63 The news of this cavalry action spread through Greece, produced a discovery of the wishes of the people. For not only those who professed an attachment to the Macedonians, but the generality, who were bound to the Romans under the weightiest obligations, and some who had even felt the power and haughty behaviour of the Macedonians, received the account with joy; and that for no other cause, than out of an evil passion which the mob displays, even in contests of sports, of favouring the worse and weaker party. Meanwhile, in Bœotia, the prætor, Lucretius, pushed the siege of Haliartus with all imaginable vigour. And although the besieged had no foreign aid, except some young Coronæans, who had come into the town at the beginning of the siege, and were without hope of relief, yet they maintained the defence with courage beyond their strength. For they made frequent irruptions against the works; and when the ram was applied, they crushed it to the ground, by dropping on it a mass of lead; and whenever those who worked the engine avoided the blow by changing its position, the besieged by working in masses, and collecting stones out of the rubbish, quickly erected a new wall in the room of that which had been demolished. The prætor, when the progress by machines was too slow, ordered scaling-ladders to be distributed among the companies, resolving to make a general assault on the walls. He thought the number of his men sufficient for this, and the more so because on one side of the city, which is bounded by a morass, it would neither be useful nor practicable to form an attack. Lucretius himself led two thousand chosen men to a place where two towers, and the wall between them, had been thrown down; hoping that, while he endeavoured to climb over the ruins, and the townsmen crowded thither to oppose him, the walls, being left defenceless, in some part or other might be taken by escalade. The besieged were not remiss in preparing to repel his assault; for, on the ground, overspread with the rubbish, they placed faggots of dry bushes, and standing with burning torches in their hands, they often threatened to set them on fire, in order that, being covered from the enemy by the smoke and flames, they might have time to throw up a wall in the inside. But a casualty prevented this plan from succeeding; for there fell suddenly such a quantity of rain, as hindered the faggots from being kindled; thus a passage was laid open by drawing the smoking faggots aside; and while all were attending to the defence of one particular spot, the walls were mounted by escalade in many places at once. In the first tumult of storming the town the old men and children, whom chance threw in the way, were put to the sword indiscriminately, while the men who carried arms fled into the citadel. Next day, these, having no remaining hope, surrendered, and were sold by public auction. Their number was about two thousand five hundred. The ornaments of the city, consisting of statues and pictures, with all the valuable booty, were carried off to the ships, and the city was razed to the ground. The prætor then led his army into Thebes, which fell into his hands without a dispute; when he gave the city in possession to the exiles, and the party that sided with the Romans; and sold, as slaves, the families of those who were of the opposite faction, and favoured the king and the Macedonians. After performing these acts in Bœotia, he returned to the sea-coast to his fleet.
64 Whilst these events were taking place in Bœotia, Perseus lay a considerable time encamped at Sycurium. Having learned there that the Romans were busily employed in collecting corn from all the adjacent grounds, and that when it was brought in, they cut off the ears with sickles, each before his own tent, in order that he might thresh it the cleaner, and had by this means formed large heaps of straw in all quarters of the camp: he, supposing that he might set it on fire, ordered torches, faggots, and bundles of tow, dipped in pitch, to be got ready; and thus prepared, he began his march at midnight, that he might make the attack at the first dawn, and without discovery. But his stratagem was frustrated: the advanced guards, who were surprised, alarmed the rest of the troops by the tumult and terror among them: orders were given to take arms with all speed, and the soldiers were instantly drawn up on the rampart and at the gates in readiness to defend the camp. Perseus immediately ordered his army to face about; the baggage to go foremost, and the battalions of foot to follow, while himself, with the cavalry and light infantry, kept behind, in order to cover the rear; for he expected, what indeed happened, that the enemy would pursue and harass his rear. There was a short scuffle between the light infantry, mostly in skirmishing parties. The infantry and cavalry returned to their camp, without any disturbance. After reaping all the corn in that quarter, the Romans removed into the territory of Cranno, which was yet untouched. While they were encamped there, deeming themselves secure on account of the distance between the camps, and the difficulty of the march, through a country as destitute of water as was that between Sycurium and Cranno, the king’s cavalry and light infantry appeared suddenly, at the dawn of day, on the nearest hills, and caused a violent alarm. They had marched from Sycurium at noon the preceding day, and had left their infantry at the dawn in the next plain. Perseus stood a short time on the hills, in expectation that the Romans might be induced to come to a cavalry action; but after they did not move, he sent a horseman to order the infantry to return to Sycurium, and he himself soon followed. The Roman horse pursued at a small distance, in expectation of being able to attack such as might disperse and separate; but seeing them retreat in close order, and attentive to their standards and ranks, they desisted, and returned to their camp.
