forces prematurely, lost the opportunity for a victory. The Roman, both successful in the open battle and safe from the ambuscade, returned to camp.

Next day the consul led out all his army in battleline, placing in front of the ranks his elephants, anB.C. 200 auxiliary which the Romans then used for the first time, because they had some which they had taken in the Punic war. When he saw the enemy lurking behind his ramparts, he advanced to the hills and even against the wall itself, taunting him with being afraid. When he could not even then gain the opportunity to fight, since foraging was unsafe because his base was so close to that of the enemy, the cavalry being ready at any moment to attack the soldiers scattered through the fields, he moved his camp about eight miles from there to Ottolobum —so they call the place —that he might provision himself more safely because of the distance.The sites described in these chapters cannot be positively identified. While the Romans were gathering grain in the neighbouring fields, the king at first kept his men within the camp, that carelessness might increase in the enemy along with boldness. When he saw them well scattered, he set out with all his cavalry and the Cretan auxiliaries, in so far as these fast-moving infantrymen could keep up with the cavalry, and marching at full speed set up his standards between the Roman camp and the foragers. Then, dividing his forces, he sent part to pursue the scattered foragers, giving the word to leave no man alive, and himself with the remainder stood and blocked the roads by which the enemy seemed likely to return to camp. Now there was slaughter and flight everywhere, nor had any news of the disaster yet reached the Roman camp, because the fugitives fell in with the king's patrols, and more were killed by the men who blocked the roads than by those who were sent out to destroy them. Finally, however, some of them slipped through the line of enemy guards and in their panic brought confused rumoursB.C. 200 rather than definite news to the camp.

The consul sent the cavalry to aid the harassed in any way they could, and himself led out the legions from the camp and forming a hollow square marched towards the enemy. Some of the cavalry wandered aimlessly about the country, misled by the shouts that rose from this place and that, others met the enemy face to face. The battle began in several places at once. The royal guard put up the stiffest fight, for by reason of the number of infantry and cavalry it was practically a regular battle and most of the Romans encountered them, since they blocked the central road. In this too the Macedonians had the advantage, because the king himself was there to urge them on, and the Cretan auxiliaries dealt many unexpected wounds, fighting in close array and according to plan against men who were scattered and not in formation. But if they had observed discretion in the pursuit, it would have meant not only success in the present engagement, but final victory in the war as well; as it was, in their greed for slaughter, following too incautiously, they met the Roman cohorts advancing under command of the tribunes, and the fleeing cavalry, as soon as they saw the standards of their friends, faced about and attacked the disordered enemy, and in a moment, the tide of battle turning, the pursuers became the pursued. Many were struck down in hand-to-hand fight, many killed in flight; and they died not by the sword alone, but some of them were swallowed up, horses and all, when they became entangled in the swamps. Even the king was in danger; for, thrown headlong to the ground when his wounded horse fell, he narrowly escaped beingB.C. 200 trampled to death. A trooper saved him, who quickly leaped down and lifted the terrified king to the back of his own horse; he himself, since on foot he could not equal the speed of the fleeing cavalry, perished, struck down by the cavalry who rushed up at the fall of the king. The king, riding about the marshes over roads and blind paths in full flight, came at length to his camp, when nearly all had given up hope of his safe return. Two hundred of the Macedonian cavalry fell in this battle, and about one hundred were captured; about eighty horses, with their trappings, some spoils of weapons being also recovered among the booty, were driven off.

