It was quite clear to every one that the only thing the king was afraid of was having to pay such a large host, and as no one had the courage to attempt to dissuade him, Antigonus was sent back to say that the king would only employ 5000 of their cavalry and would not detain the rest. [2] When the barbarians heard this, there were murmurs of indignation from the rest of the army at having been called away from their homes to no purpose. [3] Claudicus again enquired whether he would pay the stipulated sum to the 5000. He detected something evasive in the answer and sent the crafty messenger back unhurt-treatment which the man himself hardly ventured to hope for. The Gauls returned to the Hister, devastating those parts of Thrace which lay near their line of march. [4] This band might have been led against the Romans through the mountain pass of Perrhaebia into Thessaly while the king remained quiet at the Elpeus, and could not only have plundered and stripped the fields so that the Romans could have looked for no supplies from those districts, but also have utterly destroyed the cities to prevent their affording any assistance to their allies, while Perseus was holding the Romans [5??] at the Elpeus. [6] The Romans would have had to think of their own safety, for they could not have stayed where they were when Thessaly which fed their army was lost, nor could they have made any advance with the camp of the Macedonians in front of them. [7] By losing such an opportunity Perseus encouraged the Romans and discouraged to a great extent the Macedonians who had hung their hopes on his taking advantage of it.
[8] The same niggardly conduct turned Gentius against him. After he had paid 300 talents to the emissaries of Gentius at Pella, he allowed them to seal the money up. Then ten talents were sent to Pantauchus with instructions that they were to be given to the king at once. [9] He told his people, who were carrying the rest of the money sealed with the seal of the Illyrians, to make [10??] short journeys, and when they had reached the frontier, to wait there for his instructions. [11] After Gentius had received that small portion of the money, he was constantly being urged by Pantauchus to provoke the Romans by some hostile act; accordingly he threw the two Roman envoys into prison, who happened to be with him at the time, M. Perpenna and L. Petilius. [12] On hearing this, Perseus thought that Gentius was, in any case, driven by the force of circumstances into war with Rome, and in this belief he sent a message to have the money brought back, as though his one idea was that after his defeat as much spoil as possible might be reserved for the Romans. Hierophon returned from Eumenes without any one knowing what secret understanding had been arrived at between them. [13] They themselves gave it out in public that it had to do with the exchange of prisoners, and Eumenes sent the same explanation to the consul to allay his suspicions.
