Winter
had reached the kingdom of Macedonia, and the Roman
army was in sore straits. Encamped in the mountains
of Pieria, the soldiers in their tents looked out across
the river Elpeus at the fortified camp of Perseus, king
of Macedon, descendent of Alexander the Great, pre-eminent
among Greeks. Unable to bring the enemy to battle, they
were weak and dispirited, and had corn for no more than
six days. At Rome, the populace was filled with dismay
and shame that the masters of Italy and conquerors of
Hannibal should be brought to such a pass, and that
two
successive consuls in two successive years should be
vanquished by a king unworthy of his ancestry. Cursing
themselves for electing panderers and demagogues, the
people cast about for a man of integrity and skill to
deliver them from disgrace.
They
sought out Lucius Aemilius Paullus, though he was now
some sixty years old and had held his first consulship
more than ten years before, and urged him to stand again.
At first he resisted, but as the days passed he was
constantly assailed in the forum and in his own home,
and at length he agreed to present himself as a candidate.The
people not only elected him but, not permitting the
consular provinces to be distributed by lottery as was
customary, they insisted that he be given the Macedonian
command. It is said that he returned home after his
election to find his young daugher in tears: her pet
dog, named Perseus, had died that day. Accepting the
omen, Paullus set out for the east in good spirits,
with goddess Fortune at his side.
Arriving
at the Roman camp after a fortunate voyage, he was greeted
by hoarse and parched voices, for there was little drinking
water to be found at the camp, and what there was was
bad. Whereupon the consul, leading his men to the foot
of the mountain, ordered pits to be dug in the ground,
from which gushed streams of clear water. Paullus, seeing
the great height and lus vegetation of the mountain-top,
deduced the presence of underground water-courses, and
thus provided clean drinking water for his army. After
this, finding the troops lazy from their long
inactivity, he set about restoring discipline and morale,
and soon the camp was alive with men
sharpening weapons, polishing armour, testing their
agility and all striving to show the consul their fighting
spirit.
So
alarmed was Perseus at the sudden change he observed
in the Roman camp that he turned to improving the
fortifications of his own, and also erected barriers
and outposts on the river-bank to deny the Romans
the crossing. Paullus called together his advisors
and asked whta, in their view, was the best course
of action. Some urged a direct assault on the Macedonian
camp, storming the defences on the river-bank; others
recommended naval action on another front to lure
Perseus away from his strong position. But the commander,
thanking them as they left his
tent, called two local merchants and questioned
them about the surrounding terrain. There was, he
learned, a pass across the mountains which was easy
to traverse, but it was held by Perseus' men. He
dismissed the merchants and summoned the prateor
Gnaeus Octavius. He gave him orders to take the
fleet to Heracleum, and there to prepare ten days'
cooked rations. Then, summoning Publius Cornelius
Scipio Nasica, son-in-law of Scipio the conqueror
of Hannibal, and his own sun Quintus Fabius Maximus
Aemilianus, he told these two to take five thousand
picked men to the coast at Heracleum. |
|
At
dawn the next day Paullus attacked the Macedonian outposts,
and a skirmish ensued in the middle of the river. Around
midday, after both sides had taken heavy losses, the
Romans withdrew to their camp. The next day another
attack fared no better, and Perseus' confidence was
further increased when he heard that Nasica and Maximus
Aemilianus had met the fleet at
Heracleum and were apparently setting sail, for he saw
that Paullus was intending to attack elsewhere by sea
and had no hope of taking the Macedonian camp. On the
next day, indeed, the consul did nothing, and appeared
to be at a loss.
But
Nasica's force had not embarked on the ships; rather,
under cover of night he and Maximus Aemilianus doubled
back and entered the mountain pass of which Paullus
had told them. Taking the Macedonian guards by surprise,
they descended from the mountains on the other side
of the river. Perseus, unprepared for this development,
was forced to abandon his camp and withdraw to a plain
near Pydna, where centuries earlier Olympias, the mother
of Alexander the Great, was beseiged and executed by
Cassander.
...
To be continued ...
FROM:
Plutarch: Aemilius Paulus;
Livy: xliv. 17 - xlvi. 41;
Polybius: xxix.- xxxii.
at
http://classics.mit.edu
SEE
ALSO PAULUS, LUCIUS AEMILIUS AT
http://85.1911encyclopedia.org/P/PA/PAULUS_LUCIUS_AEMILIUS.htm