There have been some who accused the king of rashness and others the consul of lack of energy on that day: Philip, they said, should have remained quiet, knowing that in a few days the enemy would be reduced to extreme need by the consumption of all the grain in the adjacent country, while the consul, after routing the enemy's cavalry and light infantry and almost capturing the king himself, should have immediately attacked the enemy's camp; for the enemy, dismayed as they were, would not have awaited his onslaught, and the war could have been finished at one stroke. This, as usual, was easier to say than to do. For if the king had made his attack with all his infantry in addition, perhaps in the confusion, when they were all rushing, beaten and panic-stricken, from the battle-field into the camp, if they had at once fled before a conquering foe that was overrunning the defences, the king might have been driven from his camp; but since his entire infantry had remained in camp, with outposts and patrols stationed before the gates, what couldB.C. 200 he have accomplished, except to imitate the rashness of the king, who had a little before pursued the scattered and fleeing cavalry? Nor would there be any criticism even of the king's original plan, of attacking the foragers scattered over the fields, had he limited his objective to success in this attack. It is less strange, too, that he tempted fortune in this way, because there was a report that Pleuratus and the Dardani had already left home with great forces and had invaded Macedonia; and if he were surrounded by these encircling forces, it might well be believed that the Roman could end the war by sitting still. So Philip, thinking it far less safe to remain in the same camp after two cavalry defeats, wanting to withdraw from there and to escape detection while so doing, at sunset sent a herald to the consul to ask a truce for burying the cavalrymen, and eluding the enemy stole away silently during the second watch, leaving numerous fires burning throughout the camp.

The consul was engaged in refreshing himself at the time it was announced that the herald had come and why he had come. Replying merely that in the morning there would be opportunity for a conference, he gave Philip what he sought, the chance to retire rapidly during the night and a part of the next day. He made for the mountains, choosing a road which he knew the Roman, with his heavy-armed column, would not take. At daybreak the consul sent the herald away after granting the truce, and when he learned, no long time later, that the enemy had gone, not knowing where to pursue him, he spent some days in the same camp while gathering supplies. Thence he marched to Stuberra and brought there from Pelagonia the grain which was inB.C. 200 the fields. He then marched to Pluinna, still ignorant as to where the enemy had gone. When Philip had established a base near Bruanium, marching from there across country he inspired sudden terror in the enemy. On that account the Romans moved from Pluinna and encamped on the Osphagus river. The king also pitched camp not far away, throwing up a rampart along the bank of a river —the natives call it Erigonus. Then, feeling certain that the Romans would move toward Eordaea, he hurried forward to gain the pass, that the Romans might not force the road, which was closed by the narrow entrance. There he threw up hasty fortifications, using sometimes a rampart, sometimes a ditch, sometimes piles of stones to serve as a wall, sometimes cut-down trees, as the nature of the terrain and the material at hand permitted, and, as he thought, rendered a road which was already naturally difficult impassable by the obstacles which he placed in all the open places. There were many forests in the neighbourhood, a great hindrance to the Macedonian phalanx,For the formation and battle tactics of the phalanx, and its advantages and disadvantages as compared with the more mobile Roman legion, see Polyb. XVIII. xxviii-xxxii. incl. Livy's account, while less explicit and detailed, is consistent with that of Polybius. which was of absolutely no use except where it could thrust, so to speak, a rampart in front of the shields with its very long spears, and for this purpose they needed open country. The Thracians too were impeded by their lances, which were likewise of great length, among the branches which projected in every direction. Only the Cretan contingent was of much service, but even they, since they could only, if there was an attack, direct their arrows against unprotected horses and riders, so against the Roman shields they lacked the power of penetration, and there were left no unexposed parts at which they could aim. And so, when they perceived that weapons of thisB.C. 200 kind were ineffective, they harassed the enemy with the stones which lay everywhere through the whole valley. The clash of these against the shields, causing more noise than damage, delayed the advancing Romans for a little while. Then, scorning these also, part of the Romans, forming a testudo,An attack formation, in which overlapping shields, held above the heads and at the sides of the soldiers, offered protection to the men inside. advanced in face of the enemy, while others, gaining the saddle by a short detour, dislodged the terrified Macedonians from their strong points and outposts, and even killed some of them, since flight was slow in the difficult country.

