Falling upon them unexpectedly, he cut all their forces to pieces, and indeed almost annihilated them to a man.
Returning to Elissa, laden with Roman spoils, he laid them at her feet.
Upon seeing this immediate proof of his devotion, Elissa could not help recognising the fact that her self-sacrifice had not been entirely in vain, and she thanked the gods that they had given her the courage to carry it out to the bitter end.
Alas for Elissa! although for long she lived in hope, this first success was also the last. For a series of adverse circumstances coming one upon another utterly frustrated the projects of Philip to assist Hannibal and to combine with the Carthaginians in a war which, had things gone differently, would, in all probability, have had the result of wiping out the Roman nation and of making Carthage supreme on the Mediterranean coasts. The first piece of bad luck was the falling of Xenophanes and all his embassy into the hands, in the province of Campania, of a certain praetor named Valerius; but that first disadvantage was got over by the lying propensities of Xenophanes. For he, of all the Greeks, was one of the greatest adepts in the ancient art of using the power of speech as a means to conceal his thoughts.
Thus, when arrested by Valerius, he readily admitted that he and his suite were come as ambassadors to Italy, but represented that it was to the Consul Marcus Marcellus, the conquerer of Syracuse, who was now in Italy, that he was accredited. Thus, being believed, he was readily given all the necessary information as to how he should proceed so as to avoid the Hannibalian forces, and allowed to continue on his journey unmolested. Owing to the information he had received, the wily Greek was enabled easily to avoid any other Roman army, and actually contrived to find Hannibal himself in the province of Apulia. To the great conqueror he safely communicated the treaty and all the letters that he carried from Philip and from Elissa, which he had contrived to conceal about his clothing. Hannibal, while naturally astonished and greatly annoyed at learning that his daughter was now at the court of such a dissolute monarch as Philip, was delighted with the treaty which she had been the means of bringing about, and which, so favourable were the terms to Carthage, he lost no time in ratifying.
Upon his sending back the Macedonian ambassadors, however, accompanied by some Carthaginian envoys to Philip, the whole of the embassy, after arriving safely on board their ships, were detained at sea by a Roman fleet, and once again Xenophanes was taken before Valerius. He, from the Carthaginian envoys, discovered the whole plot, although by his aptitude for lying, Xenophanes had a second time almost escaped.
They all were now taken as prisoners to Rome, where they suffered great tortures and hardships.
Thus, from want of a concerted plan of action, Philip was utterly unable to render to Hannibal the necessary assistance at the required time. Nevertheless, hearing of the capture of his ambassadors, Philip sent fresh envoys to Hannibal, and the treaty being ratified, he set to sea with a few ships to try to organise a large fleet of his own vessels, added to some from his Grecian allies and others lying in various ports, with which to harass the whole Italian coast. Unfortunately, owing to the sudden unwarranted fears of his captains, which panic, it is said, even gained upon the king himself, this enterprise proved utterly fruitless. For upon the false alarm that a large Roman fleet was advancing, whereas there were at the utmost only some ten Roman frigates which were lying, themselves fearful of his approach, in a Sicilian harbour, Philip fled precipitately with his ships, and returned to Macedon without striking a blow by sea. For, in sooth, he was no sailor, although a right gallant warrior on land. And the Romans, being reinforced, captured all the ships he would have mustered, and remained completely masters of the sea.
Elissa was not long in learning the facts of this expedition, which Philip had vainly sought to colour to his own advantage, and being furious with herself for having given way to him without having gained any commensurate advantages for her country, and furious also with Philip, she taunted him bitterly, telling him that the only wars in which he was successful were those that he waged upon women.
After this, although Philip remained captivated with Elissa’s regal beauty, life became almost intolerable between them. Hannibal’s daughter continually stirred the king up with her invectives and reproaches to fresh enterprises; but for want of a sufficient fleet he was unable, after his first naval reverse, to invade Italy, and go to Hannibal’s assistance. He therefore contented himself with warlike expeditions by land in all parts of Greece, and even Asia Minor, against all such as were the allies of Rome. But between the Romans and himself there were no serious conflicts, and, in fact, only a state of semi-warfare existed, the Romans being too much employed elsewhere to pay any serious attention to the Macedonian so long as he left their own actual coasts alone. They, therefore, contented themselves by constantly sending embassies requesting him to desist, under threat of serious punishment, at which embassies Philip merely snapped his fingers. Thus, despite the prayers of Elissa to either build ships or else march by land to Italy, as her father had done from Spain before him, the war upon which Philip had launched, in his ardour to win over Hannibal’s daughter, proved of no use to Hannibal himself whatever. Nevertheless it continued for years, and the name of Philip was so dreaded on land that so long as the Macedonian was unable to effect any junction with Hannibal, the Romans were quite contented to leave him alone, other than, as already mentioned, by sending threatening embassies.