51.
The council was held at Pella, in the old palace of the Macedonian kings. “Let us then,” Perseus said, “with the help of the gods, wage war, since that is your opinion;” and, despatching letters to all the commanders of the troops, he concentrated his entire force at Cytium, a town of Macedon.
[2]
He himself, after making a royal offering of one hundred victims, which he sacrificed to Minerva, called Alcidemos, set out for Cytium, attended by a band of nobles and guards.
[3]
All the forces, both of the Macedonians and foreign auxiliaries, had already assembled in that place. He encamped them before the city, and drew them all up, under arms, in order of battle, in a plain.
[4]
The amount of the whole was forty-three thousand armed men; of whom about one half composed the phalanx, and were commanded by Hippias of Berœa; there were then two thousand selected for their superior strength, and the vigour of their age, out of the whole number of their shield-bearers: this legion they called, in their own language, Agema, and the command of them was given to Leonatus and Thrasippus of Eulyea.
[5]
Antiphilus of Edessa commanded the rest of the shield-bearers, about three thousand men. Paeonians, and men from Parorea and Parstrymonia, (places subject to Thrace,) with Agrians, and a mixture of some native Thracians, made up the number of about three thousand men.
[6]
Didas, the Paeonian, the murderer of young Demetrius, had armed and embodied these.
[7]
There were two thousand Gallic soldiers, under the command of Asclepiodotus; three thousand independent Thracians, from Heraclea, in the country of the Sintians, had a general of their own. An equal number nearly of Cretans followed their own general, Susus of Phalasarna, and Syllus of Gnossus.
[8]
Leonidas, a Lacedaemonian, commanded a body of five hundred Greeks, of various descriptions: this man was said to be of the royal blood, and had been condemned to exile in a full council of the Achaeans on account of a letter to Perseus, which was intercepted.
[9]
Lycho, an Achaean, was the commander of the Aetolians and Bœotians, who did not make up more than the number of five hundred men. These auxiliaries, composed of so many states and so many nations, made up about twelve thousand fighting men.
[10]
Of cavalry, he had collected from all parts of Macedon, three thousand: and Cotys, son of Seutha, king of the Odrysian nation, was arrived with one thousand chosen horse- [p. 2010]men, and nearly the same number of foot.
[11]
The total number was thirty-nine thousand foot, and four thousand horse. Most certainly, since the army which Alexander the Great led into Asia, no king of Macedonia had ever been at the head of so powerful a force.
Livy. History of Rome by Titus Livius, books thirty-seven to the end, with the epitomes and fragments of the lost books. literally translated, with notes and illustrations, by. William A. McDevitte. York Street, Covent Garden, London. Henry G. Bohn. John Child and son, printers, Bungay. 1850. 4.
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