So the pass was won with less trouble than had been anticipated, and the consul marched to Eordaea, and after laying waste the country in all directions, proceeded toward Elimia. Then he made an attack on Orestis and assaulted the town of Celetrum, which lay on a peninsula; a lake surrounds its walls; a narrow tongue of land offers the only approach from the mainland. At first the natives, relying on their position, closed the gates and refused the demand to surrender; but when they saw the standards brought forward and the testudo advancing towards the gates and the isthmus filled with a throng of hostile troops, in panic they surrendered before they tried the issue of a battle. From Celetrum he proceeded to the land of the Dassaretii and took the city of Pelium by storm. He carried off the slaves from there with the rest of the booty, dismissed the freemen without ransom, and restored the town to them, leaving a strong garrison; for the town was favourably situated as a base for conducting raids into Macedonia. So the consul, having traversed the enemy's country, led his troops back to the peaceful region around Apollonia, whence he had begun theB.C. 200 war.

Philip was distracted by the Aetolians, the Athamanes and the Dardani and so many wars breaking out in one place after another. Against the Dardani, who were by this time withdrawing from Macedonia, he sent Athenagoras with the light infantry and the greater part of the cavalry, with orders to press on them from behind as they withdrew, and by nibbling at their rearguard to make them less inclined to move their army from home. Damocritus, the same president who had caused the delay in declaring war at Naupactus, had, at the next council, stirred up the Aetolians to war after they had heard of the cavalry battle at Ottolobum and the invasion of Macedonia by the Dardani and Pleuratus with the Illyrians, and, in addition, of the arrival of the Roman fleet at Oreus and the naval blockade which threatened so many Macedonian cities on the coast.

These causes had reunited Damocritus and the Aetolians with the Romans; and joining Amynander, the king of the Athamanes, they set out and besieged Cercinium. The inhabitants closed its gates, whether willingly or under compulsion, since they had a royal garrison. But within a few days Cercinium was captured and burned; both the slave and free inhabitants who survived from the great disaster were carried off with the rest of the booty. Fear of the same fate drove all the dwellers around the marsh of Boëbe to leave their homes and flee to the mountains. The Aetolians then turned away and began to march toward Perrhaebia, by reason of the shortage of plunder. They captured and ruthlessly destroyed Cyretiae; they received in voluntary surrender and alliance the people ofB.C. 200 Maloea. After Perrhaebia, Amynander made the proposal that they march against Gomphi; Athamania lies close to this town, and it seemed possible to capture it without a great struggle. The Aetolians sought the fields of Thessaly, rich booty for the pillager, with Amynander following, though he did not approve either the haphazard raids of the Aetolians or their habit of pitching camp wherever chance suggested, without any deliberate choice of position or any care as to defence. Therefore, lest their rashness and carelessness cause any disaster to himself and his men, when he saw them encamping in the plains, exposed to attack from the town of Pharcado, he occupied a hill a little more than a mile away, that was safe even though weakly fortified. When the Aetolians, except that they were plundering, seemed scarcely to remember that they were in hostile territory, some wandering about half-armed, some lying around the unguarded camp, spending days and nights alike in sleeping and drinking, Philip fell upon them unawares. When some frightened fugitives from the fields had brought the news that he was approaching, Damocritus and the other commanders were terrified —for it was about the hour of noon, when most of them lay asleep and heavy with food —men were rousing one another, ordering them to arm, sending out messengers to recall the pillagers who were straggling through the fields, and so great was the panic that some of the cavalry went out without swords and most of them without putting on their breastplates. Led out in such haste, when they had been able with difficulty to collect six hundred out of the whole number, infantry and cavalry, they encountered the king's cavalry, -B.C. 200 superior in numbers, in equipment and in courage. And so at the first shock, barely essaying a battle, they made for the camp in disgraceful rout; those who were cut off by the cavalry were killed and captured.

