History of Rome

​Philip had also been warned by the beacons raised from Oreus, but too late, as they had been raised from the watchtower through the treachery of Plator; and with unequal naval forces, access to the island was by no means easy for the fleet.

​Thus the matter was abandoned through hesitation. He moved vigorously to the aid of Chalcis as soon as he received the signal; for Chalcis itself, although a city of the same island, is nevertheless divided by so narrow a strait that it is joined to the mainland by a bridge and has an easier approach by land than by sea.

​Philip therefore returned from Demetrias to Scotussa. Setting out thence during the third watch, having dislodged the garrison and routed the Aetolians who were occupying the pass of Thermopylae, when he had driven the terrified enemy into Heraclea, he himself marched more than sixty miles in a single day to Elatia in Phocis.

​On almost the same day, the city of the Opuntians was captured and plundered by King Attalus. Sulpicius had conceded that plunder to the king, because a few days before, Oreus had been plundered by the Roman soldiers to the exclusion of the king’s forces.

​The Roman fleet had retired to Oreus, and Attalus, ignorant of Philip’s arrival, was wasting time in exacting money from the leading citizens, ​and the matter was so unexpected that, unless some Cretans, who had happened to advance further from the city to forage, had sighted the enemy’s column from afar, they could have been overwhelmed.

​Attalus, unarmed and in disorder, hastened in headlong flight to the sea and the ships, and as they were laboring to push the ships off from the land, Philip came upon them and caused panic even from the land among the sailors.

​Thence he returned to Opus, accusing gods and men because he had lost the fortune of so great a prize, which had been snatched almost from his very eyes.

​The Opuntians also were rebuked with the same anger, because, although they could have prolonged the siege until his arrival, they had yielded to an almost voluntary surrender as soon as they saw the enemy. Having settled affairs around Opus, he set out for Thronium.

​And Attalus first proceeded to Oreus; thence, when a rumor arrived that Prusias, the king of Bithynia, had crossed into the borders of his kingdom, leaving Roman affairs and the Aetolian war, he crossed over into Asia.

​Sulpicius also withdrew his fleet to Aegina, whence he had set out at the beginning of spring.

​With no greater struggle than that with which Attalus had taken Opus, Philip captured Thronium. That city was inhabited by refugees from Phthiotic Thebes; when their own city had been captured by Philip and they had fled to the protection of the Aetolians, the Aetolians had given them this seat in a city devastated and deserted during a previous war of the same Philip.

​Then, setting out from the recovered Thronium, as has been said a little before, he captured Tithronium and Drymias, small and ignoble towns of Doris. Thence he came to Elatia, having ordered the envoys of Ptolemy and the Rhodians to await him there.

​While they were treating there concerning the ending of the Aetolian war — for the envoys had recently been present at the council of the Romans and Aetolians at Heraclea —, news was brought that Machanidas had decided to attack the Eleans as they were preparing the solemn games of the Olympiad.

​Thinking that this should be dealt with first, he dismissed the envoys with a favorable response, stating that he had neither been the cause of that war nor, if only it were permitted under fair and honorable conditions, ​would he be any obstacle to peace; then setting out with an unencumbered army, he marched through Boeotia to Megara and thence down to Corinth, where, having taken provisions, he headed for Phlius and Pheneus.

​And when he had already come to Heraea, on hearing the news that Machanidas, terrified by the rumor of his approach, had fled back to Lacedaemon, he betook himself to Aegium for the council of the Achaeans, expecting to find there the Carthaginian fleet, which had been summoned so that he might also be able to achieve something by sea.

​A few days before, the Carthaginians had crossed from there to the Oxeae islands, and thence had headed for the harbors of the Acarnanians; for when they heard that Attalus and the Romans had set out from Oreus, they feared lest they should be attacked and overwhelmed within Rhium — which is the throat of the Corinthian Gulf.