32.
The first day on which they entered upon the enemy's confines, they employed in plundering. The following day they [p. 1136]approached the city in battle-array, having sent their cavalry in advance, in order that, by riding up to the gates, they might provoke the Aetolians to make a sally, a measure to which they were naturally inclined.
[2]
They were not aware that Sulpicius had passed over from Naupactus to Cyllene with fifteen ships, and landing four thousand armed men, had entered Elis during the dead of night, that his troops might not be seen.
[3]
Accordingly, when they recognised the Roman standards and arms among the Aetolians, so unexpected an event occasioned the greatest terror;
[4]
and at first the king had wished to withdraw his troops; but afterwards, an engagement having taken place between the Aetolians and Trallians, a tribe of Illyrians, when he saw his men hard pressed, the king himself with his cavalry charged a Roman cohort.
[5]
Here his horse being pierced with a javelin threw the king, who fell over his head; when a conflict ensued, which was desperate on both sides; the Romans making a furious attack upon the king, and the royal party protecting him.
[6]
His own conduct was highly meritorious, when though on foot he was obliged to fight among horsemen. Afterwards, when the contest was unequal, many were falling and being wounded around him, he was snatched away by his soldiers, and, being placed upon another horse, fled from the field.
[7]
On that day he pitched his camp five miles from the city of the Eleans, and the next day led out all his forces to a fort called Pyrgus, whither he had heard that a multitude of rustics had resorted through fear of being plundered.
[8]
This unorganized and unarmed multitude he took immediately on his approach, from the first effects of alarm; and by this capture compensated for the disgrace sustained at Elis.
[9]
While engaged in distributing the spoil and captives, and there were four thousand men and as many as twenty thousand head of cattle of every kind, intelligence reached him from Macedonia that one Eropus had gained possession of Lychnidus by bribing the praefect of the citadel and garrison; that he held also certain towns of the Dassaretians, and that he was endeavouring to incite the Dardanians to arms.
[10]
Desisting from the Achaean war, therefore, but still leaving two thousand five hundred armed troops of every description under the generals Menippus and Polyphantas for the protection of his allies, he
[11??]
set out [p. 1137]from Dymae, and passing through Achaea, Bœotia, and Eubœa, arrived on the tenth day at Demetrias in Thessaly.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.