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.
XVIII. Some writers tell us, that about evening, by a device of
Aemilius, the battle was begun by the enemy, the Romans having driven a
horse without a bridle out of their camp and then tried to catch it,
from which pursuit the battle began; but others say that Roman soldiers
who were carrying fodder for the cattle were set upon by the Thracians
under Alexander, and that to repel them a vigorous sortie was made with
seven hundred Ligurians; that many on both sides came up to help their
comrades, and so the battle began. Aemilius, like a pilot, seeing by the
motion and disturbance of his camp that a storm was at hand, came out of
his tent, and going along the lines of the infantry spoke encouraging
words to them, while Nasica, riding up to the skirmishers, saw the whole
army of the enemy just on the point of attacking. First marched the
Thracians, whose aspect they saw was most terrible, as they were tall
men, dressed in dark tunics, with large oblong shields and greaves of
glittering white, brandishing aloft long heavy swords over their right
shoulders. Next to the Thracians were the mercenaries, variously armed,
and mixed with Paeonians. After these came a third corps, of
Macedonians, picked men of proved courage, and in the flower of their
age, glittering with gilded arms and new purple dresses. Behind them
again came the phalanxes from the camp with their brazen shields,
filling all the plain with the glittering of their armour, and making
the hills ring with their shouts. So swiftly and boldly did they advance
that those who were first slain fell two furlongs only from the Roman
camp.
XIX. When the battle began, Aemilius came up, and found the front ranks
of the Macedonians had struck their spear-heads into the Roman shields,
so that they could not reach them with their swords. When also the other
Macedonians took their shields off their shoulders and placed them in
front, and then at the word of command all brought down their pikes, he,
viewing the great strength of that serried mass of shields, and the
menacing look of the spears that bristled before them, was amazed and
terrified, having never seen a more imposing spectacle--and often
afterwards he used to speak of that sight, and of his own feelings at
it. At the time, however, he put on a cheerful and hopeful look, and
rode along the ranks showing himself to the men without helmet or
cuirass. But the Macedonian king, according to Polybius, having joined
battle, was seized with a fit of cowardice, and rode off to the city on
the pretext that he was going to sacrifice to Herakles, a god unlikely
to receive the base offerings of cowards or to fulfil their unreasonable
prayers; for it is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit
the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the
day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper. But
the god heard the prayers of Aemilius, for he prayed for victory whilst
fighting, sword in hand, and invited the god into the battle to aid him.
Not but what one Poseidonius, who says that he took part in these
transactions, and wrote a history of Perseus in many volumes, says that
it was not from cowardice, or on the pretext of offering sacrifice that
he left the field, but that on the day before the battle he was kicked
on the leg by a horse; that in the battle, though in great pain, and
entreated by his friends to desist, he ordered a horse to be brought,
and without armour rode up to the phalanx. Here as many missiles were
flying about from both sides, an iron javelin struck him, not fairly
with its point, but it ran obliquely down his left side, tearing his
tunic, and causing a dark bruise on his flesh, the scar of which was
long visible. This is what Poseidonius urges in defence of Perseus.
XX. Now as the Romans when they met the phalanx could make no impression
upon it, Salovius, the leader of the Pelignians, seized the standard of
his regiment and threw it among the enemy. The Pelignians, as the loss
of a standard is thought to be a crime and an impiety by all Italians,
rushed to the place, and a fierce conflict began there with terrible
slaughter. The one party tried to dash aside the long spears with their
swords, and to push them with their shields, and to seize them away with
their very hands, while the Macedonians, wielding their spears with both
hands, drove them through their opponents, armour and all: for no shield
or corslet could resist their thrust. They then cast over their own
heads the bodies of these Pelignians and Marrucini, who pressed madly
like wild creatures up to the line of spears and certain death. When the
first rank fell in this manner, those behind gave way: it cannot be said
that they fled, but they retreated to a mountain called Olokrus.
Poseidonius tells us that Aemilius tore his clothes in despair at seeing
these men give ground, while the other Romans were confounded at the
phalanx, which could not be assailed, but with its close line of spears,
like a palisade, offered no point for attack. But when he saw that, from
the inequalities of the ground, and the length of their line, the
Macedonian phalanx did not preserve its alignment, and was breaking into
gaps and breaches, as is natural should happen in a great army,
according to the different attacks of the combatants, who made it bulge
inwards in one place, and outward in another, then he came swiftly up,
and dividing his men into companies, ordered them to force their way
into the spaces and intervals of the enemy's line, and to make their
attack, not in any one place all together, but in several, as they were
broken up into several bodies. As soon as Aemilius had given these
instructions to the officers, who communicated them to the men, they
charged into the spaces, and at once some attacked the now helpless
Macedonians in flank, while others got into their rear and cut them off.
