was, in numbers both of horse and foot, almost a complete army; and, as they were posted on the middle road, the greatest number of the Romans fell in with them.  The Macedonians had also the advantage in this, that the king himself was present to encourage them; and the Cretan auxiliaries, fighting in good order, and in a state of preparation, against troops disordered and irregular, wounded many at a distance, where no such danger was apprehended.  If they had acted with prudence in the pursuit, they would have secured an advantage of great importance, not only in regard to the glory of the present contest, but to the general interest of the war; but, greedy of slaughter, and following with too much eagerness, they fell in with the advanced cohorts of the Romans under the military tribunes.  The horsemen who were flying, as soon as they saw the ensigns of their friends, faced about against the enemy, now in disorder; so that in a moment’s time the fortune of the battle was changed, those now turning their backs who had lately been the pursuers.  Many were slain in close fight, many in the pursuit; nor was it by the sword alone that they perished; several, being driven into morasses, were, together with their horses, swallowed up in the deep mud.  The king himself was in danger; for his horse falling, in consequence of a wound, threw him headlong to the ground, and he very narrowly escaped being overpowered while prostrate.  He owed his safety to a trooper, who instantly leaped down and mounted the affrighted king on his horse; himself, as he could not on foot keep up with the flying horsemen, was slain by the enemy, who had collected about the place where Philip fell.  The king, in his desperate flight, rode about among the morasses, some of which were easily passed, and others not; at length, when most men despaired of his ever escaping in safety, he arrived in safety at his camp.  Two hundred Macedonian horsemen perished in that action; about one hundred were taken:  eighty horses, richly caparisoned, were led off the field; at the same time the spoils of arms were also carried off.

38.  There were some who found fault with the king, as guilty of rashness on that day; and with the consul, for want of energy.  For Philip, they say, on his part, ought to have avoided coming to action, knowing that in a few days the enemy, having exhausted all the adjacent country, must be reduced to the extremity of want; and that the consul, after having routed the Macedonian cavalry and light infantry, and nearly taken the king himself, ought to have led on his troops directly to the enemy’s camp, where, dismayed as they were, they would have made no stand, and that he might have finished the war in a moment’s time.  This, like most other matters, was easier to be talked about than to be done.  For, if the king had brought the whole of his infantry into the engagement, then, indeed, during the tumult, and while, vanquished and struck with dismay, they fled from the field into their intrenchments,