32.6
.The
consul had wintered in Corcyra, and on receiving intelligence through
Charops, an Epirote, as to the pass which the king and his army had
occupied, he sailed across to the mainland at the opening of the spring and at
once marched towards the enemy. When he was about five miles from the
king's camp he left the legions in an entrenched position and went forward
with some light troops to reconnoitre. The following day he held a council of
war to decide whether he should attempt to force the pass in spite of the
immense difficulty and danger to be faced, or whether he should lead his
force round by the same route which Sulpicius had taken the year before,
when he invaded Macedonia. This question had been debated for several
days when a messenger came to report the election of T. Quinctius to the
consulship and the assignment to him of Macedonia as his province, and the
fact that he was hastening to take possession of his province and had already
reached Corcyra. According to Valerius Antias, Villius, finding a frontal
attack impossible as every approach was blocked by the king's troops,
entered the ravine and marched along the river. Hastily throwing a bridge
across to the other side where the king's troops lay, he crossed over and
attacked; the king's army were routed and put to flight and despoiled of their
camp. 12,000 of the enemy were killed in the battle, 2200 prisoners taken,
132 standards and 230 horses captured. All the Greek and Latin writers, so
far as I have consulted them, say that nothing noteworthy was done by
Villius and that the consul who succeeded him took over the whole war from
the outset.