Chapter 43

VII. This was the period during which the Romans, who were at war with Perseus, King of Macedon, complained of their generals, whose ignorance and cowardice had led to the most disgraceful and ridiculous failure, and to the sustaining of much more loss than they inflicted. They, who had just driven Antiochus, called the Great, out of Asia Minor, beyond Taurus, and restricted him to Syria, making him glad to purchase peace at the price of fifteen thousand talents; who, a little before, had crushed Philip in Thessaly, and set free the Greeks from the power of Macedon; and who had also utterly subdued Hannibal himself, a man whose daring and immense resources rendered him far more dangerous an opponent than any king, thought that it was not to be borne that Perseus should wage war as if he were on equal terms with the Roman people, and that, too, with only the remnants of his father's routed forces; for they did not know that Philip, after his defeat, had greatly increased the power and efficiency of the Macedonian army. To explain which, I shall briefly relate the story from the beginning.

VIII. Antigonus, who was the most powerful of the generals and successors of Alexander, and who obtained for himself and his family the title of king, had a son named Demetrius, whose son was Antigonus, called Gonatas. His son again was named Demetrius, who, after reigning some short time, died, leaving a son Philip, a mere boy in years. Fearing disturbance during his minority, the Macedonian nobles made Antigonus, a cousin of the deceased, Regent and commander-in-chief, associating with him in this office the mother of Philip. Finding him a moderate and useful ruler, they soon gave him the title of king. He had the soubriquet of Doson, as though he were only a promiser, not a performer of his engagements. After this man, Philip came to the throne, and, while yet a boy, distinguished himself in all that becomes a king, so as to raise men's hopes that he might restore the empire of Macedon to its ancient glory, and be alone able to check the power of Rome, which now menaced the whole world. Defeated in a great battle at Scotussa by Titus Flamininus, he bent to the storm, surrendered all that he had to the Romans, and was thankful for mild treatment. Afterwards, chafing at his subordinate position, and thinking that to reign dependent on the pleasure of the Romans was more worthy of a slave who cares only for sensual pleasure, than of a man of spirit, he gave his whole mind up to preparations for war, and secretly and unscrupulously collected materials for it. Of the cities in his kingdom, he allowed those on the sea-coast and the main roads to fall into partial decay, so that his power might be despised, while he collected great forces in the interior. Here he filled all the outposts, fortresses, and cities with arms, money, and men fit for service, and thus trained the nation for war, yet kept his preparations secret. In his arsenals were arms for thirty thousand men; eight million medimni of corn were stored in his fortresses, and such a mass of treasure as would pay an army of ten thousand men for ten years. But before he could put all these forces in motion and begin the great struggle, he died of grief and remorse, for he had, as he admitted, unjustly put his other son Demetrius to death on the calumnies of one far worse than he was. Perseus, the survivor, inherited his father's hatred of the Romans with his kingdom, but was not of a calibre to carry out his designs, as his small and degraded mind was chiefly possessed by avarice. He is said not even to have been legitimate, but that Philip's wife obtained him when a baby from his real mother, a midwife of Argos, named Gnathaina, and palmed him off upon her husband. And this seems to have been one reason for her putting Demetrius to death, for fear that if the family had a legitimate heir, this one's bastardy would be discovered.

IX. However, low-born and low-minded though he was, yet having by the force of circumstances drifted into war, he held his own and maintained himself for a long time against the Romans, defeating generals of consular rank with great armies, and even capturing some of them. Publius Licinius, who first invaded Macedonia, was defeated in a cavalry engagement, with a loss of two thousand five hundred brave men killed, and six hundred prisoners. Perseus next by a sudden attack made himself master of the Roman naval station at Oreus, took twenty store ships, sunk the rest, which were loaded with grain, and took also four quinqueremes.[A] He fought also a second battle, in which he drove back the consular general Hostilius, who was trying to invade Macedonia near Elimiae; and when he tried to steal in through Thessaly, he again offered battle, which the Roman declined. As an accessory to the war he now made a campaign against the Dardans, as if affecting to despise the Romans and to be at leisure. Here he cut to pieces ten thousand of the barbarians, and carried off much plunder. He also had secret negotiations with the Gauls who dwell near the Ister, called Basternae, a nation of warlike horsemen, and by means of Genthius their king he endeavoured to induce the Illyrians to take part in the war. There was even a report that the barbarians had been induced by his bribes to march through the southern part of Gaul beside the Adriatic, and so invade Italy.

