27.33
There
he was met by still more alarming tidings; the Dardanians were pouring into
Macedonia and were already in occupation of the Orestides district, they had
even descended into the Argestaean Plain. The report was current that Philip
had been killed; the rumour was due to the fact that in the encounter with the
plundering parties from the Roman fleet at Sicyon, his horse flung him
against a tree and one of the horns of his helmet was broken off by a
projecting branch. This was afterwards picked up by an Aetolian and taken
to Scerdilaedus, who recognised it. Hence the rumour. After the king had
left Achaia Sulpicius sailed to Aegina and Scipio in Spain joined forces with
Attalus. The Achaeans in conjunction with the Aetolians and Eleans fought a
successful action not far from Messene. Attalus and Sulpicius went into
winter quarters in Aegina. At the close of this year the consul T. Quinctius
died of his wounds, having previously nominated T. Manlius Torquatus
Dictator to conduct the elections. Some say he died in Tarentum, others, in
Campania. This accident of two consuls being killed in a quite unimportant
action had never occurred in any previous war, and it left the republic, so to
speak, in a state of orphanhood. The Dictator named C. Servilius, who was
curule aedile at the time, his Master of the Horse. On the first day of their
session the senate instructed the Dictator to celebrate the Great Games. M.
Aemilius, who was city praetor at the time, had celebrated them in the
consulship of C. Flaminius and Cnaeus Servilius, and had made a vow that
they should be celebrated in five years' time. The Dictator celebrated them
accordingly, and made a vow that they should be repeated at the following
lustrum. Meanwhile, as the two consular armies had no generals and were in
such close proximity to the enemy, both senate and people were anxious that
all other business should be postponed, and consuls elected as soon as
possible. It was felt that, above all, men ought to be elected whose courage
and skill would be proof against the wiles of the Carthaginian, for all through
the war the hot and hasty temperament of different commanders had proved
disastrous, and in that very year the consuls had been led by their eagerness
to come to grips with the enemy into snares of which they did not suspect
the existence. The gods, however, out of pity for the name of Rome, spared
the unoffending armies and visited the rashness of the consuls on their own
heads.
