XV. Aemilius remained quiet for some days, and it is said two such great hosts never were so near together and so quiet. After exploring and trying every place he discovered that there was still one pass unguarded, that, namely, through Perrhaebae by Pythium and Petra. He called a council of war to consider this, being himself more hopeful of success that way, as the place was not watched, than alarmed at the precipices on account of which the enemy neglected it. First of those present, Scipio, surnamed Nasica, son–in–law to Scipio Africanus, afterwards a leading man in the Senate, volunteered to lead the party which was to make this circuitous attack. And next Fabius Maximus, the eldest of the sons of Aemilius, though still only a youth, rose and spiritedly offered his services. Aemilius, delighted, placed under their command not so many troops as Polybius says in his history, but so many as Nasica himself tells us that he had, in a letter which he wrote to one of the princes of that region about this affair. He had three thousand Italians, besides his main body, and five thousand who composed the left wing. Besides these, Nasica took a hundred and twenty horse, and two hundred of Harpalus's light troops, Thracians and Cretans mixed. He began his march along the road towards the sea, and encamped near the temple of Herakles, as though he intended to sail round to the other side of the enemy's camp, and so surround him: but when the soldiers had supped, and it was dark, he explained his real plan to his officers, marched all night away from the sea, and halted his men for rest near the temple of Apollo. At this place Olympus is more than ten furlongs high: and this is proved by the epigram which the measurer wrote as follows:
"The height of Olympus' crest at the temple of Pythian Apollo consists of (measured by the plumb line) ten stades, and besides a hundred feet all but four. It was Xenagoras, the son of Eumelus, who discovered its height. King Apollo, hail to thee; be thou propitious to us."
And yet geometricians say that neither the height of any mountain nor the depth of any sea is above ten stades (furlongs). However, Xenophanes did not take its altitude conjecturally, but by a proper method with instruments.
XVI. Here then Nasica halted. Perseus in the morning saw Aemilius's army quiet in its place, and would have had no idea of what was going on had not a Cretan deserter come and told him of the flank march of the Romans. Then he became alarmed, but still did not disturb his camp, but, placing ten thousand foreign mercenaries and two thousand Macedonians under the command of Milo, ordered him to march swiftly and occupy the passes. Now Polybius says that the Romans fell upon these men when they were in their beds, but Nasica tells us that a sharp and dangerous conflict took place upon the heights. He himself was assailed by a Thracian, but struck him through the breast with his spear. However, the enemy were forced back; Milo most shamefully fled in his shirt, without his arms, and Scipio was able to follow, and at the same time lead his forces on to level ground. Perseus, terrified and despairing when he saw them, at once broke up his camp and retreated. But still he was obliged either to give battle before Pydna, or else to disperse his army among the various cities of the kingdom, and so to await the Romans, who, being once entered into his country, could not be driven out without much slaughter and bloodshed. It was urged by his friends that he had a great numerical superiority, and that the troops would fight desperately in defence of their wives and families, especially if their king took the command and shared their danger. He pitched his camp and prepared for battle, viewed the ground, and arranged the commands, intending to set upon the Romans as soon as they appeared. Now the position both possessed a flat plain for the manoeuvres of the phalanx, which requires level ground, and also hills rising one above another offered refuges and means for outflanking the enemy to his light troops. Also two rivers, the Aeson and Leukus, which ran across as it, though not very deep at that season (late autumn), were expected to give some trouble to the Romans.
XVII. Aemilius, on effecting a junction with Nasica, marched in battle array against the enemy. When, however, he saw their position and their numbers, he halted in surprise, considering within himself what he should do. His young officers, eager for battle, rode up to him and begged him not to delay. Conspicuous among these was Nasica, excited by his successful flank march round Olympus. Aemilius smiled at them and answered, "I would do so if I were of your age, but many victories have shown me the mistakes of the vanquished, and prevent my attacking a body of men drawn up in a chosen position with troops on the march and undeployed." He gave orders that those troops who were in front should gather together and appear to be forming in battle array, while those who were behind pitched their palisades and fortified a camp. Then by wheeling off men by degrees from the front line, he gradually broke up his line of battle, and quietly drew all his forces within the ramparts of his camp. When night fell, and after supper the army had betaken itself to sleep and rest, suddenly the moon, which was full and high in the heavens, became obscured, changed colour, and became totally eclipsed. The Romans, after their custom, called for her to shine again by clattering with brass vessels, and uplifting blazing faggots and torches. The Macedonians did nothing of the sort, but dismay spread over their camp, and they muttered under their breath that this portended the eclipse of their king. Now Aemilius was not unacquainted with the phenomena of eclipses, which result from the moon being at fixed periods brought into the shadow of the earth and darkened, until it passes the obscured tract and is again enlightened by the sun, yet being very devout and learned in divination, he offered to her a sacrifice of eleven calves. At daybreak he sacrificed twenty oxen to Herakles without obtaining a favourable response; but with the one–and–twentieth favourable signs appeared and portents of victory for them, provided they did not attack. He then vowed a hecatomb and sacred games in honour of the god, and ordered his officers to arrange the men in line of battle. But he waited till the sun declined and drew towards the west, that his troops might not fight with the morning sun in their eyes. He passed away the day sitting in his tent, which was pitched looking towards the flat country and the camp of the enemy.
XVIII. Some writers tell us, that about evening, by a device of Aemilius, the battle was begun by the enemy, the Romans having driven a horse without a bridle out of their camp and then tried to catch it, from which pursuit the battle began; but others say that Roman soldiers who were carrying fodder for the cattle were set upon by the Thracians under Alexander, and that to repel them a vigorous sortie was made with seven hundred Ligurians; that many on both sides came up to help their comrades, and so the battle began. Aemilius, like a pilot, seeing by the motion and disturbance of his camp that a storm was at hand, came out of his tent, and going along the lines of the infantry spoke encouraging words to them, while Nasica, riding up to the skirmishers, saw the whole army of the enemy just on the point of attacking. First marched the Thracians, whose aspect they saw was most terrible, as they were tall men, dressed in dark tunics, with large oblong shields and greaves of glittering white, brandishing aloft long heavy swords over their right shoulders. Next to the Thracians were the mercenaries, variously armed, and mixed with Paeonians. After these came a third corps, of Macedonians, picked men of proved courage, and in the flower of their age, glittering with gilded arms and new purple dresses. Behind them again came the phalanxes from the camp with their brazen shields, filling all the plain with the glittering of their armour, and making the hills ring with their shouts. So swiftly and boldly did they advance that those who were first slain fell two furlongs only from the Roman camp.