65 The king, disliking the length of the march, removed his camp from Sycurium to Mopsilum; and the Romans, having cut down all the corn about Cranno, marched into the lands of Phalanna. When Perseus learnt from a deserter that they carried on their reaping there, without any armed guard, straggling at random through the fields, he set out with one thousand horsemen and two thousand Thracians and Cretans, and after marching with all the speed that he possibly could, unexpectedly fell on the Romans. Nearly a thousand carts, with horses harnessed to them, most of them loaded, were seized, and about six hundred men were taken. The charge of guarding this booty, and conducting it to the camp, he gave to a party of three hundred Cretans, and calling in the rest of his infantry and the cavalry who were spread about, killing the enemy, he led them against the nearest station, thinking that it might be overpowered without much difficulty. Lucius Pompeius, a military tribune, was in command; who led his men, who were dismayed by the sudden approach of the enemy, to a hill at a little distance, hoping to defend himself by means of the advantage of the ground, as he was inferior in number and strength. There he collected his men in a circular body, that, by closing their shields, they might guard themselves from arrows and javelins; on which Perseus, surrounding the hill with armed men, ordered a party to strive to climb it on all sides, and come to close fighting, and the rest to throw missile weapons against them from a distance. The Romans were environed with dangers, in whatever manner they acted; for they could not fight in a body, on account of the enemy who endeavoured to mount the hill; and, if they broke their ranks in order to skirmish with these, they were exposed to the arrows and javelins. They were galled most severely by the Cestrospendana. A dart, two palms in length, was fixed to a shaft, half a cubit long, and of the thickness of a man’s finger; round this, which was made of pine, three feathers were tied, as is commonly done with arrows. To throw this they used a sling, which had two beds, unequal in size and in the length of the strings. When the weapon was balanced in these, and the slinger whirled it round by the longer string and discharged it, it flew with the rapid force of a leaden bullet. When one half of the soldiers had been wounded by these and other weapons of all kinds, and the rest were so fatigued that they could hardly bear the weight of their arms, the king pressed them to surrender, assured them of safety, and sometimes promised them rewards; but not one could be prevailed on to yield; and hope now dawned on them determined to die. For when some of the foragers, fleeing back to the camp, had announced to the consul that the party was surrounded; alarmed for the safety of such a number of his countrymen, (for they were near eight hundred, and all Romans,) he set out with the cavalry and light infantry, joined by the newly arrived Numidian auxiliaries, horse, foot, and elephants, and ordered the military tribunes, that the battalions of the legions should follow. He himself, having strengthened the light-armed auxiliaries with his own light infantry, hastened forward at their head to the hill. He was accompanied by Eumenes, Attalus, and the Numidian prince, Misagenes.
66 When the standards of the Romans first came in sight of the surrounded troops, their spirits were raised from the depth of despair. Perseus’s best plan would have been to have contented himself with his accidental good fortune, in having killed and taken so many of the foragers, and not to have wasted time in attacking this detachment of the enemy; or, after he had engaged in the attempt, as he was sensible that he had not a proper force with him, to have gone off, while he might, with safety; instead of which, intoxicated with success, he waited for the arrival of the enemy, and sent messengers in haste to bring up the phalanx, which would have been too late for the emergency. The men must have engaged in all the disorder of a hurried march, against troops duly formed and prepared. The consul, arriving first, proceeded instantly to action. The Macedonians, for some time made resistance; afterwards, when they were equal to their enemies in no respect, having lost three hundred foot, and twenty-four of the best of their horse, of what they call the Sacred Cohort, (among whom fell Antimachus, who commanded that body,) they endeavoured to retreat: but this march back was more disorderly and confused than the battle itself. When the phalanx, being summoned by a hasty order, was marching at full speed, it met first, in a narrow pass, the carts laden with corn, with the mass of prisoners. These they put to the sword, and both parties suffered great annoyance; but none waited till the troops might pass in some sort of order, but the soldiers tumbled the loads down a precipice, which was the only possible way to clear the road, and the horses, when they were goaded, pushed furiously through the crowd. Scarcely had they disentangled themselves from the disorderly throng of the prisoners, when they met the king’s party and the discomfited horsemen. And now the shouts of the men, calling to their comrades to go back, raised a consternation not unlike a total rout; insomuch, that if the enemy had ventured to enter the defile, and carry the pursuit a little farther, they might have done them very great damage. But the consul, when he had relieved his party from the hill, content with that moderate share of success, led back his troops to the camp. There are writers who state that a general engagement took place that day, in which eight thousand of the enemy were killed, among whom were Sopater and Antipater, two of the king’s generals, and about two thousand eight hundred taken, with twenty-seven military standards; and that it was not a bloodless victory, for that above four thousand three hundred fell, and five standards of the left wing of the allies were lost.