The phalanx dissolved immediately, and with it was lost all the power
and mutual assistance which it gave. Fighting in single combats or small
groups, the Macedonians struck in vain with their little daggers at the
strong shields reaching to their feet carried by the Romans. Their light
targets could ill ward off the blows of the Roman sword, which cut right
through all their defensive armour. After a useless resistance they
turned and fled.
XXI. But the fight was a sharp one. Here Marcus, the son of Cato,
Aemilius's son-in-law, whilst fighting with great valour let fall his
sword. Educated as he had been in the strictest principles of honour,
and owing it to such a father to give extraordinary proofs of courage,
he thought that life would be intolerable for him if he allowed an enemy
to carry off such a trophy from him, and ran about calling upon every
friend or acquaintance whom he saw to help him to recover it. Many brave
men thus assembled, and with one accord left the rest of the army and
followed him. After a sharp conflict and much slaughter, they succeeded
in driving the enemy from the ground, and having thus chased it, they
betook themselves to searching for the sword. When at last after much
trouble it was found among the heaps of arms and corpses, they were
overjoyed, and with a shout assailed those of the enemy who still
resisted. At length the three thousand picked men were all slain
fighting in their ranks. A great slaughter took place among the others
as they fled, so that the plain and the skirts of the hills were covered
with corpses, and the stream of the river Leukus ran red with blood even
on the day after the battle; for, indeed, it is said that more than
twenty-five thousand men perished. Of the Romans there fell a hundred,
according to Poseidonius, but Nasica says only eighty.
XXII. This battle, fraught with such important issues, was decided in a
remarkably short time; beginning to fight at the ninth hour, the Romans
were victorious before the tenth. The remainder of the day was occupied
in pursuit, which being pressed for some fifteen (English) miles, it was
late before they returned to their camp. All the officers on their
return were met by their servants with torches, and conducted with songs
of triumph to their tents, which were illuminated and wreathed with ivy
and laurel; but the general himself was deeply dejected. The youngest of
the two sons who were serving under him--his own favourite, the noblest
of all his children in character--was nowhere to be found; and it was
feared that, being high-spirited and generous, though but a boy in
years, he must have become mixed up with the enemy, and so perished. The
whole army learned the cause of his sorrow and perplexity, and quitting
their suppers, ran about with torches, some to the tent of Aemilius, and
some outside the camp to look for him among the corpses. The whole camp
was filled with sorrow, and all the plain with noise, covered as it was
with men shouting for Scipio--for he had won all hearts from the very
beginning, having beyond all his kinsfolk the power of commanding the
affections of men. Very late at night, after he had been all but given
up for lost, he came in with two or three comrades, covered with the
blood of the enemies he had slain, having, like a well-bred hound, been
thoughtlessly carried along by the joy of the chase. This was that
Scipio who afterwards took by storm Carthage and Numantia, and became by
far the most famous and powerful of all the Romans of his time. So
fortune, deferring to another season the expression of her jealousy at
his success, now permitted Aemilius to take an unalloyed pleasure in his
victory.
XXIII. Perseus fled from Pydna to Pella, his cavalry having, as one
would expect, all got safe out of the action. But when the infantry met
them, they abused them as cowards and traitors, and began to push them
from their horses and deal them blows, and so Perseus, terrified at the
disturbance, forsook the main road, and to avoid detection took off his
purple robe and laid it before him, and carried his crown in his hand;
and, that he might talk to his friends as he walked, he got off his
horse, and led him. But one of them made excuse that he must tie his
shoes, another that he must water his horse, another that he must get
himself a drink, and so they gradually fell off from him and left him,
not fearing the rage of the enemy so much as his cruelty: for,
exasperated by his defeat, he tried to fasten the blame of it upon
others instead of himself. When he came to Pella, his treasurers Euktus
and Eulaeus met him and blamed him for what had happened, and in an
outspoken and unseasonable way gave him advice: at which he was so much
enraged that he stabbed them both dead with his dagger. After this no
one stayed with him except Evander a Cretan, Archedamus an Aetolian, and
Neon a Boeotian. Of the common soldiers the Cretans followed him, not
from any love they bore him, but being as eager for his riches as bees
are for honey. For he carried great store of wealth with him, and out of
it distributed among the Cretans cups and bowls and other gold and
silver plate to the amount of fifty talents. But when he reached first
Amphipolis, and then Galepsus, and had got a little the better of his
fears, his old malady of meanness attacked him, and he would complain to
his friends that he had flung some of the drinking cups of Alexander the
Great to the Cretans by mistake, and entreated with tears those who had
them to give back and take the value in money. Those who understood his
character were not taken in by this attempt to play the Cretan with men
of Crete, but some believed him and lost their cups for nothing. For he
never paid the money, but having swindled his friends out of thirty
talents, which soon fell into the hands of the enemy, he sailed with the
money to Samothrace, and took sanctuary in the temple of the Dioskuri as
a suppliant.
