Flamininus   

a force which they were unable to sustain; the dense array of spears,
and the pressure of the compact mass overpowering them. But the king's
left wing being broken up by the hilliness of the place, Titus observing
it, and cherishing little or no hopes on that side where his own gave
ground, makes in all haste to the other, and there charges in upon
the Macedonians; who, in consequence of the inequality and roughness
of the ground, could not keep their phalanx entire, nor line their
ranks to any great depth (which is the great point of their strength),
but were forced to fight man for man under heavy and unwieldy armour.
For the Macedonian phalanx is like some single powerful animal, irresistible
so long as it is embodied into one, and keeps its order, shield touching
shield, all as in a piece; but if it be once broken, not only is the
joint force lost, but the individual soldiers also who composed it
lose each one his own single strength, because of the nature of their
armour; and because each of them is strong, rather, as he makes a
part of the whole, than in himself. When these were routed, some gave
chase to the flyers, others charged the flanks of those Macedonians
who were still fighting, so that the conquering wing, also, was quickly
disordered, took to flight, and threw down its arms. There were then
slain no less than eight thousand, and about five thousand were taken
prisoners; and the Aetolians were blamed as having been the main occasion
that Philip himself got safe off. For whilst the Romans were in pursuit,
they fell to ravaging and plundering the camp, and did it so completely,
that when the others returned, they found no booty in it.
This bred at first hard words, quarrels, and misunderstandings betwixt
them. But, afterwards, they galled Titus more by ascribing the victory
to themselves, and prepossessing the Greeks with reports to that effect;
insomuch that poets, and people in general in the songs that were
sung or written in honour of the action, still ranked the Aetolians
foremost. One of the pieces most current was the following epigram:-
"Naked and tombless see, O passer-by,
The thirty thousand men of Thessaly,
Slain by the Aetolians and the Latin band,
That came with Titus from Italia's land;
Alas for mighty Macedon! that day,
Swift as a roe, King Philip fled away." This was composed by Alcaeus
in mockery of Philip, exaggerating the number of the slain. However,
being everywhere repeated, and by almost everybody, Titus was more
nettled at it than Philip. The latter merely retorted upon Alcaeus
with some elegiac verses of his own:-
"Naked and leafless see, O passer-by,
The cross that shall Alcaeus crucify." But such little matters extremely
fretted Titus, who was ambitious of a reputation among the Greeks;
and he therefore acted in all after-occurrences by himself, paying
but very slight regard to the Aetolians. This offended them in their
turn; and when Titus listened to terms of accommodation, and admitted
an embassy upon the proffers of the Macedonian king, the Aetolians
made it their business to publish through all the cities of Greece,
that this was the conclusion of all; that he was selling Philip a
peace at a time when it was in his hand to destroy the very roots
of the war, and to overthrow the power which had first inflicted servitude
upon Greece. But whilst with these and the like rumours the Aetolians
laboured to shake the Roman confederates, Philip, making overtures
of submission of himself and his kingdom to the discretion of Titus
and the Romans, put an end to those jealousies, as Titus, by accepting
them, did to the war. For he reinstated Philip in his kingdom of Macedon,
but made it a condition that he should quit Greece, and that he should
pay one thousand talents; he took from him also all his shipping,
save ten vessels and sent away Demetrius, one of his sons, hostage
to Rome; improving his opportunity to the best advantage, and taking
wise precautions for the future. For Hannibal the African, a professed
enemy to the Roman name, an exile from his own country, and not long
since arrived at King Antiochus's court, was already stimulating that
prince, not to be wanting to the good fortune that had been hitherto