59.
Drawn up in very nearly this fashion and with numbers of cavalry and light troops about even on both sides, the lines clashed, the battle beginning with the slingers and javelin-throwers, who were in advance.
[2]
First of all the Thracians, like beasts of prey long held behind bars, charged so vigorously with a great shout upon the Roman right wing, the Italian cavalry, that this people, courageous by nature and through experience in war,1 was thrown into
[3??]
confusion . . . spears to attack the infantry . . .2 now to [p. 475]cut off the horses' legs, now to pierce their loins.3
[4]
Perseus, charging the centre of the line, thrust back the Greeks with his first attack;4 in the rout of these when the enemy pressed heavily from the rear, the Thessalian cavalry, which had been in support, away a short distance from the left wing and beyond the melee, though at first spectators of the conflict, were later, when the decision had been reached, of the greatest use.
[5]
For, retreating gradually with formation intact, after they had joined the auxiliaries of Eumenes, with him they both provided a safe retreat between their units for their allies scattered in flight, and when the enemy pressed on in less close order, they even risked advancing and met many of the fugitives half-way. Nor did the king's men, now themselves scattered in a general pursuit, dare to close in battle with an enemy in formation and advancing steadily.
[6]
While the king, victorious in the cavalry battle, was crying out that if he had helped with a slight impulse a decisive victory would have been won, the phalanx also arrived appropriately at the very moment of his urging;
[7]
Hippias and Leonnatus had brought the phalanx up swiftly on their own initiative, in order not to fail the bold beginning, after they had received the report that the cavalry had won their battle.
[8]
While the king was wavering between hope and fear of attempting so great a feat, the Cretan Evander, whom the [p. 477]king had used as his tool at Delphi in the ambushing5 of Eumenes,6 on seeing the column of infantry with their standards advancing, ran to the king and pressed the warning that he should not be so puffed up by good fortune as to stake his whole enterprise rashly on a needless throw of the dice;
[9]
if, satisfied with his success, he should rest for that day, either he would have a basis for
[10??]
an honourable peace or an abundance of such allies in war as would follow the lead of fortune, in case he should prefer to fight. To this advice the mind of the king was more inclined.
[11]
And so, praising Evander, he ordered a withdrawal, and that the column of infantry should return to camp, while for the cavalry the signal for returning should be sounded.
1 Apparently exceptions to the rule of inexperience, above Iv. 3.
2 The words introducing the account of the melée have entirely disappeared; the sense and construction of the three isolated words is not clear; some scholars restore two more words, “phalanx,” and rumpiis (long Thracian spears, cf. XXXI. xxxix. 11) which do not seem to fit the context. (So E. S., cf. critical note 1 on p. 474; but the spears might have been used “to pierce their loins,” cf. the alternative text in the note.)
3 B.C. 171
4 Livy fails to mention the Roman Élite Cavalry, either out of confusion, or because weakness in the Aetolian contingent at this point was regarded as the cause of the whole Roman debacle, cf. below lx. 9.
5 B.C. 171
6 Cf. above xv. 3 ff.
Livy. Books XL-XLII With An English Translation. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1938: published without copyright notice.
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