Flamininus   

both parties. Titus received them in the most obliging and courteous
manner, but kept going gently on, questioning and inquiring of them,
and sometimes entertaining them with narratives of his own, till his
soldiers might a little recover from the weariness of their journey.
Thus passing on, he and the Thebans came together into their city,
not much to their satisfaction; but yet they could not well deny him
entrance, as a good number of his men attended him in. Titus, however,
now he was within, as if he had not had the city at his mercy, came
forward and addressed them, urging them to join the Roman interest.
King Attalus followed to the same effect. And he, indeed, trying to
play the advocate, beyond what it seems his age could bear, was seized,
in the midst of his speech, with a sudden flux or dizziness, and swooned
away; and, not long after, was conveyed by ship into Asia, and died
there. The Boeotians joined the Roman alliance.
But now, when Philip sent an embassy to Rome, Titus despatched away
agents on his part, too, to solicit the senate, if they should continue
the war, to continue him in his command, or if they determined an
end to that, that he might have the honour of concluding the peace.
Having a great passion for distinction, his fear was, that if another
general were commissioned to carry on the war, the honour even of
what was passed would be lost to him; and his friends transacted matters
so well on his behalf, that Philip was unsuccessful in his proposals,
and the management of the war was confirmed in his hands. He no sooner
received the senate's determination, but, big with hopes, he marched
directly into Thessaly, to engage Philip; his army consisting of twenty-six
thousand men, out of which the Aetolians furnished six thousand foot
and four hundred horse. The forces of Philip were much about the same
number. In this eagerness to encounter, they advanced against each
other, till both were near Scotussa, where they resolved to hazard
a battle. Nor had the approach of these two formidable armies the
effect that might have been supposed, to strike into the generals
a mutual terror of each other; it rather inspired them with ardour
and ambition; on the Romans' part, to be the conquerors of Macedon,
a name which Alexander had made famous amongst them for strength and
valour; whilst the Macedonians, on the other hand, esteeming of the
Romans as an enemy very different from the Persians, hoped, if victory
stood on their side, to make the name of Philip more glorious than
that of Alexander. Titus, therefore, called upon his soldiers to play
the part of valiant men, because they were now to act their parts
upon the most illustrious theatre of the world, Greece, and to contend
with the bravest antagonists. And Philip, on the other side, commenced
a harangue to his men, as usual before an engagement, and to be the
better heard (whether it were merely a mischance, or the result of
unseasonable haste, not observing what he did), mounted an eminence
outside their camp, which proved to be a burying-place; and much disturbed
by the despondency that seized his army at the unluckiness of the
omen, all that day kept in his camp, and declined fighting.
But on the morrow, as day came on, after a soft and rainy night, the
clouds changing into a mist filled all the plain with thick darkness;
and a dense foggy air descending, by the time it was full day, from
the adjacent mountains into the ground betwixt the two camps, concealed
them from each other's view. The parties sent out on either side,
some for ambuscade, some for discovery, falling in upon one another
quickly after they were thus detached, began the fight at what are
called the Cynos Cephalae, a number of sharp tops of hills that stand
close to one another, and have the name from some resemblance in their
shape. Now many vicissitudes and changes happening, as may well be
expected, in such an uneven field of battle, sometimes hot pursuit,
and sometimes as rapid a flight, the generals on both sides kept sending
in succours from the main bodies, as they saw their men pressed or
giving ground, till at length the heavens clearing up, let them see
what was going on, upon which the whole armies engaged. Philip, who
was in the right wing, from the advantage of the higher ground which
he had, threw on the Romans the whole weight of his phalanx, with