With the view of doing more to win the affections of his men and make them more ready to meet danger on his behalf, Philip paid [2??] special attention to the burial of the men who had fallen in the cavalry action and ordered the bodies to be brought into camp that all might see the honour paid to the dead. [3] But nothing is so uncertain or so difficult to gauge as the temper of a mass of people. The very thing which was expected to make them keener to face any conflict only inspired them with hesitancy and fear. [4] Philip's men had been accustomed to fighting with Greeks and Illyrians and had only seen wounds inflicted by javelins and arrows and in rare instances by lances. But when they saw bodies dismembered with the Spanish sword, arms cut off from the shoulder, heads struck off from the trunk, bowels exposed and other horrible wounds, they recognised the style of weapon and the kind of man against whom they had to fight, and a shudder of horror ran through the ranks. [5] Even the king himself felt apprehensive, though he had not yet met the Romans in a pitched battle, and in order [6??] to augment his forces he recalled his son and the troops who were stationed in the Pelagonian pass, thus leaving the road open to Pleuratus and the Dardanians for the invasion of Macedonia. [7] He now advanced against the enemy with an army of 20,000 infantry and 4000 cavalry, and came to a hill near Athacus where he strongly intrenched himself about a mile from the Roman camp. [8] It is said that as he looked down on it and gazed with admiration on the appearance of the camp as a whole and its various sections marked off by the rows of tents and the roads crossing each other, he exclaimed, "No one can possibly take that for a camp of barbarians." For two whole days the king and the consul kept their respective armies in camp, each waiting for the other to attack. [9] On the third day the Roman general led out his whole force to battle.
Livy. History of Rome. English Translation by. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 1. Livy. History of Rome. English Translation. Rev. Canon Roberts. New York, New York. E. P. Dutton and Co. 1912. 2.
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