This affair was reported to the king as a more important success than the facts warranted. Messenger after messenger ran back from the field shouting that the Romans were in flight, and though [2??] the king, reluctant and hesitating, declared that the action had been begun rashly and that neither the time nor the place suited him, he was at last driven into bringing the whole of his forces into the field. [3] The Roman commander did the same, more because no other course was open to him than because he wished to seize the opportunity of a battle. He posted the elephants in front of his right wing, which he kept in reserve; the left, with the whole of the light infantry, he led in person against the enemy. [4] As they advanced he reminded them that they were going to fight with the same Macedonians as those whom in spite of the difficult ground they had driven out of the pass leading into Epirus, protected though they were by the mountains and the river, and had thoroughly defeated; [5] the same as those whom they had vanquished under P. Sulpicius when they tried to stop their march on Eordaea. The kingdom of Macedonia, he declared, stood by its prestige, not by its strength, and even its prestige had at last disappeared. [6] By this time he had come up to his detachments who were standing at the bottom of the valley. They at once renewed the fight and by a fierce attack compelled the enemy to give ground. [7] Philip with his caetrati and the infantry of his right wing, the finest body in his army, which they call "the phalanx," went at the enemy almost at a run; [8] Nicanor, one of his courtiers, was ordered to follow at once with the rest of his force. [9] As soon as he reached the top of the hill and saw a few of the enemy's bodies and weapons lying about, he concluded that there had been a battle there and that the Romans had been repulsed, and when he further saw that fighting was going on near the enemy's camp he was in a state of great exultation. [10] Soon, however, when his men came back in flight and it was his turn to be alarmed, he was for a few moments anxiously debating whether he ought not to recall his troops to camp. [11] Then, as the enemy were approaching, and especially as his own men were being cut down as they fled and could not be saved unless they were defended by fresh troops, and also as retreat was no [12??] longer safe, he found himself compelled to take the supreme risk, though half his force had not yet come up. [13] The cavalry and light infantry who had been in action he stationed on his right; the caetrati and the men of the phalanx were ordered to lay aside their spears, the length of which only embarrassed them, and make use of their swords. [14] To prevent his line from being quickly broken he halved the front and gave twice the depth to the files, so that the depth might be greater than the width. He also ordered the ranks to close up so that man might be in touch with man and arms with arms.
