he sent up Athenagoras, general of the mercenary soldiers, with all the auxiliaries, except the Thracians, joined by the Macedonian and Thessalian cavalry.  On their arrival, the Romans were forced from the top of the hill, and did not face about until they came to the level plain.  The principal support which saved them from being driven down in disorderly flight, was the Aetolian horsemen.  The Aetolians were then by far the best cavalry in Greece; in infantry, they were surpassed by some of their neighbours.

8.  This affair was represented as more successful than the advantage gained in the battle could warrant; for people came, one after another, and calling out that the Romans were flying in a panic; so that, though reluctant and hesitating declaring it a rash proceeding, and that he liked not either place or the time, yet he was prevailed upon to draw out his whole force to battle.  The Roman general did the same, induced by necessity, rather than by the favourableness of the occasion.  Leaving the right wing as a reserve, having the elephants posted in front, he, with the left, and all the right infantry, advanced against the enemy; at the same time reminding his men, that “they were going to fight the same Macedonians whom they had fought in the passes of Epirus, fenced, as they were, with mountains and rivers, and whom, after conquering the natural difficulties of the ground, they had dislodged and vanquished; the same, whom they had before defeated under the command of Publius Sulpicius, when they opposed their passage to Eordaea.  That the kingdom of Macedonia had been hitherto supported by its reputation, not by real strength; and that even that reputation had, at length, vanished.”  Quinctius soon reached his troops, who stood in the bottom of the valley; and they, on the arrival of their general and the army, renewed the fight, and, making a vigorous onset, compelled the enemy again to turn their backs.  Philip, with the targeteers, and the right wing of infantry, (the main strength of the Macedonian army, called by them the phalanx,) advanced at a quick pace, having ordered Nicanor, one of his courtiers, to bring up the rest of his forces with all speed.  At first, on reaching the top of the hill, from a few arms and bodies lying there, he perceived that there had been an engagement on the spot, and that the Romans had been repulsed from it.  When he likewise saw the fight now going on close to the enemy’s works, he was elated with excessive delight; but presently, observing his men flying back, and that the panic was on the other side, he was much embarrassed, and hesitated for some time, whether he should cause his troops to retire into the camp.  Then, as the enemy approached, he was sensible that his party, besides the losses which they suffered as they fled, must be entirely lost, if not speedily succoured; and as, by this time, even a retreat would be unsafe, he found himself compelled to put all to hazard, before he was joined by the