XXIV. The people of Macedon have always been thought to love their
kings, but now, as if some main prop had broken, and the whole edifice
of government fallen to the ground, they gave themselves up to Aemilius,
and in two days constituted him master of the entire kingdom. This seems
to confirm the opinion of those who say that these successes were owing
to especial good fortune: and the incident of the sacrifice also was
clearly sent from Heaven. For when Aemilius was offering sacrifice at
Amphipolis, when the sacred rites had been performed, lightning came
down upon the altar, and burned up the offering. But in its miraculous
character and good luck the swiftness with which the news spread
surpasses all these; for on the fourth day after Perseus had been
vanquished at Pydna, while the people at Rome were assembled at a horse
race, suddenly there arose amongst them a rumour that Aemilius had
defeated Perseus in a great battle and had subdued all Macedonia. This
report soon spread among the populace, who expressed their joy by
applause and shouts throughout the city all that day. Afterwards, as the
report could be traced to no trustworthy source, but was merely repeated
among them vaguely, it was disbelieved and came to nothing; but in a few
days they learned the real story, and wondered at the rumour which had
preceded it, combining truth with falsehood.
XXV. There is a legend that the news of the battle on the river Sagra in
Italy against the natives was carried the same day into Peloponnesus,
and that of the battle of Mykale against the Medes was so carried to
Plataea. The victory of the Romans over the Latins under the exiled
Tarquins was reported at Rome a little after it took place, by two men,
tall and fair, who came from the army. These men they conjectured to
have been the Dioskuri (Castor and Pollux). The first man who fell in
with them as they stood in the forum, near the fountain, found them
washing their horses, which were covered with sweat. He marvelled much
at their tale of the victory; and then they are said to have smiled
serenely and stroked his beard, which instantly changed from black to
yellow, thus causing his story to be believed, besides winning for him
the soubriquet of Ahenobarbus, which means 'brazen beard.' But that
which happened in our own time will make all these credible. When
Antonius rebelled against Domitian, and a great war in Germany was
expected, Rome was greatly disturbed till suddenly there arose among the
people a rumour of victory, and a story ran through Rome that Antonius
himself was killed, and that the army under him had been utterly
exterminated. And this report was so clear and forcible, that many of
the magistrates offered sacrifice for the victory. When the originator
of it was sought for, as he could not be found, but the story when
traced from one man to another was lost in the vast crowd as if in the
sea, and appeared to have no solid foundation, all belief in it died
away: but when Domitian set out with his forces to the war, he was met
on the way by messengers with despatches describing the victory. The day
of this success was the same as that stated by the rumours, though the
places were more than two thousand five hundred (English) miles distant.
All men of our own time know this to be true.
XXVI. Cnaeus Octavius, the admiral under Aemilius's orders, now cruised
round Samothrace. He did not, from religious motives, violate Perseus's
right of sanctuary, but prevented his leaving the island and escaping.
But nevertheless Perseus somehow outwitted him so far as to bribe one
Oroandes, a Cretan, who possessed a small vessel, to take him on board.
But this man like a true Cretan took the money away by night, and
bidding him come the next night with his family and attendants to the
harbour near the temple of Demeter, as soon as evening fell, set sail.
Now Perseus suffered pitiably in forcing himself, and his wife and
children, who were unused to hardships, through a narrow window in the
wall, and set up a most pititul wailing when some one who met him
wandering on the beach showed him the ship of Oroandes under sail far
away at sea. Day was now breaking, and having lost his last hope, he
made a hasty retreat to the town wall, and got into it with his wife,
before the Romans, though they saw him, could prevent him. But his
children he had entrusted to a man named Ion, who once had been a
favourite of his, but now betrayed him, and delivered them up to the
Romans, thus providing the chief means to compel him, like a wild
animal, to come and surrender himself into the hands of those who had
his children. He felt most confidence in Nasica, and inquired for him,
but as he was not present, after lamenting his fate, and reflecting on
the impossibility of acting otherwise, he surrendered himself to Cnaeus.
