Aemilius Paulus

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 319 sections

14.9.1
But those who hold this doctrine give the sceptical occasion to object that, on this reasoning, there is no blood in living creatures, but it is generated in response to wounds by a transformation of some vapour or flesh, which causes its liquefaction and flow.
14.10.1
Moreover, they are refuted by the experience of men who dig mines, either for sieges or for metals, and in the depths encounter rivers of water, which are not gradually collected, as must naturally be the case if they come into existence at the instant that the earth is agitated, but pour fourth in a great mass.
14.11.1
And again, when a mountain or rock is smitten asunder, a fierce torrent of water often gushes forth, and then ceases entirely. So much on this head.
15.1.1
Aemilius kept still for several days, and they say that never was there such quiet when armies of such size had come so close together.
15.2.1
But when, as he was trying and considering everything, he learned that there was one passage and one only that still remained unguarded, namely, the one through Perrhaebia past the Pythium and Petra, he conceived more hope from the fact that the place was left unguarded than fear from the roughness and difficulty of it which caused it to be so left, and held a council of war upon the matter.
15.3.1
Among those present at the council, Scipio, surnamed Nasica, a son-in-law of Scipio Africanus, and afterwards of the greatest influence in the senate, was first to offer himself as leader of the enveloping force.
15.4.1
And second, Fabius Maximus, the eldest of the sons of Aemilius, though he was still a young man, eagerly volunteered.
15.5.1
Aemilius, accordingly, delighted, gave them, not as many men as Polybius states, but as many as Nasica himself says they took, in a short letter which he wrote concerning these exploits to one of the kings,
15.6.1
that is, three thousand of his Italians who were not Romans, and his left wing numbering five thousand.
15.7.1
In addition to these, Nasica took a hundred and twenty horsemen, besides two hundred of the mixed Thracians and Cretans with Harpalus, set out on the road towards the sea, and encamped by the Heracleum, as though he intended to sail round by sea and envelope the camp of the enemy.
15.8.1
But when his soldiers had taken supper and darkness had come, he told his chief officers his real design, and then led his forces by night in the opposite direction, away from the sea, and halted below the Pythium, where he gave his army a rest.
15.9.1
From this point Olympus rises to a height of more than ten furlongs, as is signified in an inscription by the man who measured it:—
15.10.1
The sacred peak of Olympus, at Apollo’s Pythium, has a height, in perpendicular measurement, of ten full furlongs, and besides, a hundred feet lacking only four. It was the son of Eumelus who measured the distance, Xenagoras; so fare thee well, O King, and be propitious in thy gifts.
15.11.1
And yet the geometricians say that no mountain has a height, and no sea a depth, of more than ten furlongs. It would seem, however, that Xenagoras took his measurement, not carelessly, but according to rule and with instruments.
16.1.1
Here, then, Nasica passed the night; but to Perseus, who did not infer what was going on because he saw Aemilius remaining quietly in his position, there came a Cretan deserter who had run away on the march, bringing him news of the circuit which the Romans had taken.
16.2.1
Though Perseus was confounded at this, he did not move his camp, but sent out ten thousand foreign mercenaries and two thousand Macedonians under Milo, with orders to make haste and occupy the passes.
16.3.1
These men, according to Polybius, were still asleep when the Romans fell upon them; but Nasica says that a sharp and perilous conflict took place for possession of the heights, and that he himself slew a Thracian mercenary, who engaged him, by striking him through the breast with his javelin, and that after the enemy had been driven away, and while Milo was flying most disgracefully without his armour or his cloak, he followed after them without danger, and brought his army with him down into the plain.
16.4.1
After this disaster, Perseus hastily broke camp and retired; he had become exceedingly fearful, and his hopes were shattered.
16.5.1
But nevertheless he was under the necessity of standing his ground there in front of Pydna and risking a battle, or else of scattering his army about among the cities and so awaiting the issue of the war, which, now that it had once made its way into his country, could not be driven out without much bloodshed and slaughter.
16.6.1
In the number of his men, then, he was superior where he was, and they would fight with great ardour in defence of their wives and children, and with their king beholding all their actions and risking life in their behalf.
