The infantry were being slaughtered all over the field; only those who threw away their arms were able to make good their escape. [2] The cavalry, on the other hand, quitted the field with hardly any loss, the king himself being the first to flee. He was already on his way to Pella with his "sacred" cavalry, and Cotys and the Odrysaeans were following at his heels. [3] The rest of the Macedonian horse also got away with their ranks unbroken, because the infantry were between them and the enemy, and the latter were so fully occupied in massacring the infantry that they forgot to pursue the cavalry. [4] For a long time the slaughter of the phalanx went on in front, flank and rear. At last those who had escaped out of the hands of the enemy threw away their arms and fled to the shore; some even went into the water and, stretching out their hands in supplication to the men in the fleet, implored them to save their lives. [5] When they saw boats from all the ships rowing to the place where they were they thought that they were coming to take them up as prisoners rather than slay them, and they waded further into the water, some even swimming. [6] But when they found that they were being killed by the men in the boats, those who could swim back to land met with a more wretched fate, for the elephants, forced by their drivers to the water's edge, trampled on them and crushed them to death as they came out. [7] It is universally admitted that never had so many Macedonians been killed by the Romans in a single battle. As many as 20,000 men perished; 6000 who had fled to Pydna fell into the enemy's hands, and 5000 were made prisoners in their flight. [8] Of the victors not more than 100 fell, and of these the majority were Paelignians; the wounded were much more numerous. [9] If the battle had begun earlier and there had been sufficient daylight for the victors to continue the pursuit, the whole force would have been wiped out. As it was, the approach of night shielded the fugitives and made the Romans chary of following them over unknown country.
