Chalcis, and Demetrias, and when they said that they had not, the negotiations were immediately broken off, and it was resolved that the war should be prosecuted with vigour.  With the help of the tribunes of the people, the senate succeeded in preventing a change in the chief command—­which had often proved so injurious—­and in prolonging the command of Flamininus; he obtained considerable reinforcements, and the two former commanders-in-chief, Publius Galba and Publius Villius, were instructed to place themselves at his disposal.  Philip resolved once more to risk a pitched battle.  To secure Greece, where all the states except the Acarnanians and Boeotians were now in arms against him, the garrison of Corinth was augmented to 6000 men, while he himself, straining the last energies of exhausted Macedonia and enrolling children and old men in the ranks of the phalanx, brought into the field an army of about 26,000 men, of whom 16,000 were Macedonian -phalangitae-.

Philip Proceed to Thessaly
Battle of Cynoscephalae

Thus the fourth campaign, that of 557, began.  Flamininus despatched a part of the fleet against the Acarnanians, who were besieged in Leucas; in Greece proper he became by stratagem master of Thebes, the capital of Boeotia, in consequence of which the Boeotians were compelled to join at least nominally the alliance against Macedonia.  Content with having thus interrupted the communication between Corinth and Chalcis, he proceeded to the north, where alone a decisive blow could be struck.  The great difficulties of provisioning the army in a hostile and for the most part desolate country, which had often hampered its operations, were now to be obviated by the fleet accompanying the army along the coast and carrying after it supplies sent from Africa, Sicily, and Sardinia.  The decisive blow came, however, earlier than Flamininus had hoped.  Philip, impatient and confident as he was, could not endure to await the enemy on the Macedonian frontier:  after assembling his army at Dium, he advanced through the pass of Tempe into Thessaly, and encountered the army of the enemy advancing to meet him in the district of Scotussa.

The Macedonian and Roman armies—­the latter of which had been reinforced by contingents of the Apolloniates and the Athamanes, by the Cretans sent by Nabis, and especially by a strong band of Aetolians—­contained nearly equal numbers of combatants, each about 26,000 men; the Romans, however, had the superiority in cavalry.  In front of Scotussa, on the plateau of the Karadagh, during a gloomy day of rain, the Roman vanguard unexpectedly encountered that of the enemy, which occupied a high and steep hill named Cynoscephalae, that lay between the two camps.  Driven back into the plain, the Romans were reinforced from the camp by the light troops and the excellent corps of Aetolian cavalry, and now in turn forced the Macedonian vanguard back upon and over the height.  But here the Macedonians