16.7.1
With such arguments his friends encouraged Perseus. So he pitched a camp and arranged his forces for battle, examining the field and distributing his commands, purposing to confront the Romans as soon as they came up.
16.8.1
The place afforded a plain for his phalanx, which required firm standing and smooth ground, and there were hills succeeding one another continuously, which gave his skirmishers and light-armed troops opportunity for retreat and flank attack.
16.9.1
Moreover, through the middle of it ran the rivers Aeson and Leucus, which were not very deep at that time (for it was the latter end of summer), but were likely, nevertheless, to give the Romans considerable trouble.
17.1.1
Aemilius, after effecting a junction with Nasica, came down in battle array against the enemy.
17.2.1
But when he saw how they were drawn up, and in what numbers, he was amazed, and came to a halt, considering with himself.
17.3.1
His young officers, however, who were eager for battle, rode up and begged him not to delay, especially Nasica, who was emboldened by his success at Mount Olympus.
17.4.1
But Aemilius, with a smile, said to him: Yes, if I had thy youth; but many victories teach me the mistakes of the vanquished, and forbid me to join battle, immediately after a march, with a phalanx which is already drawn up and completely formed.
17.5.1
After this, he ordered his foremost troops, who were in sight of the enemy, to form into cohorts and give the appearance of a battle line, while the others, wheeling to the rear, dug trenches and marked out a camp.
17.6.1
And in this way, the troops next to the last wheeling off in due succession, before the enemy knew it he had broken up his battle line and brought all his men without confusion into their intrenchments.
17.7.1
Now, when night had come, and the soldiers, after supper, were betaking themselves to rest and sleep, on a sudden the moon, which was full and high in the heavens, grew dark, lost its light, took on all sorts of colours in succession, and finally disappeared.
17.8.1
The Romans, according to their custom, tried to call her light back by the clashing of bronze utensils and by holding up many blazing fire-brands and torches towards the heavens; the Macedonians, however, did nothing of this sort, but amazement and terror possessed their camp, and a rumour quietly spread among many of them that the portent signified an eclipse of a king.
17.9.1
Now, Aemilius was not altogether without knowledge and experience of the irregularities of eclipses, which, at fixed periods, carry the moon in her course into the shadow of the earth and conceal her from sight, until she passes beyond the region of shadow and reflects again the light of the sun;
17.10.1
however, since he was very devout and given to sacrifices and divination, as soon as he saw the moon beginning to emerge from the shadow, he sacrificed eleven heifers to her.
17.11.1
And as soon as it was day, he sacrificed as many as twenty oxen to Hercules without getting favourable omens; but with the twenty-first victim the propitious signs appeared and indicated victory if they stood on the defensive.
17.12.1
Accordingly, having vowed to the god a hecatomb and solemn games, he ordered his officers to put the army in array for battle;
17.13.1
but he himself, waiting for the sun to pass to the west and decline, in order that its morning light might not shine in the faces of his men as they fought, passed the time sitting in his tent, which was open towards the plain and the enemy’s encampment.
18.1.1
Towards evening, Aemilius himself, as some say, devised a scheme for making the enemy begin the attack, and the Romans, pursuing a horse which they had driven forth without a bridle, came into collision with them, and the pursuit of this horse brought on a battle;
18.2.1
others say that Thracians, under the command of Alexander, set upon Roman beasts of burden that were bringing in forage, and that against these a sharp sally was made by seven hundred Ligurians, whereupon reinforcements were sent to either party, and thus the engagement became general.
18.3.1
So then Aemilius, like a pilot, judging from the surging commotion in the armies the greatness of the coming storm, came forth from his tent and went along in front of his legionary troops encouraging them,
18.4.1
and Nasica, after riding out to the skirmishers, saw that the whole force of the enemy was all but at close quarters.
18.5.1
First the Thracians advanced, whose appearance, Nasica says, was most terrible,—men of lofty stature, clad in tunics which showed black beneath the white and gleaming armour of their shields and greaves, and tossing high on their right shoulders battle-axes with heavy iron heads.
18.6.1
Next to the Thracians, the mercenaries advanced to the attack; their equipment was of every variety, and Paeonians were mingled with them.
