The History of Rome, Books 27 to 36 - Livy

There were some who found fault with the king, as guilty of rashness on that day; and with the consul, for want of energy. For Philip, they say, on his part, ought to have avoided coming to action, knowing that in a few days the enemy, having exhausted all the adjacent country, must be reduced to the extremity of want; and that the consul, after having routed the Macedonian cavalry and light infantry, and nearly taken the king himself, ought to have led on his troops directly to the enemy's camp, where, dismayed as they were, they would have made no stand, and that he might have finished the war in a moment's time. This, like most other matters, was easier to be talked about than to be done. For, if the king had brought the whole of his infantry into the engagement, then, indeed, during the tumult, and while, vanquished and struck with dismay, they fled from the field into their intrenchments, (and even continued their flight from thence on seeing the victorious enemy mounting the ramparts,) the king might have been deprived of his camp. But as some forces of infantry had remained in the camp, fresh and free from fatigue, with outposts before the gates, and guard properly disposed, what would he have done but imitated the rashness of which the king had just now been guilty, by pursuing the routed horse? On the other side, the king's first plan of an attack on the foragers, while dispersed through the fields, would not have been a subject of censure, could he have satisfied himself with a moderate degree of success: and it is the less surprising that he should have made a trial of fortune, as there was a report, that Pleuratus and the Dardanians had set out from home with very numerous forces, and had already passed into Macedonia; so that if he should be surrounded on all sides by these forces, there was reason to think that the Roman might put an end to the war without stirring from his seat. Philip, however, considered, that after his cavalry had been defeated in two engagements, he could with much less safety continue in the same post; accordingly, wishing to remove from thence, and, at the same time, to keep the enemy in ignorance of his design, he sent a herald to the consul a little before sun-set, to demand a truce for the purpose of burying the horsemen; and thus imposing on him, he began his march in silence, about the second watch, leaving a number of fires in all parts of his camp.

The consul was now taking refreshment, when he was told that the herald had arrived, and on what business; he gave him no other answer, than that he should be admitted to an audience early the next morning: by which means Philip gained what he wanted--the length of that night, and part of the following day, during which he might get the start on his march. He directed his route towards the mountains, a road which he knew the Romans with their heavy baggage would not attempt. The consul, having, at the first light, dismissed the herald with a grant of a truce, in a short time after discovered that the enemy had gone off; but not knowing what course to take in pursuit of them, he remained in the same camp for several days, which he employed in collecting forage. He then marched to Stubera, and brought thither, from Pelagonia, the corn that was in the fields. From thence he advanced to Pluvina, not having yet discovered to what quarter the Macedonian had bent his course. Philip, having at first fixed his camp at Bryanium, marched thence through cross-roads, and gave a sudden alarm to the enemy. The Romans, on this, removed from Pluvina, and pitched their camp near the river Osphagus. The king also sat down at a small distance, forming his intrenchment on the bank of a river which the inhabitants call Erigonus. Having there received certain information that the Romans intended to proceed to Eordaea, he marched away before them, in order to take possession of the defiles, and prevent the enemy from making their way, where the roads are confined in narrow straits. There, with great haste, he fortified some places with a rampart, others with a trench, others with stones heaped up instead of walls, others with trees laid across, according as the situation required, or as materials lay convenient; and thus a road, in its own nature difficult, he rendered, as he imagined, impregnable by the works which he drew across every pass. The adjoining ground, being mostly covered with woods, was exceedingly incommodious to the phalanx of the Macedonians, which is of no manner of use, except when they extend their very long spears before their shields, forming as it were a palisade; to perform which, they require an open plain. The Thracians, too, were embarrassed by their lances, which also are of a great length, and were entangled among the branches that stood in their way on every side. The body of Cretans alone was not unserviceable; and yet even these, though, in case of an attack made on them, they could to good purpose discharge their arrows against the horses or riders, where they were open to a wound, yet against the Roman shields they could do nothing, because they had neither strength sufficient to pierce through them, nor was there any part exposed at which they could aim. Perceiving, therefore, that kind of weapon to be useless, they annoyed the enemy with stones, which lay in plenty in all parts of the valley: the strokes made by these on their shields, with greater noise than injury, for a short time retarded the advance of the Romans; but quickly disregarding these missiles also, some, closing their shields in form of a tortoise, forced their way through the enemy in front; others having, by a short circuit, gained the summit of the hill, dislodged the dismayed Macedonians from their guards and posts, and even slew the greater part of them, their retreat being embarrassed by the difficulties of the ground.

Thus, with less opposition than they had expected to meet, the defiles were passed, and they came to Eordaea; then, having laid waste the whole country, the consul withdrew into Elimea. From thence he made an irruption into Orestis, and attacked the city Celetrum, situated in a peninsula: a lake surrounds the walls; and there is but one entrance from the main land along a narrow isthmus. Relying on their situation, the townsmen at first shut the gates, and refused to submit; but afterwards, when they saw the troops in motion, and advancing in the tortoise method, and the isthmus covered by the enemy marching in, they surrendered in terror rather than hazard a struggle. From Celetrum he advanced into the country of the Dassaretians, took the city Pelium by storm, carried off the slaves with the rest of the spoil, and discharging the freemen without ransom, restored the city to them, after placing a strong garrison in it, for it was very conveniently situated for making inroads into Macedonia. Having thus traversed the enemy's country, the consul led back his forces into those parts which were already reduced to obedience near Apollonia, from whence the campaign had commenced. Philip's attention had been drawn to other quarters by the Aetolians, Athamanians, and Dardanians: so many were the wars that started up on different sides of him. Against the Dardanians, who were now retiring out of Macedonia, he sent Athenagoras with the light infantry and the greater part of the cavalry, and ordered him to hang on their rear as they retreated; and, by cutting off their hindmost troops, make them more cautious for the future of leading out their armies from home. As to the Aetolians, Damocritus, their praetor, the same who at Naupactum had persuaded them to defer passing a decree concerning the war, had in the next meeting roused them to arms, after the report of the battle between the cavalry at Ortholophus; the irruption of the Dardanians and of Pleuratus, with the Illyrians, into Macedonia; of the arrival of the Roman fleet, too, at Oreus; and that Macedonia, besides being beset on all sides by so many nations, was in danger of being invested by sea also.