Non dubia res fuit; extemplo terga vertere Macedones, terrore primo
bestiarum aversi. Et ceteri quidem hos pulsos sequebantur; unus e
tribunis militum, ex tempore capto consilio, cum viginti signorum
militibus, relicta ea parte suorum, quae {5} haud dubie vincebat, brevi
circuitu dextrum cornu hostium aversum invadit. Nullam aciem ab tergo
adortus non turbasset; ceterum ad communem omnium in tali re
trepidationem accessit, quod phalanx Macedonum, gravis atque immobilis,
nec {10} circumagere se poterat, nec hoc, qui a fronte, paulo ante pedem
referentes, tunc ultro territis instabant, patiebantur. Ad hoc loco
etiam premebantur, quia iugum, ex quo pugnaverant, dum per proclive
pulsos insequuntur, tradiderant hosti ad terga sua circumducto. {15}
Paulisper in medio caesi, deinde omissis plerique armis capessunt fugam.
Philippus cum paucis peditum equitumque primo tumulum altiorem inter
ceteros cepit, ut specularetur, quae in laeva parte suorum fortuna
esset; deinde, postquam fugam {20} effusam animadvertit et omnia circa
iuga signis atque armis fulgere, tum et ipse acie excessit.
LIVY, xxxiii. 9, 10.
+Context.+ Philip V, King of Macedon, had made a treaty with Hannibal in
215 B.C., and provoked the first Macedonian War (214-205 B.C.) by an
attack on Apollonia in Illyria, and the capture of the port of Oricum in
Epirus. The Romans now resolved to make Philip suffer for the trouble he
had caused them by interfering in the war with Hannibal. A _casus belli_
was soon found in the Athenian Embassy to Rome (201 B.C.) asking for
help against Philip.
[Linenotes:
3-4. +unus ... militum.+ Ihne says ‘He seized the favourable
opportunity to shape the battle which had begun without plan into a
brilliant victory for Rome.’
5. +signorum+ (= _manipulorum_) = _companies_, i.e. with some 3500
men.
13. +loco premebantur+ = _they_ (i.e. _the phalanx_) _began to feel
the disadvantage of position_. --Rawlins.
16. +in medio caesi+ = _cut down from both sides_. --R.]
+Cynoscephalae+ (_Dog’s Heads_), a low chain of hills between Pherae and
Scotussa in Thessaly.
+Results of the Battle.+ ‘The Romans lost only 700 men. That was the
price paid for a victory which laid the Monarchy of Alexander the Great
in the dust.’ --Ihne.
+Terms of Peace+, 196 B.C. Macedonia to remain an independent state,
but, like Carthage, to lose all her foreign possessions, and to be sunk
to the level of a vassal state.
C41
SECOND MACEDONIAN WAR, 200-196 B.C. (2)
_Flamininus proclaims the Freedom of Greece, 196 B.C._
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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