[43]
Manlius had done well so far, but he managed very badly afterward. He scorned to go home by water in the summer time. He made no account of the burden he was carrying. He neglected to keep the army in good discipline while on the march, because it was not going to war, but returning home with its spoils. He marched by a long, narrow, and difficult road through Thrace in a stifling heat. Nor did he send word to Philip of Macedonia to meet and escort him. He did not divide his army into parts, so that it might move more lightly and have what was needed more handy. Nor did he keep his baggage in good order for easy defence. He led his army higgledy-piggledy, all strung out, with the baggage in the centre of the line, so that neither the vanguard nor the rear-guard could render assistance quickly by reason of the length and narrowness of the road. So, when the Thracians attacked him in flank from all directions, he lost a large part of the spoils, and of the public money, and of the army itself. He escaped into Macedonia with the remainder -- by which means it became very plain how great a service Philip had rendered by escorting the Scipios, and how Antiochus had blundered in abandoning the Chersonesus. Manlius passed from Macedonia into Thessaly, and thence into Epirus, crossed to Brundusium, dismissed what was left of his army to their homes, and returned to Rome.
Appian. The Foreign Wars. Horace White. New York. THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 1899.
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