Philip ordered the recall sounded as his men approached the rampart; for men and horses were wearied less by the battle than by the length and especially the excessive speed of the march. So he ordered the cavalry by troops, the companies of light infantry in succession, to go to get water and to take their meal, and kept some on guard under arms, as he awaited the column of infantry which moved more slowly on account of the weight of their equipment. When they arrived, they too were ordered to set up their standards, stack their arms, and take a hasty meal, only two or three from each company at a time being sent for water; meanwhile the cavalry and light infantry stood ready in formation in case the enemy should make any move. The Aetolians —for now even those who had been scattered through the country had returned to camp —stationed armed guards around the gates and wall to defend the fortification, while, themselves in high spirits, they watched from safety their inactive foes. After the Macedonian standards were moved and the soldiers arrayed and formed for battle began to approach the wall, all suddenly left their posts and fled through the rear part of the camp to the hill and the camp of the Athamanes. Many of the Aetolians were killed or captured in their headlong flight. If enough of the day had remained, Philip could without doubt have driven the Athamanes also from their camp, but having used up the day in fighting andB.C. 200 then in plundering the camp, he bivouacked in a nearby plain beneath the hill, intending to attack the enemy at the following dawn. But the Aetolians, still in the grip of the panic in which they had left their own camp, during the ensuing night fled in every direction. Amynander was of the greatest service, under whose leadership the Athamanes who knew the roads led them back to Aetolia over the mountains by paths unknown to the pursuing enemy. Aimless wandering in the disorderly flight threw no large number into the hands of the Macedonian cavalry, whom Philip had sent out to harass the enemy's column when at daybreak he saw the hill deserted.

At the same time, moreover, Athenagoras, the king's prefect, overtaking the Dardani as they retired into their own country, threw the rear of the column into confusion; then, after the Dardani had faced about and formed their line, there was a regular battle on equal terms. When the Dardani had begun again to proceed on their march, the king's forces with their cavalry and light infantry harried the Dardani, who had no such auxiliaries, and were burdened with weapons that were hard to handle; the terrain too favoured the Macedonians.I have supplied the object of adiuvabant in accordance with the apparent sense of the passage. A very few were killed, more wounded, none captured, for it is their way not to leave their ranks rashly, but to fight and give ground in close formation.

In this way Philip, by checking two nations with timely attacks, undertaken with boldness not merely successful in the result, had recouped the losses sustained in the Roman war. Then another piece of good fortune diminished the number of his enemies in Aetolia. Scopas,Scopas had been strategus of the Aetolians in 204 B.C., but after a political reverse had gone to Egypt and entered the service of Ptolemy. a prominent man among theB.C. 200 tribe, sent by King Ptolemy from Alexandria with a great quantity of gold, had transported to Egypt six thousand infantry and five hundred cavalry whom he had hired; nor would he have left a single fighting-man of the Aetolians, if Damocritus, now warning them of the present war, now of the future depopulation of the state, had not by his reproofs kept at home a part of the younger men, though it is uncertain whether his action was due to concern for the state or a desire to thwart Scopas, who had not been generous with gifts to him.

Such were the actions of the Romans and Philip on land during that summer; in the beginning of the same summer, the fleet, under the lieutenant Lucius Apustius, leaving Corcyra and rounding Malea joined King Attalus in the neighbourhood of Scyllaeum in the territory of Hermione. Then indeed the Athenian people, whose hatred for Philip had long been restrained by fear, in view of the prospect of aid at hand, gave full vent to their anger. Tongues ready to incite the mob are never lacking in that city; and this conduct is encouraged by popular applause, not only in free states generally, but especially in Athens, where oratory has greatest influence. They immediately proposed and the people passed a motion that all statues of Philip, all representations of him, and their inscriptions, and also those of his ancestors, male and female, should be removed and done away with, that all the feast-days, sacred observances and priesthoods which had been established in honour of him or his ancestors should be abolished; even the places in which any memorials or inscriptions in his honour had been set up should be accursed, and that it should not be lawful to placeB.C. 200 or dedicate in them thereafter anything that could lawfully be placed or dedicated in any unpolluted spot; the public priests, as often as they offered prayers on behalf of the people of Athens and their allies, their armies and fleets, should so often curse and execrate Philip, his children and his kingdom, his military and naval forces, and the whole race and name of the Macedonians. It was added to the decree that if anyone thereafter made any proposal that had to do with bringing disgrace or ignominy on Philip, the Athenian people would adopt it in toto; that if anyone said or did anything to lessen his ignominy or increase his honour, any person who slew such an one would be deemed to have slain him lawfully. Finally, it was added that all the decrees which had once been passed against the PisistratidaeHippias and Hipparchus, tyrants of Athens in the sixth century B.C., and the traditional objects of her hatred. should be kept in force in the case of Philip. This was the Athenians' war against Philip, conducted by means of letters and words, which constitute their sole strength.