18.7.1
Next to these came a third division, picked men, the flower of the Macedonians themselves for youthful strength and valour, gleaming with gilded armour and fresh scarlet coats.
18.8.1
As these took their places in the line, they were illumined by the phalanx-lines of the Bronze-shields which issued from the camp behind them and filled the plain with the gleam of iron and the glitter of bronze, the hills, too, with the tumultuous shouts of their cheering.
18.9.1
And with such boldness and swiftness did they advance that the first to be slain fell only two furlongs from the Roman camp.
19.1.1
As the attack began, Aemilius came up and found that the Macedonian battalions had already planted the tips of their long spears in the shields of the Romans, who were thus prevented from reaching them with their swords.
19.2.1
And when he saw that the rest of the Macedonian troops also were drawing their targets from their shoulders round in front of them, and with long spears sat at one level were withstanding his shield-bearing troops, and saw too the strength of their interlocked shields and the fierceness of their onset, amazement and fear took possession of him, and he felt that he had never seen a sight more fearful; often in after times he used to speak of his emotions at that time and of what he saw.
19.3.1
But then, showing to his soldiers a glad and cheerful countenance, he rode past them without helmet or breastplate.
19.4.1
The king of the Macedonians, on the other hand, according to Polybius, as soon as the battle began, played the coward and rode back to the city, under pretence of sacrificing to Heracles, a god who does not accept cowardly sacrifices from cowards, nor accomplish their unnatural prayers.
19.5.1
For it is not in the nature of things that he who makes no shot should hit the mark exactly, or that he who does not hold his ground should win the day, or, in a word, that he who does nothing should be successful in what he does, or that a wicked man should be prosperous.
19.6.1
But the god listened to the prayers of Aemilius, who kept wielding his spear as he prayed for might and victory, and fought as he invited the god to fight with him.
19.7.1
However, a certain Poseidonius, who says he lived in those times and took part in those actions, and who has written a history of Perseus in several books, says it was not out of cowardice, nor with the excuse of the sacrifice, that the king went away, but because on the day before the battle a horse had kicked him on the leg.
19.8.1
He says further that in the battle, although he was in a wretched plight, and although his friends tried to deter him, the king ordered a pack-horse to be brought to him, mounted it, and joined his troops in the phalanx without a breastplate;
19.9.1
and that among the missiles of every sort which were flying on all sides, a javelin made entirely of iron smote him, not touching him with its point, indeed, but coursing along his left side with an oblique stroke, and the force of its passage was such that it tore his tunic and made a dark red bruise upon his flesh, the mark of which remained for a long time.
19.10.1
This, then, is what Poseidonius says in defence of Perseus.
20.1.1
The Romans, when they attacked the Macedonian phalanx, were unable to force a passage, and Salvius, the commander of the Pelignians, snatched the standard of his company and hurled it in among the enemy.
20.2.1
Then the Pelignians, since among the Italians it is an unnatural and flagrant thing to abandon a standard, rushed on towards the place where it was, and dreadful losses were inflicted and suffered on both sides.
20.3.1
For the Romans tried to thrust aside the long spears of their enemies with their swords, or to crowd them back with their shields, or to seize and put them by with their very hands;
20.4.1
while the Macedonians, holding them firmly advanced with both hands, and piercing those who fell upon them, armour and all, since neither shield nor breastplate could resist the force of the Macedonian long spear, hurled headlong back the Pelignians and Marrucinians, who, with no consideration but with animal fury rushed upon the strokes that met them, and a certain death.
20.5.1
When the first line had thus been cut to pieces, those arrayed behind them were beaten back; and though there was no flight, still they retired towards the mountain called Olocrus,
20.6.1
so that even Aemilius, as Poseidonius tells us, when he saw it, rent his garments. For this part of his army was retreating, and the rest of the Romans were turning aside from the phalanx, which gave them no access to it, but confronted them as it were with a dense barricade of long spears, and was everywhere unassailable.
20.7.1
But the ground was uneven, and the line of battle so long that shields could not be kept continuously locked together, and Aemilius therefore saw that the Macedonian phalanx was getting many clefts and intervals in it, as is natural when armies are large and the efforts of the combatants are diversified; portions of it were hard pressed, and other portions were dashing forward.
