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.