nearly ripe, particularly those round the Aenian bay.  He then marched back to Scotussa, and leaving there the main army, retired to Demetrias with the royal guards.  In order to be prepared against every attempt of the enemy, he sent persons hence to Phocis, Euboea, and Peparethus, to select elevated situations, from which fires lighted upon them might be seen from a distance.  He fixed a watch-tower on Tisaeum, a mountain whose summit is prodigiously high, in order that when the enemy made any attempt he might instantly receive intimation of it by means of fires lighted up at a distance.  The Roman general and king Attalus then passed over from Peparethus to Nicaea, and thence sailed to Orcus, the first city of Euboea, on the left as you proceed to Chalcis and the Euripus from the bay of Demetrias.  It was agreed upon between Attalus and Sulpicius, that the Romans should attack the town on the side next the sea, and the king’s forces on the land side.

6.  Four days after the fleet arrived, they attacked the city.  That time had been employed in private conferences with Plator, whom Philip had put in command of the place.  The city has two citadels, one overhanging the coasts, the other in the middle of the town, from which there is a subterraneous passage to the ocean, whose entrance next the sea is defended by a strong fortification, a tower five stories high.  Here the affair commenced with a most furious contest, the tower being furnished with all kinds of weapons, and engines and machines of every kind for the purpose of the assault having been landed from the ships.  While the eyes and attention of all were turned to that quarter, Plator opened one of the gates and received the Romans into the citadel next the sea, which they instantly became masters of.  The inhabitants, driven thence, fled to the other citadel in the middle of the city; but there had been troops posted there to shut the gates against them; so that, being thus excluded, they were surrounded and either slain or made prisoners.  Meanwhile the Macedonian garrison stood under the wall of the citadel, formed into a compact body, neither confusedly attempting a retreat, nor obstinately engaging in a contest.  These men Plator, after obtaining permission from Sulpicius, put on board ships and landed them at Demetrias in Phthiotis; he himself withdrew to Attalus.  Sulpicius, elated with the success at Oreum, gained with so much ease, proceeded to Chalcis with his victorious fleet, where the issue by no means answered his expectations.  The sea, which is wide on both sides, being here contracted into a narrow strait, might perhaps, at first view, exhibit the appearance of two harbours facing the two entrances of the Euripus.  It would be difficult to find a station more dangerous for shipping; for not only do the winds come down with great violence from the high mountains on each side, but the strait itself of the Euripus does not ebb and flow seven times a day at stated times, as is reported, but the