Now he was able to prove that he had a vice yet more sordid than
avarice, namely, base love of life; by which he lost even his title to
pity, the only consolation of which fortune does not deprive the fallen.
He begged to be brought into the presence of Aemilius, who, to show
respect to a great man who had met with a terrible misfortune, rose, and
walked to meet him with his friends, with tears in his eyes. But Perseus
offered a degrading spectacle by flinging himself down upon his face and
embracing his knees, with unmanly cries and entreaties, which Aemilius
could not endure to listen to; but looking on him with a pained and sad
expression, said, "Wretched man: why do you by this conduct deprive
fortune of all blame, by making yourself seem to deserve your mishaps,
and to have been unworthy of your former prosperity, but worthy of your
present misery? And why do you depreciate the value of my victory, and
make my success a small one, by proving degenerate and an unworthy
antagonist for Romans? Valour, however unfortunate, commands great
respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though
it be prosperous."
XXVII. However, he raised him from the ground, and, having given him his
hand, he entrusted him to Tubero, and then taking into his own tent his
sons, sons-in-law, and most of the younger officers, he sat silent,
wrapt in thought for some time, to their astonishment. Then he said,
"Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and
think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire;
or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the
uncertainty of human affairs, which never continue in one stay? For what
time can there be for us mortals to feel confident, when our victories
over others especially compel us to dread fortune, and while we are
exulting, the reflection that the fatal day comes now to one, now to
another, in regular succession, dashes our joy. Can we, who in less than
an hour have trampled under our feet the successor of Alexander the
Great, who was so powerful and mighty, and who see these kings who but
lately were guarded by their tens of thousands of foot and thousands of
horse, now receiving their daily bread from the hands of their foes, can
we suppose that our present prosperity is likely to endure for all time?
You, young men, be sure that you lay aside your haughty looks and
vainglory in your victory, and await with humility what the future may
bring forth, ever considering what form of retribution Heaven may have
in store for us to set off against our present good fortune." They say
that Aemilius spoke long in this strain, and sent away his young
officers with their pride and boastfulness well curbed and restrained by
his words, as though with a bridle.
XXVIII. After these events he sent the army into cantonments, to rest,
and he himself set out to visit Greece, making a progress which was both
glorious and beneficent; for in the cities to which he came he restored
the popular constitutions, and bestowed on them presents, from the
king's treasury, of corn and oil. For so much, they say, was found
stored up, that all those who received it and asked for it, were
satisfied before the mass could be exhausted. At Delphi, seeing a large
square column of white marble, on which a golden statue of Perseus was
to have been placed, he ordered his own to be placed there, as the
vanquished ought to give place to the victors. At Olympia, as the story
goes, he uttered that well-known saying, that Pheidias had carved the
very Zeus of Homer.
When ten commissioners arrived from Rome, he restored to the Macedonians
their country to dwell in, and their cities free and independent,
imposing upon them a tribute of a hundred talents, only half what they
used to pay to their kings. He exhibited gymnastic spectacles of every
kind, and gave splendid sacrifices and feasts in honour of the gods,
having boundless resources for the purpose in the king's treasury; and
in ordering and arranging each man's place at table, and saluting him
according to his merit and degree, he showed such a delicate perception
of propriety, that the Greeks were astonished that he should carry his
administrative talent even into his amusements, and be so business-like
in trifles. But he was always delighted that though many splendid things
were prepared, he himself was the chief object of interest to his
guests, and when they expressed their surprise at his taking such pains,
he would answer that the same mind can array an army for battle in the
most terrific fashion, or a feast in the most acceptable one. All men
praised to the skies his generous magnanimity, because, when a great
mass of gold and silver was collected from the king's treasury, he would
not so much as look at it, but handed it over to the quaestors to be put
into the public treasury. Of all the spoil, he only allowed his sons,
who were fond of reading, to take the king's books; and when
distributing prizes for distinguished bravery in action, he gave Aelius
Tubero, his son-in-law, a silver cup of five pounds' weight. This Tubero
is he whom we said lived with fifteen other kinsfolk on a small farm,
which supported them all. And that, they say, was the first piece of
plate that ever was seen in the Aelian household, brought there by
honourable valour; for before that neither they nor their wives used
either gold or silver plate.