31.37
The
consul ordered his cavalry to go wherever they could to the rescue of their
comrades and at the same time led the legions out of the camp and marched
in close order against the enemy. Some of the cavalry lost their way in the
fields owing to the various cries that were raised in different places, others
came face to face with the enemy and fighting began at many points
simultaneously. It was hottest where the king's stationary troops were
posted, for owing to their numbers, both horse and foot, they almost formed
a regular army, and as they held the road most of the Romans encountered
them. The Macedonians, too, had the advantage of the king's presence to
encourage them, whilst the Cretan auxiliaries, in close order and prepared
for fighting, made sudden onsets and wounded many of their opponents,
who were dispersed without any order or formation. If they had kept their
pursuit within bounds they would not only have come off with flying colours
in the actual contest, but they would have gone far to influence the course of
the war. As it was, they were carried away by thirst for blood and fell in with
the advancing Roman cohorts and their military tribunes; the cavalry, too, as
soon as they saw the standards of their comrades, turned their horses against
the foe who was now in disorder, and in a moment the fortune of the day
was reversed, those who had been the pursuers now turned and fled. Many
were killed in hand-to-hand fighting, many whilst fleeing; they did not all
perish by the sword, some were driven into bogs and were sucked down
together with their horses in the bottomless mud. Even the king was in
danger, for he was flung to earth by his wounded and maddened horse and
all but overpowered as he lay. He owed his safety to a trooper who instantly
leaped down and put the king on his own horse, but as he could not keep up
on foot with the cavalry in their flight he was speared by the enemy, who had
ridden up to where the king fell. Philip galloped round the swamp and made
his way in headlong flight through paths and pathless places until he reached
his camp in safety, where most of the men had given him up for lost. Two
hundred Macedonians perished in that battle, about a hundred prisoners were
taken and eighty well-equipped horses were secured together with the spoils
of their fallen riders.