20.8.1
Thereupon he came up swiftly; and dividing up his cohorts, ordered them to plunge quickly into the interstices and empty spaces in the enemy’s line and thus come to close quarters, not fighting a single battle against them all, but many separate and successive battles.
20.9.1
These instructions being given by Aemilius to his officers, and by his officers to the soldiers, as soon as they got between the ranks of the enemy and separated them, they attacked some of them in the flank where their armour did not shield them,
20.10.1
and cut off others by falling upon their rear, and the strength and general efficiency of the phalanx was lost when it was thus broken up; and now that the Macedonians engaged man to man or in small detachments, they could only hack with their small daggers against the firm and long shields of the Romans, and oppose light wicker targets to their swords, which, such was their weight and momentum, penetrated through all their armour to their bodies. They therefore made a poor resistance and at last were routed.
21.1.1
But the struggle between them was fierce. Here, too, Marcus, the son of Cato and the son-in-law of Aemilius, while displaying all possible prowess, lost his sword.
21.2.1
Since he was a young man of the most generous education and owed to a great father proofs of great valour, he thought life not worth the living if he abandoned such spoil of his own person to the enemy, and ran along the ranks telling every friend and companion whom he saw of his mishap and begging them for aid.
21.3.1
These made a goodly number of brave men, and making their way with one impulse through the rest, they put themselves under his lead and fell upon the enemy.
21.4.1
With a great struggle, much slaughter, and many wounds, they drove them from the ground, and when they had won a free and empty place, they set themselves to looking for the sword.
21.5.1
And when at last it was found hidden among great heaps of armour and fallen bodies, they were filled with exceeding joy, and raising songs of triumph fell yet more impetuously upon those of the enemy who still held together.
21.6.1
Finally, the three thousand picked men of the Macedonians, who remained in order and kept on fighting, were all cut to pieces; and of the rest, who took to flight, the slaughter was great, so that the plain and the lower slopes of the hills were covered with dead bodies, and the waters of the river Leucus were still mingled with blood when the Romans crossed it on the day after the battle.
21.7.1
For it is said that over twenty-five thousand of their enemies were slain; while of the Romans there fell, according to Poseidonius, a hundred, according to Nasica, eighty.
22.1.1
And this greatest of all struggles was most speedily decided; for the Romans began fighting at three o’clock in the afternoon, and were victorious within an hour; the rest of the day they spent in the pursuit, which they kept up for as many as a hundred and twenty furlongs, so that it was already late in the evening when they returned.
22.2.1
All the rest were met by their servants with torches and conducted with joyful shouts to their tents, which were ablaze with light and adorned with wreaths of ivy and laurel; but Aemilius their general was a prey to great sorrow.
22.3.1
For of the two sons who were serving under him, the younger was nowhere to be found, and Aemilius loved him especially, and saw that he was by nature more prone to excellence than any of his brothers.
22.4.1
But he was of a passionate and ambitious spirit, and was still hardly more than a boy in years, and his father concluded that he had certainly perished, when, for lack of experience, he had become entangled among the enemy as they fought.
22.5.1
The whole army learned of the distress and anguish of their general, and springing up from their suppers, ran about with torches, many to the tent of Aemilius, and many in front of the ramparts, searching among the numerous dead bodies.
22.6.1
Dejection reigned in the camp, and the plain was filled with the cries of men calling out the name of Scipio. For from the very outset he had been admired by everybody, since, beyond any other one of his family, he had a nature adapted for leadership in war and public service.
22.7.1
Well, then, when it was already late and he was almost despaired of, he came in from the pursuit with two or three comrades, covered with the blood of the enemies he had slain, having been, like a young hound of noble breed, carried away by the uncontrollable pleasure of the victory.
22.8.1
This was that Scipio who, in after times, destroyed Carthage and Numantia, and became by far the most noble and influential Roman of his day.
22.9.1
Thus Fortune, postponing to another season her jealous displeasure at the great success of Aemilius, restored to him then in all completeness his pleasure in his victory.
