University of Virginia Library

44.20

The Roman delegates accompanied by the Alexandrians left in three days' time. On the last day of the Quinquatrus the commissioners arrived from Macedonia. Their return had been so anxiously awaited that had it not been in the evening the consuls would at once have convened the senate. The next day the senate gave them audience. They reported that the passage of the army over pathless mountains had resulted in more peril than profit. They had advanced into Pieria, but the king was holding the country, and the armies were in such close contact that only the River Enipeus separated them. The king did not give any opportunity of fighting, nor were our men strong enough to force a battle; winter, too, had stopped active operations; our men were living in idleness, and had not corn for more than six . . . The Macedonians were said to number 30,000 fighting men. If Appius Claudius had had a strong enough army at Lychnidus, the king might have had his attention distracted between two fronts; at the present moment, Appius and such force as he had with him were in the utmost danger, unless either a regular army was sent there without delay, or they were withdrawn from their present position. On leaving the camp they proceeded to the fleet. Here they learnt that some of the crews had been carried off by disease, some, mostly the Sicilian seamen, had gone home, and the ships were undermanned; the men who were in them had not received their pay and were without proper clothing. Eumenes and his fleet had come and gone without any apparent reason, just as though they had been carried there by the wind; no dependence could be placed on that king. Whilst all Eumenes's movements were doubtful, Attalus was behaving with exemplary fidelity.