History of Rome

​When the first standards of their own people came into the sight of the besieged, the spirits of the Romans indeed were revived from the ultimate desperation.

​For Perseus, whose first course of all should have been, satisfied with the accidental success of capturing and killing some foragers, not to waste time in the siege of the outpost, ​and whose second course, those attempts also having been made in some way or other, since he knew that no core force was with him, should have been to depart while it was allowed to go unharmed, yet he, puffed up by his success, both waited for the arrival of the enemy himself and hastily sent messengers to summon the phalanx;

​which, being moved both later than the situation demanded and in a hurry, was bound to arrive in confusion from the march against those who were drawn up and prepared. The consul, arriving before them, immediately joined battle.

​At first, the Macedonians resisted; then, as they were in no respect equal, having lost three hundred infantry and twenty-four of the chief cavalry from the squadron which they call sacred (among whom Antimachus, the commander of the squadron, also fell), they attempted to retreat.

​But the march was almost more tumultuous than the battle itself. The phalanx, summoned by a panicked message, while being led in haste, first got stuck in the narrow pass, meeting the line of prisoners and the vehicles loaded with grain.

​There was a huge distress for both sides there, as no one waited until the line could be cleared in some way, but the armed men threw the baggage down the precipice—for indeed the way could not be opened otherwise—and the beasts of burden, when they were spurred on, raged in the crowd.

​Scarcely had they extricated themselves from the disorderly line of prisoners, when they met the royal column and the terrified cavalry. There indeed, the shout of those ordering to carry back the standards created a panic almost like a ruin, so that, if the enemy had dared to enter the narrow pass and pursue further, a great disaster could have been sustained.

​The consul, having recovered the outpost from the hill, content with the moderate success, led his forces back to the camp. There are those who assert that a great battle was fought on that day; that eight thousand of the enemy were slain, among them Sopater and Antipater, the royal generals; that about two thousand eight hundred were captured alive, and twenty-seven military standards taken.

​And that the victory was not bloodless; that over four thousand three hundred of the consul’s army fell, and five standards of the left wing were lost.