36.17
When
the consul saw that the heights were occupied by the Aetolians he sent M.
Porcius Cato and L. Valerius Flaccus, men of consular rank commanding
under him, to attack their fortified positions, Flaccus against Rhoduntia and
Tichius, and Cato against Callidromus. They each took a picked force of
2000 infantry. Before making his general advance against the enemy, the
consul called his men on parade and addressed a few words to them.
"Soldiers," he said, "I see that there are very many amongst you, men of all
ranks, who have campaigned in this very province under the leadership and
auspices of T. Quinctius. In the Macedonian war the pass at the Aous was
more difficult to force than this one, for here we have gates and this passage
as though provided by nature is the only one available, every other route
between the two seas being closed to us. On that occasion, too, the enemy
defences were stronger and constructed on more advantageous ground; the
hostile army was more numerous and made up of far better soldiery; there
were in that army Macedonians, Thracians and Illyrians, all very warlike
tribes; here there are Syrians and Asiatic Greeks, the meanest of mankind,
and born only for slavery. The monarch who was opposed to us then was a
true soldier, trained from his youth in wars with the Thracians and the
Illyrians and all the nations round him; this man -to say nothing of his
previous life -has done nothing during the whole of the winter months more
memorable than marrying a girl for love out of a private family and, even
when compared with their fellow-townsmen, of obscure origin, and now the
newly-wedded bridegroom, fattened up as it were with marriage feasts, has
come out to fight. His main hope was in the Aetolians, they were his chief
strength, and you have already learnt by experience as Antiochus is learning
now what an untrustworthy and ungrateful race they are. They have not
come in any considerable number, it was impossible to keep them in camp,
they are at loggerheads among themselves, and after insisting that Hypata
and Heraclea must be defended they refused to defend either place and took
refuge on the mountain heights, some shutting themselves up in Heraclea.
The king himself has shown clearly that he durst not venture to meet us on
fair ground, he is not even fixing his camp in open country; he has
abandoned the whole of the district in front of him which he boasts of having
taken from us and from Philip, and has hidden himself amongst the rocks.
His camp is not even placed at the entrance to the path, as we are told the
Lacedaemonians placed theirs, but is withdrawn far within it. What
difference is there, as a visible proof of fear, between his shutting himself up
here or behind the walls of a besieged city? The pass, however, will not
protect Antiochus, nor will the heights which the Aetolians have seized
protect them. Sufficient caution and foresight have been exercised to prevent
your having anything to fight against but the actual enemy. You must bear in
mind that you are not fighting only for the freedom of Greece, though it will
be a splendid record to deliver out of the hands of the Aetolians and
Antiochus the country which you formerly rescued from Philip. Nor will it be
only the spoil in the enemy's camp that will fall to you as a prize; all the
stores and material which he is daily looking for from Ephesus will be your
booty; you will open up Asia and Syria and all the wealthiest realms to the
furthest East to the supremacy of Rome. What will then prevent us from
extending our dominion from Gades to the Red Sea with no limit but the
Ocean which enfolds the world, and making the whole human race look up
to Rome with a reverence only second to that which they pay to the gods?
Show yourselves worthy in heart and mind of such vast rewards so that we
may take the field tomorrow assured that the gods will help us."