Attalus and the Romans, putting in first at Piraeus after leaving Hermione, and tarrying there a few days and being loaded down with decrees as effusive in the praise of the allies as those others in condemnation of the enemy, sailed from Piraeus to Andros. And when they had anchored in the harbour which they call Gaurium, sending ashore agents to test the disposition of the people, whether they preferred to surrender the city voluntarily rather than endure an attack, after the citizens replied that the citadel was held by a garrison of the king and that they were powerless, Attalus and the Roman lieutenant landed troops and all the equipment for assaulting cities and approached the cityB.C. 200 from different directions. The Roman arms and standards, which they had never seen before, and the spirit of the soldiers, so ready to advance to storm the walls, caused no small terror among the Greeks; so they straightway took refuge in the citadel and the enemy possessed the town. And after holding the citadel for two days, trusting to the strength of the place rather than to their arms, on the third day they bargained that they and the garrison be transferred to Delium in Boeotia with one garment each, and surrendered the city and the citadel. The Romans gave these to King Attalus; the booty and the ornaments of the city they took for themselves. Attalus, rather than possess a deserted island, persuaded both nearly all of the Macedonians and some of the Andrians to remain. Later on those who had already crossed under the agreement were brought back from Delium by the king's promises, since longing too for their native land increased their inclination to trust him.

From Andros they proceeded to Cythnos. After spending some days in vain in attacking the city, because it seemed scarcely worth the effort, they departed. At Prasiae —this is a place on the Attic mainland —twenty light-draft vessels of the IssaeiIssa was a small island off the Dalmatian coast. joined the Roman fleet. These were sent to ravage the territory of the Carystii, while the rest put into Geraestus, a famous port of Euboea, to wait until the Issaei should return from Carystus. Then all of them, setting sail for the open sea, went past the island of Scyros to Icos. Being delayed there a few days by strong north winds, as soon as calm weather returned, they sailed past Sciathus, a city recently looted and destroyed by Philip. The soldiers, wandering aroundB.C. 200 the country, brought to the ships the grain and whatever food-stuffs they found; of booty there was none, nor had the Greeks done anything to deserve being plundered. Thence, on their way to Cassandrea, they held their course first for Mendaeus, the seaport of that city. Then, when they had rounded the promontory and were trying to bring the fleet up close to the city walls, a violent storm arising and the ships having been almost buried under the waves or scattered, they escaped to the shore with the loss of a great part of their rigging. This storm at sea was an omen of their fortunes on land. For when, after re-assembling the ships and landing the troops, they attacked the city, they were repulsed with considerable loss —there was a strong royal garrison there —and retiring after the failure of their enterprise they steered for Canastraeum in Pallene. Thence sailing around the cape of Torona they made for Acanthus. There they first plundered the country and then captured and sacked the town. They went no farther —for by now the ships were laden with booty —but returned to Sciathos and thence to Euboea by the way they had come.

There they left the fleet and with ten light vessels entered the Malian gulf for a conference with the Aetolians regarding the plan of campaign. Pyrrhias the Aetolian was the head of the embassy Which came to Heraclea to discuss plans with the king and the Roman lieutenant. Attalus was asked to furnish one thousand soldiers in accordance with the treaty; for he was bound to supply that number for the armies fighting against Philip. This was refused the Aetolians because they had previously objected to marching out to devastate Macedonia, -B.C. 200 at the time when they might have compelled Philip, who was burning everything sacred and profane around Pergamum, to withdraw through concern for his own property. So the Aetolians were dismissed with hopes rather than actual assistance, the Romans making lavish promises; Apustius with Attalus returned to the fleet.

