Philip had received notice of this from Oreum, by the signal fires; but through the treachery of Plator they were raised from the watch-tower at a later period. As he was not a match for the enemy's forces at sea, it was difficult for him to approach the island; and thus, by delay, the opportunity was lost. He moved with promptness to the assistance of Chalcis as soon as he received the signal. For although Chalcis is a city of the same island, yet it is separated from the continent by so narrow a strait, that they communicate by means of a bridge, and the approach to it is easier by land than by water. Philip therefore, going from Demetrias to Scotussa, and setting out thence at the third watch, dislodged the guard, put to flight the Aetolians who kept the pass of Thermopylae, and drove the enemy in confusion to Heraclea, marching in one day to Elatia in Phocis, a distance of above sixty miles. Almost on the same day the town of Opus was taken and plundered by Attalus. Sulpicius had given it up to the king because Oreum had been plundered a few days before by the Roman soldiers, the royal soldiers not having shared the booty. The Roman fleet having retired thither, Attalus, who was not aware of Philip's approach, wasted time in levying contributions from the principal inhabitants, and so sudden was his coming, that had he not been descried by some Cretans, who happened to go farther from the town than usual in quest of forage, he might have been surprised. He fled hastily to the sea and his ships, without arms, and in the greatest disorder. Just as they were putting off from the land Philip arrived, and even from the shore created much alarm among the mariners. He returned thence to Opus, accusing both gods and men, because he had lost an opportunity of so great importance, almost snatched from his hands. He also reproached the Opuntians with the like anger, because they had, immediately on sight of the enemy, made almost a voluntary surrender, though they might have prolonged the siege till his arrival. Having settled affairs at Opus, he proceeded thence to Thronium. Attalus, too, at first retired from Oreum; but there receiving intelligence that Prusias, king of Bithynia, had invaded his kingdom, he withdrew his attention from the Romans and the Aetolian war, and passed over into Asia. Sulpicius also withdrew his fleet to Aegina, from whence he had set out in the beginning of spring. Philip took Thronium with as little difficulty as Attalus had at Opus. It was inhabited by foreigners, fugitives from Thebes in Phthiotis, who, on the capture of their own town by Philip, had fled to the protection of the Aetolians, and received from them a city as a settlement which had been laid waste and desolated in a former war by the same Philip. Having recovered Thronium, as has been a little before mentioned, he set out thence; and having taken Tritonos and Drymae, inconsiderable towns of Doris, he came thence to Elatia, where he had ordered the ambassadors of Ptolemy and the Rhodians to wait for him. While consulting there as to the best method of bringing the Aetolian war to a conclusion, (for these ambassadors attended the late council of the Romans and Aetolians at Heraclea,) intelligence is brought that Machanidas intended to attack the Elians while busied in preparing for the celebration of the Olympic games. Thinking it his duty to prevent such an attempt, he dismissed the ambassadors with a gracious answer to the effect, that he had neither caused the war, nor would he be any obstacle to the restoration of peace, if it should be possible on equitable and honourable terms; then marching quickly through Boeotia he came down from Megara, and thence to Corinth, where receiving supplies of provisions, he went to Phlius and Pheneus. And now, when he had proceeded as far as Heraea, having received intelligence that Machanidas, terrified at the news of his approach, had retreated to Lacedaemon, he betook himself to Aegium, where the Achaeans were assembled in council, expecting at the same time to meet there a Carthaginian fleet, which he had sent for, in order that he might accomplish something by sea. But the Carthaginians had left a few days before, and were gone to the Oxean islands; and thence, hearing that the Romans and Attalus had left Oreum, to the harbours of the Acarnanians, for they feared that it was intended to attack them, and that they would be overpowered while within the straits of Rhium, which is the name of the entrance of the Corinthian bay.
8
Philip was grieved and vexed when he reflected, that though he proceeded with the utmost speed on all occasions, yet he had not come up in time to accomplish any one object, and that fortune had frustrated his activity by snatching away every advantage from before his eyes. In the assembly, however, concealing his chagrin, he discoursed with elated spirits, calling gods and men to witness, that "he had never been wanting at any time or place, so as not to repair instantly wherever the enemy's arms resounded, but that it was difficult to calculate whether the war was carried on more boldly by him or more pusillanimously by the enemy. Such was the manner in which Attalus had slipped out of his hands from Opus; Sulpicius from Chalcis; and so, within these few days, Machanidas. That flight, however, was not always successful; and that that should not be esteemed a difficult war in which victory would be certain if the enemy could be brought to a regular engagement. He had already obtained one very great advantage, which was a confession on the part of the enemy themselves, that they were not a match for him; and in a short time," he said, "he would be in possession of undoubted victory; for that he would engage with him with a result no better than their expectations." The allies listened to the king with great satisfaction. He then gave up to the Achaeans Heraera and Triphylia. Aliphera he restored to the Megalopolitans, they having brought satisfactory proof that it belonged to their territories. Then having received some ships from the Achaeans, three quadriremes and three biremes, he sailed to Anticyra, whence with seven quinqueremes and more than twenty barks, which he had sent to the bay of Corinth to join the Carthaginian fleet, he proceeded to Erythrae, a town of the Aetolians near Eupalium, where he made a descent. He was not unobserved by the Aetolians; for all who were either in the fields or in the neighbouring forts of Potidania and Apollonia, fled to the woods and mountains. The cattle which they could not drive off in their haste they seized and put on board. He sent Nicias, praetor of the Achaeans, to Aegium with these and the other booty; and then going to Corinth, ordered his army to march by land through Boeotia, while he himself, sailing from Cenchreae along the coast of Attica, round the promontory of Sunium, reached Chalcis, having passed almost through the midst of the enemy's fleet. After commending in the highest terms their fidelity and bravery, as neither fear nor hope had influenced their minds, and after exhorting them to show the same fidelity in maintaining the alliance, he sailed to Oreum; and having placed such of the chief inhabitants as chose to fly, rather than surrender to the Romans, in the command of the city and the direction of affairs, he sailed over from Euboea to Demetrias, from which place he at first set out to succour his allies. After this, having laid the keels of one hundred ships of war at Cassandrea, and collected a large number of ship carpenters for the completion of that business, and as both the departure of Attalus and the seasonable assistance he had brought to his allies had tranquillized affairs in Greece, he retired into his own dominions, in order to make war upon the Dardanians.