[Footnote A: Ships of war with five banks of oars.]

X. The Romans, when they learnt all this, determined that they would disregard political influence in their choice of a general, and choose some man of sense and capable of undertaking great operations. Such a one was Paulus Aemilius, a man of advanced age, being about sixty years old, but still in full vigour of body, and surrounded by kinsmen, grown-up sons, and friends, who all urged him to listen to the appeal of his country and be consul. He at first treated the people with little respect, and shunned their eager professions of zeal, on the plea that he did not wish for the command; but as they waited on him daily, and called for him to come into the forum and shouted his name, he was at length prevailed upon. When a candidate, he seemed to enter the field not with a view to getting office, but to giving victory and strength in battle to his fellow-citizens; with such zeal and confidence did they unanimously elect him consul for the second time, not permitting lots to be cast for provinces by the two consuls, as is usual, but at once decreeing to him the management of the Macedonian war. It is said that when he was named general against Perseus, he was escorted home in triumph by the people _en masse_, and found his daughter Tertia, who was quite a little child, in tears. He embraced her, and asked her why she was crying; and she, throwing her arms round him and kissing him, said, "Do you not know, father, that our Perseus is dead?" meaning a little dog which she had brought up, which was so named. Aemilius said, "May this bring good luck, my daughter: I accept the omen." This story Cicero the orator tells in his book on Divination.

XI. It being the custom that the consuls-elect should return thanks, and make a gracious speech to the people from the rostrum, Aemilius called together the people and said that he had sought for his former consulship because he wanted office, but for this one because they wanted a general: wherefore he felt no gratitude towards them, but would lay down his consulship if they thought that they would succeed better in the war under some one else; but if they felt confidence in him, he asked them not to interfere with his acts as general, nor to gossip about him, but to furnish quietly what was wanted for the war; for if they tried to command their commander they would afford even a more sorry spectacle than they had already done. By these words he made the citizens stand greatly in awe of him, and gave them great expectations of what he would effect, while all rejoiced that they had passed over those who used to flatter them, and had chosen a general of independence and spirit. So much did the Roman people respect bravery and honour, because it led to conquests, and to making them masters of the world.

XII. I consider it to have been by divine favour that Aemilius Paulus on starting for his campaign met with such a fortunate and calm voyage, and so speedily and safely arrived at the camp; but as to the war itself, and his conduct of it, accomplished as it was partly by swift daring, partly by wise dispositions, by the valour of friends, confidence in the midst of dangers, and reliance on sound plans, I cannot tell of any glorious and distinguished exploit, which, as in the case of other generals, owed its success to his good fortune; unless, indeed, any one should count as good fortune for Aemilius the avarice of Perseus, which destroyed the great and well-founded hopes of the Macedonians in the war, and brought them to ruin by the meanness of their chief. At his request there came a force of Basternae, a thousand horse and ten thousand light troops who fought with them, all mercenary soldiers--men who knew nothing of tilling the soil, or of sailing the sea, who did not live from the produce of their flocks, but who studied one art and business solely, ever to fight and overcome their antagonists. So, when in the camp at Maedike, these men mixed with the king's troops, tall in their person, admirable in their drill, boastful and haughty in their defiance of the foe, they gave confidence to the Macedonians, and made them think that the Romans never could withstand their attack, but would be terrified at their appearance and march, outlandish and ferocious as it was. But Perseus, now that he had got such auxiliaries as these, and put his men into such heart, because he was asked for a thousand staters for each officer, became bewildered at the amount of the sum which he would have to pay, and his meanness prevailing over his reason, refused their offers, and broke off the alliance, as if he had been steward of his kingdom for the Romans rather than fighting against them, and had to give an exact account of his expenses in the war to his enemies; though he might have been taught by them, who had besides other war materials, a hundred thousand soldiers collected together ready for use. Yet he, when engaged in war with such a power as this, where such great forces were kept on foot to contend with him, kept doling out and sparing his money as if it were not his own. And still he was not a Lydian or Phoenician, but a man who from his descent ought to have had a share of the spirit of Philip and Alexander, who made all their conquests by the principle that empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that "It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece." Alexander, too, when beginning his Indian campaign, seeing the Macedonians laboriously dragging along the rich and unwieldy plunder of the Persians, first burned all the royal carriages, and then persuaded the soldiers to do the like with their own, and start for the war as light as if they had shaken off a burden. But Perseus, when spending his own money to defend himself, his children, and his kingdom, rather than sacrifice a little and win, preferred to be taken to Rome with many others, a rich captive, and show the Romans how much he had saved for them.

