There was no dust upsurging from the rocky road to shroud their advance, no smoke-clouds to veil them from the shot of the enemy’s artillery, with their bright armor flashing in the sunbeams, as they streamed down the gaps in the mountain summits, and their blood-red banners and tall plumes tossing in the light morning air, on they came, dazzling and unobscured, a fair mark for the deadly missiles, arrows shot off in volleys, vast javelins which no human arm could launch, and mighty stones hurled from the catapults, as if from modern ordnance, which tore their ranks asunder, and leveled whole files to the earth at a blow. But their extraordinary discipline and admirable armature enabled them to endure the storm; and they made their way through all opposition, until they met the phalanx, bristling with its impenetrable pikes, its flanks impregnably protected by the rocks here, by the river there, and its narrow front offering no point assailable. Then they were checked; but, even then, not beaten back, so stubborn was their Roman hardihood, so firm their resolution to be slain, not conquered. All day long did that deep glen quake and shudder to the dread sounds of the mortal conflict; the thundering crash of the huge stone-shot, shivering the trees and shivered on the crags; the hurtling of the terrible _falaricæ_; the clash and clang of steel blades and brazen bucklers; the whirlwind of the charging horse; the shouts and shrieks and death-groans; the thrilling trumpets of the legions; the solemn pæans of the phalanx. Only when the sun set, and the full, round moon came soaring coldly up above the tree-tops, flooding the bloody stream of the Aöus, and the corpse-incumbered gorge, with silver radiance, did the weary and shattered hosts draw off to their respective camps, from a strife so justly balanced, that none could say which had come off the better, none judge on which side the more or the better men had fallen. That night, Flamininus sat in his tent alone, anxious, uncertain how to proceed, so terrible had been the loss of life, and so small the advantage; when a shepherd was introduced, sent by Charops, the prince of the Ætolians, who should conduct a detachment, by a wild mountain foot-path, to a height in the enemy’s rear, domineering his whole position. Four thousand chosen veterans of infantry and three hundred horse, under a tribune of the soldiers, were detailed, instantly, for the service, which would occupy three days.