The question of an attack on Oreus was next discussed. The city was defended both by walls and, because it had been attacked before, by a strong garrison. After the capture of Andros twenty Rhodian ships, all decked, under command of Agesimbrotus, had joined the fleet. They were left on guard off Zelasium —this promontory in Phthiotis occupied a very strategic position beyond Demetrias —to watch if any movement from there was made by the Macedonian fleet. Heraclides, the king's prefect, was in command of the fleet there, intending to take advantage of any opportunity which was offered by the enemy's negligence rather than to undertake anything by open force. The Romans and King Attalus attacked Oreus from opposite sides, the Romans by way of the maritime citadel, the king's troops up the valley lying between the two citadels, where the city was guarded by a wall as well. And as they occupied different places, so they fought in different ways: the Romans by moving against the walls the mantlets, and sheds and battering-ram, the king's troops hurling missiles and huge stones with balistae, catapults, and every sort of artillery; they dug tunnels too, and whatever else had proved useful in the former siege. But the Macedonians defending the city and citadels were not only more numerous than before, but they fought with greaterB.C. 200 courage, mindful at once of the king's rebuke for their former errorOreus had been taken by Attalus and the Romans in 207 B.C. (XXVIII. vi. 1-6) through the treachery of the Macedonian commander. and also of his threats and promises for the future. Accordingly, when more time than was expected was being spent there, and a blockade and siege-works held out more hope than a sudden assault, the lieutenant, thinking that something else should be done in the meantime, leaving what seemed a sufficient force to complete the works, crossed to the nearest part of the mainland, to Larisa —this is not the famous Larisa in Thessaly, but another, which they call Cremaste —and by a surprise attack captured everything but the citadel. Attalus too took Pteleum when the citizens were fearing nothing of the sort, while the siege of the other city was going on. And now not only were the siege-works completed around Oreus, but the garrison which was inside was exhausted by continuous toil, by watchfulness day and night alike, and by wounds. Parts of the wall, moreover, fell in several places under the blows of the battering-ram; and the Romans, entering through the breaches by night penetrated to the citadel which is above the harbour. Attalus at daybreak, when the signal was given by the Romans from the citadel, also assailed the city, large parts of the wall having collapsed; the garrison and the townspeople fled to the other citadel, where they surrendered two days later. The city was given to the king, the prisoners to the Romans.

The autumnal equinox was now at hand, and the Euboean gulf, which they call Coela, is dangerous to mariners. So, wanting to get away from there before the winter storms, they returned to Piraeus, whence they had set out on the campaign. Apustius left thirty ships there and sailed pastB.C. 200 Malea to Corcyra. The king waited for the day of the mysteries of Ceres,See xiv. 7 above and the note. that he might take part in the ceremonies; after the celebration he too departed for Asia, having previously sent Agesimbrotus and the Rhodians home. This is the record of the actions of this summer on land and sea performed against Philip and his allies by the Roman consul and lieutenant with the aid of King Attalus and the Rhodians.

The other consul, Gaius Aurelius,The narrative continues from xxii. 3 above. having arrived in his province and found the campaign finished, made no secret of his anger at the praetor for having fought in his absence.We do not know what effect the senatorial decree reported in xi. 1 above had on the imperium of Furius. Normally, he would have become a subordinate of Aurelius, and as such he would have no authority to fight without explicit orders from the consul and would be ineligible for a triumph. This is Aurelius' position. Furius seems to argue that his own imperium authorized him to act independently of the consul, and both of these claims are maintained in the debate that follows. The complicated legal question of the military status of Furius with respect to Aurelius is probably insoluble. The whole story of Furius' victory (xxi. 1-xxii. 3 above) and his triumph (xlvii. 6-xlix. 3 below) is rejected by some scholars as an anticipation of the events related in xxxii. 30, but their reasons seem inadequate. Sending him accordingly to Etruria, he himself led the legions into the enemy's country, and, laying it waste, carried on the war with more booty than glory. Lucius Furius, partly because there was nothing for him to do in Etruria, partly because he was ambitious for a triumph over the Gauls, which he thought he could more easily obtain in the absence of the angry and jealous consul, when he had unexpectedly appeared in Rome, summoned the senate in the temple of Bellona,Magistrates and others possessing the imperium were not permitted to cross the pomerium, the religious boundary of Rome. The temple of Bellona was outside this limit, and the senate often met there under circumstances like these. gave an account of his achievements and asked that he be allowed to enter the city in triumph.

