Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 42
Evan T. Sage, Ph.D. and Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

65. From Sycurium the king, disliking the length of the journey, moved his camp to Mopselus; and the Romans, having reaped the harvests of Crannon, moved to the fields of Phalanna. [2] When the king learned from a deserter that there the Romans were reaping, wandering everywhere through the fields with no armed guard, he set out with a thousand cavalry, and two thousand of the Thracians and Cretans, and since he marched with as great speed as he could attain, in a scattered column, he fell without warning upon the Romans. [3] Wagons with their teams, many of them loaded, were captured to the number of quite a thousand, and about six hundred men. [4] He gave the booty to three hundred Cretans to guard and bring to camp; [5] he himself, recalling from the slaughter far and wide the cavalry and the rest of the infantry led them against the nearest guard detachment, thinking that with no great struggle it could be crushed. [6] Lucius Pompeius, [p. 497]military tribune, was in command; he withdrew¹ the soldiers, who were dismayed by the sudden arrival of the enemy, to a nearby hill, intending to defend himself by the strength of the position since he was no match in numbers and power. [7] There when he had gathered his soldiers in a circle, so that with their close-packed shields they could protect themselves from the blows of arrows and javelins, Perseus, with his men-at-arms surrounding the hill, ordered some to try the ascent from all sides and join battle at close quarters, others to hurl weapons from a distance. [8] A terrific threat surrounded the Romans, for when massed they could not thrust back those who were struggling up the hill, and whenever they broke ranks by charging forward, they were exposed to javelins and arrows. They suffered particularly from the dart-slings.² [9] This was a new kind of weapon, invented in that war. A sharp iron two spans long was set in a wooden shaft of half a cubit, a finger in thickness; [10] around this latter three short fir-wood “feathers,” like those usual on arrows, were attached; the sling had in the middle two unequal thongs; when the slinger swung and spun it by the strap with an extra effort, the missile, shaken loose, shot out like a ball.³ [11] When with this and with every other sort of weapon part of the soldiers had been wounded and it was no longer easy for the weary men to hold up their weapons, the king urged them to surrender, gave them his guaranty, at times offered rewards. But no one's [p. 499]mind could be bent to surrender, when in⁴ unhopedfor fashion hope dawned upon men who had already determined to die. [12] For when a few of the foragers, taking refuge in the camp, reported to the consul that the guard was surrounded, he, moved by the danger of so large a number of citizens —for there were about eight hundred, and all Romans —with the cavalry and light troops (there were added the new auxiliaries, the Numidian infantry, cavalry and elephants) marched out of camp and instructed the military tribunes that the legionary units were to follow. He himself, adding the light infantry of the legions to strengthen the light-armed auxiliaries, marched ahead to the hill. [13] Eumenes, Attalus, and Misagenes, the prince of the Numidians, covered the consul's flanks.⁵

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