31.34
With
the view of doing more to win the affections of his men and make them more
ready to meet danger on his behalf, Philip paid special attention to the burial
of the men who had fallen in the cavalry action and ordered the bodies to be
brought into camp that all might see the honour paid to the dead. But
nothing is so uncertain or so difficult to gauge as the temper of a mass of
people. The very thing which was expected to make them keener to face any
conflict only inspired them with hesitancy and fear. Philip's men had been
accustomed to fighting with Greeks and Illyrians and had only seen wounds
inflicted by javelins and arrows and in rare instances by lances. But when
they saw bodies dismembered with the Spanish sword, arms cut off from the
shoulder, heads struck off from the trunk, bowels exposed and other horrible
wounds, they recognised the style of weapon and the kind of man against
whom they had to fight, and a shudder of horror ran through the ranks. Even
the king himself felt apprehensive, though he had not yet met the Romans in
a pitched battle, and in order to augment his forces he recalled his son and
the troops who were stationed in the Pelagonian pass, thus leaving the road
open to Pleuratus and the Dardanians for the invasion of Macedonia. He
now advanced against the enemy with an army of 20,000 infantry and 4000
cavalry, and came to a hill near Athacus where he strongly intrenched
himself about a mile from the Roman camp. It is said that as he looked down
on it and gazed with admiration on the appearance of the camp as a whole
and its various sections marked off by the rows of tents and the roads
crossing each other, he exclaimed, "No one can possibly take that for a camp
of barbarians." For two whole days the king and the consul kept their
respective armies in camp, each waiting for the other to attack. On the third
day the Roman general led out his whole force to battle.
