Both leaders, thus aware of the enemy’s proximity, yet unaware of his exact position, encamped and fortified their camps, the Roman at about six, the Macedonian at four miles’ distance from the town of Pheræ.
On the following day, light parties being sent out on both sides to take possession of the heights above the town, which would seem to be the western slopes of Karadagh, formerly Mount Calcodonium—described by Leake as gentle pasture hills, interspersed with groves of oak, but swelling, a little northward on the way to Larissa, into steep, broken hills, topped with bare limestone crags—they came in sight of one another so unexpectedly, that they were mutually amazed, and neither charged the other, but both sent back for orders to head-quarters, and were ultimately drawn off without fighting. On the second day, both leaders sent out reconnoitering parties of light-armed infantry with some horse, and these encountered on the hill above the suburbs of Pheræ to the northward. It so happened that Flamininus had ordered two squadrons of Ætolian horse on this duty, wishing to avail himself of their familiarity with the country; and these, overboiling with courage and emulous of the Roman renown, so soon as they discovered the enemy, dared the Italians to the test of superior valor, and charged the Macedonians with such metal and prowess that they cut them up very severely; after which, having skirmished for a considerable time with no decisive results, they drew off, as if by mutual consent, to their own encampments.
The ground about Pheræ, being much incumbered with orchards, groves and gardens, and cut up by stone walls and thorn hedges, was very unsuitable for a general action, and both leaders, perceiving this, moved early the next morning by different routes, the great ridge of Karadagh intervening between their lines of march, and intercepting all sound or sight, upon Scotussa, a town some ten miles distant in a westerly direction, lying at the base of the hills, and on the verge of the plain.
The Romans marched to the southward, Philip to the northward of the dividing ridge; and, unaware how nearly they were intrenched, both erected their palisades for the night almost within hearing of their countersigns and trumpets.
The third morning, after they had decamped from Pheræ, was exceedingly thick and foggy; but in spite of this Philip, who had passed the night on the banks of the Onchestus, persevered in marching upon Scotussa, where he hoped to find ripe corn in the plain for his troops. The darkness, however, increased, and ere long one of those tremendous thunder-storms, for which all the limestone countries of upper Greece are so famous, or rather infamous, burst over his head, with hail, and wild whirling wind-gusts, and forked lightnings, and compelled him to halt at once and intrench himself, at the northern base of the bare, craggy hills, forming the summits of the Calcodonium, known as the Cynoscephalæ or dog’s heads, though the resemblance does not go far to justify the appellation.
So soon[[17]] as it cleared a little, though the mist was still so dense that one could scarce see his own hand, he sent out a detachment to occupy the heights of Cynoscephalæ. At the same moment Flamininus sent out his troops of horse and a thousand voltigeurs from Thetidium, where he lay, to feel for the enemy.
These latter fell suddenly into the ambushed outpost of the Macedonians, neither discovering the others till they were at half spear’s length in the gloom. After a momentary pause of amazement, they fell on fiercely, and among the slippery crags, in the dense mist and drizzling rain, the strife reeled blindly to and fro, all striking at once, none parrying, and friend as often injuring friend, as enemy enemy. On both sides, rumor reached the camps, and the Romans being hard pressed and giving way, Flamininus, who was nearest to the scene of action, reinforced his men with two thousand infantry under two tribunes, and five hundred Ætolian horse of Archedamus and Eupolemus.
On the arrival of these, the skirmish was exchanged for close combat; and the encouragement given to the Romans, by the prompt succor, doubling their courage, nor that only, but their physical strength, they charged home so vehemently, that they broke the enemy, and drove them to the steep crags; the din of battle receding from the lines of Flamininus, until the cries of his own men, and the shouts of the victorious legionaries, aroused and alarmed Philip in his camp.
He, expecting nothing on that day less than an engagement, had sent out his men to forage in the plain; but as he saw how things were going, and as the mist was beginning to melt away before the sunbeams, and the clear blue to show above, he ordered up Heracleides the Gyrtonian, commander of the Thessalian cavalry, find Leon, the Macedonian master of the horse, and Athenagoras with all the mercenaries save the Thracians, and launched them vigorously against the enemy.
Rallying upon themselves the broken and disordered troops who had preceded them, these in turn laid on with so heavy a hand, and so furious an impetus that they bore the Romans back bodily, and drove them over the brink of the heights in consternation and disorder toward their own intrenchments; nor would they have failed to do fearful execution on them, if not utterly to destroy them, but for the devoted gallantry of the handful of Ætolian horse, who charged them time after time; and, when repulsed, rallied and charged again; and so gained that invaluable time, which, as it was in this case, is often victory.