XIX. When the battle began, Aemilius came up, and found the front ranks of the Macedonians had struck their spear–heads into the Roman shields, so that they could not reach them with their swords. When also the other Macedonians took their shields off their shoulders and placed them in front, and then at the word of command all brought down their pikes, he, viewing the great strength of that serried mass of shields, and the menacing look of the spears that bristled before them, was amazed and terrified, having never seen a more imposing spectacle—and often afterwards he used to speak of that sight, and of his own feelings at it. At the time, however, he put on a cheerful and hopeful look, and rode along the ranks showing himself to the men without helmet or cuirass. But the Macedonian king, according to Polybius, having joined battle, was seized with a fit of cowardice, and rode off to the city on the pretext that he was going to sacrifice to Herakles, a god unlikely to receive the base offerings of cowards or to fulfil their unreasonable prayers; for it is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper. But the god heard the prayers of Aemilius, for he prayed for victory whilst fighting, sword in hand, and invited the god into the battle to aid him. Not but what one Poseidonius, who says that he took part in these transactions, and wrote a history of Perseus in many volumes, says that it was not from cowardice, or on the pretext of offering sacrifice that he left the field, but that on the day before the battle he was kicked on the leg by a horse; that in the battle, though in great pain, and entreated by his friends to desist, he ordered a horse to be brought, and without armour rode up to the phalanx. Here as many missiles were flying about from both sides, an iron javelin struck him, not fairly with its point, but it ran obliquely down his left side, tearing his tunic, and causing a dark bruise on his flesh, the scar of which was long visible. This is what Poseidonius urges in defence of Perseus.
XX. Now as the Romans when they met the phalanx could make no impression upon it, Salovius, the leader of the Pelignians, seized the standard of his regiment and threw it among the enemy. The Pelignians, as the loss of a standard is thought to be a crime and an impiety by all Italians, rushed to the place, and a fierce conflict began there with terrible slaughter. The one party tried to dash aside the long spears with their swords, and to push them with their shields, and to seize them away with their very hands, while the Macedonians, wielding their spears with both hands, drove them through their opponents, armour and alclass="underline" for no shield or corslet could resist their thrust. They then cast over their own heads the bodies of these Pelignians and Marrucini, who pressed madly like wild creatures up to the line of spears and certain death. When the first rank fell in this manner, those behind gave way: it cannot be said that they fled, but they retreated to a mountain called Olokrus. Poseidonius tells us that Aemilius tore his clothes in despair at seeing these men give ground, while the other Romans were confounded at the phalanx, which could not be assailed, but with its close line of spears, like a palisade, offered no point for attack. But when he saw that, from the inequalities of the ground, and the length of their line, the Macedonian phalanx did not preserve its alignment, and was breaking into gaps and breaches, as is natural should happen in a great army, according to the different attacks of the combatants, who made it bulge inwards in one place, and outward in another, then he came swiftly up, and dividing his men into companies, ordered them to force their way into the spaces and intervals of the enemy's line, and to make their attack, not in any one place all together, but in several, as they were broken up into several bodies. As soon as Aemilius had given these instructions to the officers, who communicated them to the men, they charged into the spaces, and at once some attacked the now helpless Macedonians in flank, while others got into their rear and cut them off. The phalanx dissolved immediately, and with it was lost all the power and mutual assistance which it gave. Fighting in single combats or small groups, the Macedonians struck in vain with their little daggers at the strong shields reaching to their feet carried by the Romans. Their light targets could ill ward off the blows of the Roman sword, which cut right through all their defensive armour. After a useless resistance they turned and fled.
XXI. But the fight was a sharp one. Here Marcus, the son of Cato, Aemilius's son–in–law, whilst fighting with great valour let fall his sword. Educated as he had been in the strictest principles of honour, and owing it to such a father to give extraordinary proofs of courage, he thought that life would be intolerable for him if he allowed an enemy to carry off such a trophy from him, and ran about calling upon every friend or acquaintance whom he saw to help him to recover it. Many brave men thus assembled, and with one accord left the rest of the army and followed him. After a sharp conflict and much slaughter, they succeeded in driving the enemy from the ground, and having thus chased it, they betook themselves to searching for the sword. When at last after much trouble it was found among the heaps of arms and corpses, they were overjoyed, and with a shout assailed those of the enemy who still resisted. At length the three thousand picked men were all slain fighting in their ranks. A great slaughter took place among the others as they fled, so that the plain and the skirts of the hills were covered with corpses, and the stream of the river Leukus ran red with blood even on the day after the battle; for, indeed, it is said that more than twenty–five thousand men perished. Of the Romans there fell a hundred, according to Poseidonius, but Nasica says only eighty.
XXII. This battle, fraught with such important issues, was decided in a remarkably short time; beginning to fight at the ninth hour, the Romans were victorious before the tenth. The remainder of the day was occupied in pursuit, which being pressed for some fifteen (English) miles, it was late before they returned to their camp. All the officers on their return were met by their servants with torches, and conducted with songs of triumph to their tents, which were illuminated and wreathed with ivy and laurel; but the general himself was deeply dejected. The youngest of the two sons who were serving under him—his own favourite, the noblest of all his children in character—was nowhere to be found; and it was feared that, being high–spirited and generous, though but a boy in years, he must have become mixed up with the enemy, and so perished. The whole army learned the cause of his sorrow and perplexity, and quitting their suppers, ran about with torches, some to the tent of Aemilius, and some outside the camp to look for him among the corpses. The whole camp was filled with sorrow, and all the plain with noise, covered as it was with men shouting for Scipio—for he had won all hearts from the very beginning, having beyond all his kinsfolk the power of commanding the affections of men. Very late at night, after he had been all but given up for lost, he came in with two or three comrades, covered with the blood of the enemies he had slain, having, like a well–bred hound, been thoughtlessly carried along by the joy of the chase. This was that Scipio who afterwards took by storm Carthage and Numantia, and became by far the most famous and powerful of all the Romans of his time. So fortune, deferring to another season the expression of her jealousy at his success, now permitted Aemilius to take an unalloyed pleasure in his victory.