This text is part of:
37.
The consul having made every preparation for the execution of his designs, when he had quitted the post where he lay, marched first to Dardanus, and then to Rhœteum; from both states the people came out in crowds to meet him.
[2]
He then advanced to Troy, and having pitched his camp in the plain which is under the walls, when he had gone up to the city and into the citadel, he offered sacrifices to Minerva, the guardian of the citadel;
[3]
the Trojans, by every act and expression of respect, showing themselves proud of the Romans being descended from them, and the Romans expressing their delight in their origin. The army marching thence, arrived, on the sixth encampment, at the source of the Caicus.
[4]
To this place also king Eumenes came. He at first endeavoured to bring back his fleet from the Hellespont to Elaea, for the winter; subsequently, when by adverse winds he could not, for several days, pass the promontory of Lectos, that he might not be absent at the commencement of operations, he landed and came, with a small body of men, by the shortest road to the Roman camp.
[5]
From the camp he was sent home to Pergamus, to hasten supplies of provisions; and when the corn was delivered to the persons whom the consul had ordered to receive it, he returned to the same camp. The plan was, provisions for several days being prepared, to march hence against the enemy, before the winter should prevent them.
[6]
The king's camp was near Thyatira; and Antiochus, hearing there that Publius Scipio had fallen sick and was conveyed to Elaea, sent ambassadors to conduct his son to him.
[7]
As this present was highly grateful to the mind of the father, so was the satisfaction which it gave no less salutary to his body.
[8]
At length, being sated with the em- braces of his son, he said to the ambassadors, “Tell the king [p. 1694]that I return him thanks; that at present I can make him no other requital than my advice; which is, not to come to an engagement, until he shall have heard that I have rejoined the army.”
[9]
Although sixty-two thousand foot, and more than twelve thousand horse, inspired the king at times with hopes in the result of a battle; yet, moved by the advice of so great a man as Scipio, in whom, when he considered the uncertainty of the events of war, he placed safety in any reverse of fortune, he retired, and having crossed the Phrygian river, pitched his camp near Magnesia, which is at Sipylus.
[10]
And lest, if he wished to prolong the time, the Romans might attack his works, he drew round it a fosse six cubits deep and twelve broad, and on the outside surrounded the fosse with a double rampart:
[11]
on the inside bank, he raised a wall flanked with towers at small distances, by which the enemy could easily be prevented from crossing the fosse.
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.
The National Endowment for the Humanities provided support for entering this text.
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.