XIII. For not only did he dismiss the Gauls and break his word to them, but after inducing Genthius the Illyrian to take part in the war for a bribe of three hundred talents, he lodged the money with that prince's envoys, all counted, and let them put their seals upon it. Genthius then thinking that he had got what he asked, did a wicked and impious deed in seizing and throwing into prison some Roman ambassadors who were sent to him. Perseus, thinking that Genthius no longer needed money to make him hostile to Rome, since he had given him such a pledge of his hatred of it, and had involved himself in war with it by such a crime, deprived the poor man of his three hundred talents, and shortly afterwards looked calmly on while he and his family were plucked out of their kingdom, like birds out of a nest, by Lucius Anicius, who was sent with an army against him. Aemilius, when he came to contend with such a rival as this, despised him as a man, but was surprised at the force which he had at his disposal. These were four thousand cavalry, and of infantry soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx nearly forty thousand. Encamped by the sea-shore, near the skirts of Mount Olympus, on ground nowhere accessible, and strongly fortified by himself with outworks and defences of wood, Perseus lived in careless security, thinking that by time and expense he should wear out Aemilius's attack. But he, while he busied his mind with every possible mode of assault, perceiving that his army in consequence of its past want of discipline was impatient, and usurped the general's province by proposing all sorts of wild schemes, severely reprimanded the soldiers, and ordered them not to meddle with what was not their concern, but only take care that they and their arms were ready, and to use their swords as Romans should when their general should give the word. He ordered the night sentries to go on guard without their spears, that they might be more attentive and less inclined to sleep, having no arms to defend themselves against the enemy.

XIV. The army was chiefly troubled by want of water; for only a very little bad water ran or rather dripped out of a spring near the sea. Aemilius perceiving that Olympus, immediately above him, was a large and well-wooded mountain, and guessing from the greenness of the foliage that it must contain some springs which had their courses underground, dug many pits and wells along the skirts of the mountain, which immediately were filled with pure water, which by the pressure above was driven into these vacant spaces. Yet some say that there are no hidden fountains of water, lying ready in such places as these, and say that it is not because they are dug out or broken into that they flow, but that they have their origin and cause in the saturation of the surrounding earth which becomes saturated by its close texture and coldness, acting upon the moist vapours, which when pressed together low down turn into water. For just as women's breasts are not receptacles full of milk ready to flow, but change the nutriment which is in them into milk, and so supply it, so also the cold places which are full of springs have no water concealed in them, nor any such reservoirs as would be needed to send out deep rivers from any fixed point, but by their pressure they convert the air and vapour which is in them into water. At any rate, those places which are dug over break more into springs and run more with water, in answer to this treatment of their surface, just as women's breasts respond to sucking, for it moistens and softens the vapour; whereas land which is not worked is incapable of producing water, not having the motion by which moisture is obtained. Those who argue thus have given sceptics the opportunity of saying, that if it be true, there can be no blood in animals, but that it gathers about wounds, and that the flow of blood is produced by the air, or some change which takes place in the flesh. They are proved to be wrong by those who sink shafts for mines, and meet with rivers in the depths of the earth, which have not collected themselves by degrees, as would be the case if they derived their origin from the sudden movements of the earth, but flow with a full stream. Also, when mountains and rocks are fissured by a blow, there springs out a gush of water, which afterwards ceases. But enough of this.

XV. Aemilius remained quiet for some days, and it is said two such great hosts never were so near together and so quiet. After exploring and trying every place he discovered that there was still one pass unguarded, that, namely, through Perrhaebae by Pythium and Petra. He called a council of war to consider this, being himself more hopeful of success that way, as the place was not watched, than alarmed at the precipices on account of which the enemy neglected it. First of those present, Scipio, surnamed Nasica, son-in-law to Scipio Africanus, afterwards a leading man in the Senate, volunteered to lead the party which was to make this circuitous attack. And next Fabius Maximus, the eldest of the sons of Aemilius, though still only a youth, rose and spiritedly offered his services. Aemilius, delighted, placed under their command not so many troops as Polybius says in his history, but so many as Nasica himself tells us that he had, in a letter which he wrote to one of the princes of that region about this affair. He had three thousand Italians, besides his main body, and five thousand who composed the left wing. Besides these, Nasica took a hundred and twenty horse, and two hundred of Harpalus's light troops, Thracians and Cretans mixed. He began his march along the road towards the sea, and encamped near the temple of Herakles, as though he intended to sail round to the other side of the enemy's camp, and so surround him: but when the soldiers had supped, and it was dark, he explained his real plan to his officers, marched all night away from the sea, and halted his men for rest near the temple of Apollo. At this place Olympus is more than ten furlongs high: and this is proved by the epigram which the measurer wrote as follows:

