26.25
Philip
was wintering in Pella when the news of the defection of the Aetolians
reached him. He had intended to march into Greece at the beginning of the
spring, and with the view of keeping the Illyrians and the cities adjacent to
his western frontier quiet he made a sudden invasion into the territories of
Oricum and Apollonia. The men of Apollonia came out to give battle, but he
drove them back in great panic to their walls. After devastating the
neighbouring district of Illyria, he turned swiftly into Pelagonia and captured
Sintia, a city of the Dardani, which gave them easy access into Macedonia.
After these rapid incursions he turned his attention to the war which the
Aetolians, in conjunction with the Romans, were commencing against him.
Marching through Pelagonia, Lyncus and Bottiaea he descended into
Thessaly, whose population he hoped to rouse to joint action with him
against the Aetolians. Leaving Perseus with a force of 4000 men to hold the
pass into Thessaly against them he returned to Macedonia, before engaging
in the more serious contest, and from there marched into Thrace to attack
the Maedi. This tribe were in the habit of making incursions into Macedonia
whenever they found the king occupied with some distant war and his
kingdom unprotected. To break their aggressiveness he devastated their
country, and attacked Iamphoryna, their chief city and stronghold.
When Scopas heard that the king had gone into Thessaly, and was
engaged in hostilities there, he called up all the fighting men of Aetolia and
prepared to invade Acarnania. The Acarnanians were inferior to their enemy
in strength; they were also aware that Oeniadae and Nasos were lost, and
above all, that the arms of Rome were turned against them. Under these
circumstances they entered upon the struggle more in a spirit of rage and
despair than with prudence and method. Their wives and children and all
men over sixty years of age were sent into the adjoining country of Epirus.
All who were between fifteen and sixty bound themselves by oath not to
return home unless they were victorious, and if any one left the field,
defeated, no man should receive him into any city or house or admit him to
his table or his hearth. They drew up a form of words, invoking a terrible
curse upon any of their countrymen who should prove recreants, and a most
solemn appeal to their hosts, the Epirotes, to respect their oath. They also
begged them to bury those of their countrymen who fell in battle in one
common grave and place over it this inscription: "Here lie the Acarnanians
who met their death whilst fighting for their country against the violence and
injustice of the Aetolians." In this determined and desperate mood, they fixed
their camp on the extreme limit of their borders and awaited the enemy.
Messengers were despatched to Philip to announce their critical situation,
and in spite of his recapture of Iamphoryna and other successes in Thrace he
was compelled to abandon his northern campaign and go to their assistance.
Rumours of the oath which the Acarnanians had taken arrested the advance
of the Aetolians; the news of Philip's approach compelled them to withdraw
into the interior of their country. Philip had made a forced march to prevent
the Acarnanians from being crushed, but he did not advance beyond Dium,
and on learning that the Aetolians had retired he returned to Pella.
