31.36
After
one day's interval the king decided to bring the whole of his cavalry and
light-armed troops into action. During the night he concealed a body of
caetrati, whom they call peltasts, in a position between the two camps well
adapted for an ambush, and instructed Athenagoras and his cavalry in case
the main battle went favourably to push their advantage, but if not, to give
ground slowly and draw the enemy to the place where the ambush was set.
The cavalry did retire, but the officers of the corps of caetrati did not wait
long enough for the signal, and by sending their men forward before the right
moment lost their chance of success. The Romans, victorious in the open
battle and safe from the danger of ambuscade, returned to camp. The next
day the consul went out to battle with his whole force. In front of his line
were posted some elephants which the Romans were using for the first time,
having captured some in the Punic war. When he saw that the enemy were
keeping quiet within their lines, he mounted some rising ground close to
their rampart and taunted them with their timidity. Even then no chance of
fighting was offered him, and as foraging was by no means safe while the
camps were in such close proximity since Philip's cavalry would attack his
men when they were dispersed amongst the fields, he shifted his camp to a
place called Ottolobum, about eight miles off, to allow of his foraging more
safely owing to the greater distance. As long as the Romans were cutting
corn in the neighbourhood of their camp the king kept his men within their
lines in order that the enemy might grow more venturesome and careless.
When he saw them scattered far afield he set off with the whole of his
cavalry and the Cretan auxiliaries at such a rapid pace that only the fleetest
of the infantrymen could keep up with the troopers. On reaching a position
between the foragers and their camp he divided his force. One division was
sent in pursuit of the scattered foragers, with orders not to leave a single
man alive; with the other he beset the various roads by which the enemy
would have to return to their camp. Now men were fleeing and being cut
down in all directions, and no one had yet reached the Roman camp with
tidings of the disaster because those who fled thither fell into the hands of
the king's troops who were waiting for them; more were killed by those who
were blocking the roads than by those who had been sent in pursuit. At last
some who had managed to elude the enemy brought, in their excitement,
more confusion into the camp than definite information.
