44.20
The
Roman delegates accompanied by the Alexandrians left in three days' time.
On the last day of the Quinquatrus the commissioners arrived from
Macedonia. Their return had been so anxiously awaited that had it not been
in the evening the consuls would at once have convened the senate. The next
day the senate gave them audience. They reported that the passage of the
army over pathless mountains had resulted in more peril than profit. They
had advanced into Pieria, but the king was holding the country, and the
armies were in such close contact that only the River Enipeus separated
them. The king did not give any opportunity of fighting, nor were our men
strong enough to force a battle; winter, too, had stopped active operations;
our men were living in idleness, and had not corn for more than six . . . The
Macedonians were said to number 30,000 fighting men. If Appius Claudius
had had a strong enough army at Lychnidus, the king might have had his
attention distracted between two fronts; at the present moment, Appius and
such force as he had with him were in the utmost danger, unless either a
regular army was sent there without delay, or they were withdrawn from
their present position. On leaving the camp they proceeded to the fleet. Here
they learnt that some of the crews had been carried off by disease, some,
mostly the Sicilian seamen, had gone home, and the ships were
undermanned; the men who were in them had not received their pay and
were without proper clothing. Eumenes and his fleet had come and gone
without any apparent reason, just as though they had been carried there by
the wind; no dependence could be placed on that king. Whilst all Eumenes's
movements were doubtful, Attalus was behaving with exemplary fidelity.