The Battle
The charge was made with great violence and loud
shouting on both sides: for both advancing
parties raised their war cry, while those who
were not actually engaged shouted encouragement to those
that were; and the result was a scene of the wildest excitement,
terrible in the last degree.
Philip's right wing repulse the Roman left. |
Philip's right
wing came off brilliantly in the encounter, for
they were charging down hill and were superior
in weight, and their arms were far more suited for the actual
conditions of the struggle: but as for the rest of the army, that
part of it which was in the rear of the actual fighters did not get
into contact with the enemy; while the left wing, which had
but just made the ascent, was only beginning to show on the
ridge.
Successful advance of the Roman right. |
Seeing that his men were unable to stand the charge
of the phalanx, and that his left wing was losing ground, some
having already fallen and the rest slowly retiring, but that
hopes of saving himself still remained on the
right, Flamininus hastily transferred himself to
the latter wing; and when he perceived that
the enemy's force was not well together—part being in contact
with the actual fighters, part just in the act of mounting the
ridge, and part halting on it and not yet beginning to descend,
1—
keeping the elephants in front he led the maniples of his right
against the enemy. The Macedonians having no one to give
them orders, and unable to form a proper phalanx, owing to
the inequalities of the ground and to the fact that, being
engaged in trying to come up with the actual combatants, they
were still in column of march, did not even wait for the Romans
to come to close quarters: but, thrown into confusion by the
mere charge of the elephants, their ranks were disordered and
they broke into flight.