"The height of Olympus' crest at the temple of Pythian Apollo consists of (measured by the plumb line) ten stades, and besides a hundred feet all but four. It was Xenagoras, the son of Eumelus, who discovered its height. King Apollo, hail to thee; be thou propitious to us."

And yet geometricians say that neither the height of any mountain nor the depth of any sea is above ten stades (furlongs). However, Xenophanes did not take its altitude conjecturally, but by a proper method with instruments.

XVI. Here then Nasica halted. Perseus in the morning saw Aemilius's army quiet in its place, and would have had no idea of what was going on had not a Cretan deserter come and told him of the flank march of the Romans. Then he became alarmed, but still did not disturb his camp, but, placing ten thousand foreign mercenaries and two thousand Macedonians under the command of Milo, ordered him to march swiftly and occupy the passes. Now Polybius says that the Romans fell upon these men when they were in their beds, but Nasica tells us that a sharp and dangerous conflict took place upon the heights. He himself was assailed by a Thracian, but struck him through the breast with his spear. However, the enemy were forced back; Milo most shamefully fled in his shirt, without his arms, and Scipio was able to follow, and at the same time lead his forces on to level ground. Perseus, terrified and despairing when he saw them, at once broke up his camp and retreated. But still he was obliged either to give battle before Pydna, or else to disperse his army among the various cities of the kingdom, and so to await the Romans, who, being once entered into his country, could not be driven out without much slaughter and bloodshed. It was urged by his friends that he had a great numerical superiority, and that the troops would fight desperately in defence of their wives and families, especially if their king took the command and shared their danger. He pitched his camp and prepared for battle, viewed the ground, and arranged the commands, intending to set upon the Romans as soon as they appeared. Now the position both possessed a flat plain for the manoeuvres of the phalanx, which requires level ground, and also hills rising one above another offered refuges and means for outflanking the enemy to his light troops. Also two rivers, the Aeson and Leukus, which ran across as it, though not very deep at that season (late autumn), were expected to give some trouble to the Romans.

XVII. Aemilius, on effecting a junction with Nasica, marched in battle array against the enemy. When, however, he saw their position and their numbers, he halted in surprise, considering within himself what he should do. His young officers, eager for battle, rode up to him and begged him not to delay. Conspicuous among these was Nasica, excited by his successful flank march round Olympus. Aemilius smiled at them and answered, "I would do so if I were of your age, but many victories have shown me the mistakes of the vanquished, and prevent my attacking a body of men drawn up in a chosen position with troops on the march and undeployed." He gave orders that those troops who were in front should gather together and appear to be forming in battle array, while those who were behind pitched their palisades and fortified a camp. Then by wheeling off men by degrees from the front line, he gradually broke up his line of battle, and quietly drew all his forces within the ramparts of his camp. When night fell, and after supper the army had betaken itself to sleep and rest, suddenly the moon, which was full and high in the heavens, became obscured, changed colour, and became totally eclipsed. The Romans, after their custom, called for her to shine again by clattering with brass vessels, and uplifting blazing faggots and torches. The Macedonians did nothing of the sort, but dismay spread over their camp, and they muttered under their breath that this portended the eclipse of their king. Now Aemilius was not unacquainted with the phenomena of eclipses, which result from the moon being at fixed periods brought into the shadow of the earth and darkened, until it passes the obscured tract and is again enlightened by the sun, yet being very devout and learned in divination, he offered to her a sacrifice of eleven calves. At daybreak he sacrificed twenty oxen to Herakles without obtaining a favourable response; but with the one-and-twentieth favourable signs appeared and portents of victory for them, provided they did not attack. He then vowed a hecatomb and sacred games in honour of the god, and ordered his officers to arrange the men in line of battle. But he waited till the sun declined and drew towards the west, that his troops might not fight with the morning sun in their eyes. He passed away the day sitting in his tent, which was pitched looking towards the flat country and the camp of the enemy.