67 This day revived the spirits of the Romans, and struck Perseus with dismay: to such a degree that, after staying at Mopsilum a few days, chiefly out of anxiety to bury his dead, he left a very strong garrison at Gonnus, and led back his army into Macedon. He left Timotheus, one of his generals, with a small party at Phila, ordering him to endeavour to gain the affection of the Magnesians, by his proximity to them. On his arrival at Pella, he sent his troops to their winter quarters, and proceeded with Cotys to Thessalonica. There an account was received that Atlesbis, a petty prince of Thrace, and Corragus, an officer belonging to Eumenes, had made an inroad into the dominions of Cotys, and seized on the district called Marene. Supposing, therefore, that he must send Cotys home to defend his own territories, he honoured him at his departure with very magnificent presents, and paid to his cavalry two hundred talents,[83] which was but half a year’s pay, though he had agreed to give them the pay of a whole year. The consul, hearing that Perseus had left the country, marched his army to Gonnus, in hopes of being able to take that town: which standing directly opposite to the pass of Tempe, at its entrance, serves as the safest barrier to Macedon, and renders a descent into Thessaly easy. But the city, from the nature of its situation and the strength of the garrison, was impregnable; he therefore gave up the design, and turning his route to Perrhæbia, having taken Mallæa at the first assault, he demolished it; and after reducing Tripolis, and the rest of Perrhæbia, returned to Larissa. From that place he sent home Eumenes and Attalus, and quartered Misagenes and his Numidians, for the winter, in the nearest towns of Thessaly. One half of his army he distributed through Thessaly, in such a manner that all had commodious winter quarters, and served at the same time as a defence to the cities. He sent Quintus Mucius, lieutenant-general, with two thousand men, to secure Ambracia, and dismissed all the allied troops belonging to the Grecian states, except the Achæans. With the other half of his army he marched into the Achæan Phthiotis; where, finding Pteleum deserted by the inhabitants, he levelled it to the ground. He received the voluntary surrender of Antron, and he then marched against Larissa: this city was likewise deserted, the whole multitude taking refuge in the citadel, to which he laid siege. First the Macedonians, who constituted the king’s garrison, withdrew through fear; and then the townsmen, on being abandoned by them, surrendered immediately. He then hesitated whether he should first attack Demetrias, or take a view of affairs in Bœotia. The Thebans, being harassed by the Coronæans, pressed him to go into Bœotia; wherefore, in compliance with their entreaties, and because that country was better adapted for winter quarters than Magnesia, he led his army thither.
BOOK XLIII.
Several prætors were condemned because they had conducted themselves with avarice and cruelty in the administration of their provinces. Publius Licinius Crassus, the proconsul, took by storm several cities in Greece, and plundered them with great cruelty. For this reason the captives, who were sold by him, were subsequently, by a decree of the senate, restored to their respective states. Many tyrannical acts were done to the allies by the admirals of the Roman fleets also. This book contains likewise the successful operations of king Perseus in Thrace, with the conquest of Dardania and Illyricum; Gentius was the king of the latter country. The commotions which arose in Spain through the agency of Olonicus, were quelled by his death. Marcus Æmilius Lepidus was chosen by the censors prince of the senate.
1 In the same summer in which the Romans were conquerors in the cavalry action in Thessaly, the lieutenant-general, sent by the consul to Illyricum, compelled, by force of arms, two opulent cities to surrender, and gave the inhabitants all their effects, in hopes, by the reputation of his clemency, to allure to submission the inhabitants of Carnus, a city strongly fortified. But after he could neither induce them to surrender, nor take their city by a siege; that his soldiers might not be fatigued by the two sieges without reaping any advantage, he sacked those cities which he had spared before. The other consul, Caius Cassius, performed nothing memorable in Gaul, the province that fell to his lot; but made an ill-judged attempt to lead his army through Illyricum to Macedon. The senate learned his having undertaken that march from deputies from Aquileia, who complained that their colony, which was new, weak, and but indifferently fortified, lay in the midst of hostile states, Istrians and Illyrians; and begged the senate to take into consideration some method of strengthening it. These, being asked whether they wished that matter to be given in charge to the consul Caius Cassius, replied, that Cassius, after assembling his forces at Aquileia, had set out on a march through Illyricum into Macedon. The fact was at first deemed incredible, and each individual was under the impression that he had gone on an expedition against the Carnians, or perhaps the Istrians. The Aquileians then said, that all that they knew, or could take upon them to affirm, was that corn for thirty days had been given to the soldiers, and that guides, who knew the roads from Italy to Macedon, had been sought for and carried with him. The senate were highly displeased that the consul should presume to act so improperly as to leave his own province, and remove into that of another; and lead his army by a new and dangerous route through foreign states, and thereby open for so many nations a passage into Italy. Assembled in great numbers, they decreed that the prætor, Caius Sulpicius, should nominate out of the senate three deputies, who should set out from the city on that very day, make all possible haste to overtake the consul, Cassius, wherever he might be, and tell him not to engage in a war with any nation, unless that against which the senate voted that such war should be waged. These deputies left the city; Marcus Cornelius Cethegus, Marcus Fulvius, and Publius Marcius Rex. The fears entertained for the consul and his army caused the business of fortifying Aquileia to be postponed for that time.