On many of the senators he made a favourable impression, because of the greatness of his achievements and through his personal influence. The older members were for refusing the triumph, -B.C. 200 partly because he had fought with an army legally under another's command, partly because he had left his province as a result of his ardent desire to petition for a triumph when the opportunity offered itself; but this conduct was unprecedented;Dio (frg. 57. 81) adds that an explanation of his actions was demanded. the senators of consular rank especially urged that he should have waited for the consul; for he might, while defending the colony by locating his camp near the city, without committing himself to a decisive engagement, have delayed matters until the consul's arrival; the senate's proper conduct would be to wait for the consul, as the praetor had not done; when they had heard consul and praetor debating face to face, they would, they said, judge more fairly concerning the issue. A great part of the senate thought that the senators should consider only his record, and whether he had fought during his term of office and under his own auspices. When one of the two colonies which had been established as, so to speak, barriers to restrain Gallic uprisings had been sacked and burned, and the flames were about to leap over to the other, so close at hand, as from one building to another in a continuous row, what, pray, was the praetor to do? For if it was improper to take any action without the consul, either the senate was at fault for entrusting an army to the praetor —for it would have been possible to order by senatorial decree that nothing should be done by the praetor, but only by the consul, if it had been desired that the consul's army and not the praetor's should do the fighting —or else the consul was at fault, who had not joined the army at Ariminum, when he had ordered it to move from Etruria to Gaul, to participate in a war which could not be legallyB.C. 200 -B.C. 200 conducted without him. The emergencies of war, they argued, do not wait for the delays and postponements of commanders, and sometimes you must fight, not because you wish it, but because the enemy compels it. The battle itself and its results should be considered. The enemy had been routed and slaughtered, their camp captured and plundered, the siege of the colony raised, the prisoners from the other colony recovered and restored to their friends, the war finished in a single battle. Not only had men rejoiced at that victory, but also a three-day period of thanksgiving had been decreed to the immortal gods, because Lucius Furius the praetor had conducted affairs, not poorly and rashly, but well and successfully. Finally, Gallic wars were by the will of fate, so to speak, entrusted to the Furii.The dictator Camillus and his son, members of the gens Furia, had won fame in fighting the Gauls: cf. V. xlix. 6; VII. xxv. 11; Tacitus, Ann. II. lii. 8.

Through speeches of this kind, delivered by the praetor and his friends, the prestige of the consul, who was absent, was outweighed by the personal influence of the praetor, who was present, and a full session voted a triumph to Lucius Furius. Lucius Furius the praetor triumphed over the Gauls while still in office, and deposited in the treasury three hundred and twenty thousand asses of bronze, and one hundred thousand five hundred piecesLivy does not specify the denomination of these coins, which were probably denarii. of silver. There were no captives led before his chariot, no spoils displayed, no soldiers in his train. Everything but the victory was in possession of the consul.

Next the games which had been vowed by Publius Cornelius Scipio during his consulship in Africa were celebrated with great splendour. It was also decreed, regarding lands for his soldiers,The distribution of land mentioned in iv. 1-2 above probably included only veterans of the Italian armies. Provision is now made for those who had fought in Spain and Africa. that each should receive two iugera of land for each year of theirB.C. 200 service in Spain or Africa; the decemvirateProbably the commission that made the previous allotment, but Livy may have omitted a motion creating a new decemvirate. should make the distribution. Also, a commission of three was created to fill up the number of colonists for the people of Venusia, because the strength of that colony had been diminished in the Hannibalic war. The commissioners chosen were Gaius Terentius Varro, Titus Quinctius Flamininus, Publius Cornelius Scipio, the son of Gnaeus, and they enrolled the colonists for Venusia.

