death.  When the first rank fell in this manner, those behind gave way:  it cannot be said that they fled, but they retreated to a mountain called Olokrus.  Poseidonius tells us that Aemilius tore his clothes in despair at seeing these men give ground, while the other Romans were confounded at the phalanx, which could not be assailed, but with its close line of spears, like a palisade, offered no point for attack.  But when he saw that, from the inequalities of the ground, and the length of their line, the Macedonian phalanx did not preserve its alignment, and was breaking into gaps and breaches, as is natural should happen in a great army, according to the different attacks of the combatants, who made it bulge inwards in one place, and outward in another, then he came swiftly up, and dividing his men into companies, ordered them to force their way into the spaces and intervals of the enemy’s line, and to make their attack, not in any one place all together, but in several, as they were broken up into several bodies.  As soon as Aemilius had given these instructions to the officers, who communicated them to the men, they charged into the spaces, and at once some attacked the now helpless Macedonians in flank, while others got into their rear and cut them off.  The phalanx dissolved immediately, and with it was lost all the power and mutual assistance which it gave.  Fighting in single combats or small groups, the Macedonians struck in vain with their little daggers at the strong shields reaching to their feet carried by the Romans.  Their light targets could ill ward off the blows of the Roman sword, which cut right through all their defensive armour.  After a useless resistance they turned and fled.

XXI.  But the fight was a sharp one.  Here Marcus, the son of Cato, Aemilius’s son-in-law, whilst fighting with great valour let fall his sword.  Educated as he had been in the strictest principles of honour, and owing it to such a father to give extraordinary proofs of courage, he thought that life would be intolerable for him if he allowed an enemy to carry off such a trophy from him, and ran about calling upon every friend or acquaintance whom he saw to help him to recover it.  Many brave men thus assembled, and with one accord left the rest of the army and followed him.  After a sharp conflict and much slaughter, they succeeded in driving the enemy from the ground, and having thus chased it, they betook themselves to searching for the sword.  When at last after much trouble it was found among the heaps of arms and corpses, they were overjoyed, and with a shout assailed those of the enemy who still resisted.  At length the three thousand picked men were all slain fighting in their ranks.  A great slaughter took place among the others as they fled, so that the plain and the skirts of the hills were covered with corpses, and the stream of the river Leukus ran red with blood even on the day after the battle; for, indeed, it is said that more than twenty-five thousand men perished.  Of the Romans there fell a hundred, according to Poseidonius, but Nasica says only eighty.