But such steps could not alter the fact, that the military result of these first two campaigns had been null, while the political result had been a foul stain on the Romans, whose extraordinary successes in the east were based in no small degree on their reputation for moral purity and solidity as compared with the scandals of Hellenic administration.  Had Philip commanded instead of Perseus, the war would presumably have begun with the destruction of the Roman army and the defection of most of the Hellenes; but Rome was fortunate enough to be constantly outstripped in blunders by her antagonists.  Perseus was content with entrenching himself in Macedonia—­which towards the south and west is a true mountain-fortress—­as in a beleaguered town.

Marcius Enters Macedonia through the Pass of Tempe
The Armies on the Elpius

The third commander-in-chief also, whom Rome sent to Macedonia in 585, Quintus Marcius Philippus, that already-mentioned upright guest-friend of the king, was not at all equal to his far from easy task.  He was ambitious and enterprising, but a bad officer.  His hazardous venture of crossing Olympus by the pass of Lapathus westward of Tempe, leaving behind one division to face the garrison of the pass, and making his way with his main force through impracticable denies to Heracleum, is not excused by the fact of its success.  Not only might a handful of resolute men have blocked the route, in which case retreat was out of the question; but even after the passage, when he stood with the Macedonian main force in front and the strongly-fortified mountain-fortresses of Tempe and Lapathus behind him, wedged into a narrow plain on the shore and without supplies or the possibility of foraging for them, his position was no less desperate than when, in his first consulate, he had allowed himself to be similarly surrounded in the Ligurian defiles which thenceforth bore his name.  But as an accident saved him then, so the incapacity of Perseus saved him now.  As if he could not comprehend the idea of defending himself against the Romans otherwise than by blocking the passes, he strangely gave himself over as lost as soon as he saw the Romans on the Macedonian side of them, fled in all haste to Pydna, and ordered his ships to be burnt and his treasures to be sunk.  But even this voluntary retreat of the Macedonian army did not rescue the consul from his painful position.  He advanced indeed without hindrance, but was obliged after four days’ march to turn back for want of provisions; and, when the king came to his senses and returned in all haste to resume the position which he had abandoned, the Roman army would have been in great danger, had not the impregnable Tempe surrendered at the right moment and handed over its rich stores to the enemy.  The communication with the south was by this means secured to the Roman army; but Perseus had strongly barricaded himself in his former well-chosen position on the bank of the little river Elpius, and