in the mean time some other business might be accomplished; wherefore, leaving such a number of men as seemed sufficient to finish the works, he passed over to the nearest part of the continent, and, arriving unexpectedly, made himself master of Larissa, except the citadel,—­not that celebrated city in Thessaly, but another, which they call Cremaste.  Attalus also surprised Aegeleos, where nothing was less apprehended than such an enterprise during the siege of another city.  The works at Oreus had now begun to take effect, while the garrison within were almost spent with unremitted toil, (keeping watch both by day and night,) and also with wounds.  Part of the wall, being loosened by the strokes of the ram, had fallen down in many places; and the Romans, during the night, broke into the citadel through the breach which lay over the harbour.  Attalus, likewise, at the first light, on a signal given from the citadel by the Romans, himself also assaulted the city, where great part of the walls had been levelled; on which the garrison and townsmen fled into the other citadel, and a surrender was made two days after.  The city fell to the king, the prisoners to the Romans.

47.  The autumnal equinox now approached, and the Euboean gulf, called Coela, is reckoned dangerous by mariners.  Choosing, therefore, to remove thence before the winter storms came on, they returned to Piraeus, from whence they had set out for the campaign.  Apustius, leaving there thirty ships, sailed by Malea to Corcyra.  The king was delayed during the celebration of the mysteries of Ceres, that he might assist at the solemnities, immediately after which he also retired into Asia, sending home Agesimbrotus and the Rhodians.  Such, during that summer, were the proceedings, by sea and land, of the Roman consul and lieutenant-general, aided by Attalus and the Rhodians, against Philip and his allies.  The other consul, Caius Aurelius, on coming into his province and finding the war there already brought to a conclusion, did not dissemble his resentment against the praetor, for having proceeded to action in his absence; wherefore, sending him away to Etruria, he led on the legions into the enemy’s country, and, by laying it waste, carried on the war with more spoil than glory.  Lucius Furius, finding nothing in Etruria that could give him employment, and at the same time intent on obtaining a triumph for his success against the Gauls, which he considered would be more easily accomplished in the absence of the consul, who envied and was enraged against him, came to Rome unexpectedly, and called a meeting of the senate in the temple of Bellona; where, after making a recital of the services which he had performed, he demanded to be allowed to enter the city in triumph.