23.1.1
But Perseus was away in flight from Pydna to Pella, since practically all his horsemen came safely off from the battle.
23.2.1
But when his footmen overtook his horsemen, and, abusing them as cowards and traitors, tried to push them from their horses and fell to beating them, the king, afraid of the tumult, turned his horse out of the road, drew his purple robe round and held it in front of him, that he might not be conspicuous, and carried his diadem in his hands.
23.3.1
And in order that he might also converse with his companions as he walked, he dismounted from his horse and led him along.
23.4.1
But of these companions, one pretended that he must fasten a shoe that had become loose, another that he must water his horse, another that he himself wanted water to drink, and so they gradually lagged behind and ran away, because they had more fear of his cruelty than of the enemy.
23.5.1
For he was lacerated by his misfortunes, and sought to turn the responsibility for his defeat away from himself and upon everybody else.
23.6.1
He entered Pella during the night, and when Euctus and Eulaeus, his treasurers, came to meet him, and, what with their censure for what had happened and their unseasonably bold speeches and counsels, enraged him, he slew them, smiting both of them himself with his small-sword. After this no one remained with him except Evander the Cretan, Archedamus the Aetolian, and Neon the Boeotian.
23.7.1
Of his soldiers, only the Cretans followed after him, not through good will, but because they were as devoted to his riches as bees to their honeycombs.
23.8.1
For he was carrying along vast treasures, and had handed out from them for distribution among the Cretans drinking cups and mixing bowls and other furniture of gold and silver to a value of fifty talents.
23.9.1
He arrived at Amphipolis first, and then from there at Galepsus, and now that his fear had abated a little, he relapsed into that congenital and oldest disease of his, namely, parsimony, and lamented to his friends that through ignorance he had suffered some of the gold plate of Alexander the Great to fall into the hands of the Cretans, and with tearful supplications he besought those who had it to exchange it for money.
23.10.1
Now those that understood him accurately did not fail to see that he was playing the Cretan against Cretans; but those who listened to him, and gave back the plate, were cheated.
23.11.1
For he did not pay them the money he had promised, but after craftily getting thirty talents from his friends, which his enemies were to get soon afterwards, he sailed across with them to Samothrace, where he took refuge as a suppliant in the temple of the Dioscuri.
24.1.1
Now, the Macedonians are always said to have been lovers of their kings, but at this time, feeling that their prop was shattered and all had fallen with it, they put themselves into the hands of Aemilius, and in two days made him master of all Macedonia.
24.2.1
And this would seem to bear witness in favour of those who declare that these achievements of his were due to a rare good fortune.
24.3.1
And still further, that which befell him at his sacrifice was a token of divine favour. When, namely, Aemilius was sacrificing in Amphipolis, and the sacred rites were begun, a thunderbolt darted down upon the altar, set it on fire, and consumed the sacrifice with it.
24.4.1
But an altogether more signal instance of divine favour and good fortune is seen in the way the rumour of his victory spread. For it was only the fourth day after Perseus had been defeated at Pydna, and at Rome the people were watching equestrian contests, when suddenly a report sprang up at the entrance of the theatre that Aemilius had conquered Perseus in a great battle and reduced all Macedonia.
24.5.1
After this the rumour spread quickly among the multitude, and joy burst forth, accompanied by shouts and clapping of hands, and prevailed in the city all that day.
24.6.1
Then, since the story could not be traced to any sure source, but seemed to be current everywhere alike, for the time being the rumour vanished into thin air; but when, a few days afterwards, they were clearly informed of the matter, they were astonished at the tidings which had reached them first, seeing that in the fiction there was truth.
25.1.1
It is said also that a report of the battle fought by the Italian Greeks at the river Sagra reached Peloponnesus on the same day, and so did that of the battle with the Medes at Mycale come on the same day to Plataea.
25.2.1
And when the Romans conquered the Tarquins, who had taken the field against them with the Latins, two tall and beautiful men were seen at Rome a little while after, who brought direct tidings from the army. These were conjectured to be the Dioscuri.

Perseus Greek. CTS URN tlg0007.tlg019.perseus-eng2. Via the Perseus Digital Library / Open Greek and Latin TEI corpora. Licence: Available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Source.