9
Just at the close of the summer during which these operations were carried on in Greece, when Quintus Fabius, son of Maximus, ambassador from Marcus Livius the consul, brought a message to Rome to the senate, to the effect, that the consul considered that Lucius Portius with his legions formed a sufficient protection for the province, that he might himself retire thence, and that the consular army might be withdrawn, the fathers directed that not only Livius should return to the city, but also his colleague, Caius Claudius. The only difference made between them in the decree was, that they ordered the army of Marcus Livius to be led back, and the legions of Nero to remain in their province opposed to Hannibal. The consuls agreed between themselves by letter, that as they had conducted the affairs of the commonwealth with unanimity, they should arrive at the city at the same time, though they came from different quarters. He who arrived first at Praeneste was enjoined to wait there for his colleague. It so happened that they both came to Praeneste on the same day, and thence, sending a proclamation before them, directing that there should be a full attendance of the senate at the temple of Bellona, three days after, they came up to the city, when they were met by the whole body of the inhabitants. Not only did the whole body pour around them and salute them, but each person individually, desiring to touch the victorious right hands of the consuls, some congratulated them, while others thanked them because by their services the state had been preserved. In the senate, when, having made a recital of their services according to the custom observed by all generals, they had requested, that "in consideration of the brave and successful conduct of the affairs of the commonwealth, honours should be paid to the immortal gods, and they themselves enter the city in triumph;" the fathers replied, that "they most willingly decreed those things which they requested in gratitude to the gods in the first instance, and, next to them, to the consuls." A supplication in the name of both, and a triumph to both of them, having been decreed, lest after having carried on the war with entire unanimity they should have a separate triumph, they made the following agreement; that "since both the service had been performed in the province of Marcus Livius, and he was in possession of the command on the day on which the battle was fought, and further, that as the army of Livius had been withdrawn and had come to Rome, while Nero's could not be withdrawn from the province, Marcus Livius should enter the city in a four-horse chariot and followed by the soldiers; Caius Claudius on horseback without soldiers." This plan of associating the generals in the triumph increased the glory of both, but particularly of him who had yielded to his colleague in the honours he received, as much as he surpassed him in merit. The people said, that "the general on horseback had traversed the whole length of Italy in the space of six days, and had fought a pitched battle with Hasdrubal in Gaul, on the very day on which Hannibal supposed that he was occupying a camp pitched in Apulia to oppose him. That thus one consul, acting in defence of either extremity of Italy against two leaders, had opposed against one his skill, against the other his person. That the name of Nero had been sufficient to confine Hannibal within his camp, while with regard to Hasdrubal, by what, but his arrival, had he been overwhelmed and annihilated? The other consul might move along raised aloft in a chariot, drawn if he pleased by a number of horses, but that the real triumph was his who was conveyed by one horse; and that Nero, though he should go on foot, would be immortalized, whether on account of the glory he had acquired in the war, or the contempt he had shown for it in the triumph." Such continual expressions of the spectators attended Nero all the way to the Capitol. The money they brought into the treasury was three hundred thousand sesterces, with eighty thousand asses of brass. Marcus Livius distributed among the soldiers fifty-six asses each. Caius Claudius promised the same sum to his absent troops when he returned to the army. It was observed that more verses were written by the soldiery upon Caius Claudius in their jocular style, than upon their own consul; that the horsemen highly extolled Lucius Veturius and Quintus Caecilius, lieutenant-generals, and exhorted the commons to create them consuls for the ensuing year; that the consuls added their authority to the recommendation of the knights, relating in the public assembly the following day with what courage and fidelity their two lieutenant-generals in particular had served them.
10
When the time for the elections approached, and it was resolved that it should be held by a dictator, the consul Caius Claudius nominated as dictator his colleague Marcus Livius, who appointed Quintus Caecilius his master of the horse. Lucius Veturius and Quintus Caecilius were created consuls by Marcus Livius the dictator, the latter being then master of the horse. After this the election of praetors was held. The persons appointed were, Caius Servilius, Marcus Caecilius Metellus, Titus Claudius Asellus, and Quintus Mamilius Turinus, who was at that time plebeian aedile. When the elections were finished, the dictator, having abdicated his office and dismissed his army, set out for his province of Etruria, according to a decree of the senate, to make inquiry what states of the Tuscans and Umbrians had formed schemes of revolt from the Romans to Hasdrubal at the time of his approach, and what states had assisted him with auxiliaries, provisions, or succours of any kind. Such were the transactions this year at home and abroad. The Roman games were thrice repeated in full by the curule aediles, Cneius Servilius Caepio and Servius Cornelius Lentulus. In the same manner the plebeian games also were once repeated entire by the plebeian aediles, Manius Pomponius Matho and Quintus Mamilius Thurinus.