In the same year Gaius Cornelius Cethegus, who as proconsul was governing Spain, defeated a large hostile force in the territory of the Sedetani. According to report, fifteen thousand Spaniards were killed in this battle and seventy-eight standards captured.

Gaius Aurelius the consul, when he returned from the province to Rome to hold the elections, did not make the complaint that they had anticipated, that the senate had not waited for him nor given the consul an opportunity to debate with the praetor, but he did protest that they had decreed the triumph in such a way that they had heard the testimony of no one except the man who was to triumph, and not of those who had been present at the battle. Their ancestors had ordained that the lieutenants, tribunes, centurions, and even the common soldiers should attend a triumph, to the end that the Roman people might see the witnesses to the deeds of the man to whom so signal an honour was given. Was there no one from the army which had fought against the Gauls, no camp-follower at least, if there was no soldier, whom the senate could ask how much truth or untruth there was in the praetor's report?Aurelius' criticism of the procedure of the senate is surprisingly mild, but Furius had already celebrated his triumph. He then announced the date of the elections, at which Lucius Cornelius Lentulus and Publius VilliusB.C. 200 Tappulus were chosen consuls. Then Lucius Quinctius Flamininus, Lucius Valerius Flaccus, Lucius Villius Tappulus, and Gnaeus Baebius Tamphilus were elected praetors.

Also, grain was very cheap this year; a great quantity of grain which was brought from Africa was distributed to the people at two asses per modius by the curule aediles Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Sextus Aelius Paetus. They also celebrated the Roman Games with great magnificence; they repeated one day's performance; they set up in the treasury five bronze statues out of the money collected as fines. The Plebeian Games were thrice repeated entire by the aediles Lucius Terentius Massiliota and Gnaeus Baebius Tamphilus, who had been chosen praetor. Funeral games lasting four days were exhibited in the forum in commemoration of the death of Marcus Valerius Laevinus, by his sons Publius and Marcus, and a gladiatorial show was given by them; twenty-five pairs of gladiators fought. Marcus Aurelius Cotta, decemvir in charge of sacrifices, died; in his stead Manius Acilius Glabrio was appointed.

It happened that both the curule aediles chosen at the election were men who could not be inaugurated at once. For Gaius Cornelius Cethegus was elected in his absence, since he was engaged in administering the province of Spain; Gaius Valerius Flaccus, who was present when he was elected, could not take the oath to observe the laws because he was the flamen of Jupiter,In that capacity he was not allowed to take any oath (Gellius, X. xv. 4), but Roman ingenuity finds a solution. and no magistrate was allowed to hold office for more than five days unless he had taken that oath. At the request of Flaccus that he be exempted from the operation of the law, theB.C. 200 senate decreed that if the aedile could find someone, approved by the consuls, who would take the oath on his behalf, the consuls, if it seemed wise to them, should request the tribunes to bring a resolution before the assembly. Lucius Valerius Flaccus, the praetor-elect, was proposed to take the oath in his brother's place. The tribunes proposed and the people voted, that it should be as if the aedile himself had sworn. Regarding the other aedile, the assembly passed a decree;A plebiscitum (here scitum plebi) was strictly a vote carried in the plebeian assembly (contrast lex), but the term is used, somewhat loosely, for measures adopted by any of the assemblies. The number of such legislative bodies in Rome is debated. when the tribunes put the question what two men they would order to go to the armies in Spain, in order that Gaius Cornelius the curule aedile might come to enter upon his office, and that Lucius Manlius Acidinus might be relieved of his province after many years, the assembly ordered Gnaeus Cornelius LentulusThe name is probably an error for Gnaeus Cornelius Blasio (cf. XXXIII. xxvii. 1). and Lucius Stertinius to exercise authority in Spain with the rank of proconsuls.