XXII.  This battle, fraught with such important issues, was decided in a remarkably short time; beginning to fight at the ninth hour, the Romans were victorious before the tenth.  The remainder of the day was occupied in pursuit, which being pressed for some fifteen (English) miles, it was late before they returned to their camp.  All the officers on their return were met by their servants with torches, and conducted with songs of triumph to their tents, which were illuminated and wreathed with ivy and laurel; but the general himself was deeply dejected.  The youngest of the two sons who were serving under him—­his own favourite, the noblest of all his children in character—­was nowhere to be found; and it was feared that, being high-spirited and generous, though but a boy in years, he must have become mixed up with the enemy, and so perished.  The whole army learned the cause of his sorrow and perplexity, and quitting their suppers, ran about with torches, some to the tent of Aemilius, and some outside the camp to look for him among the corpses.  The whole camp was filled with sorrow, and all the plain with noise, covered as it was with men shouting for Scipio—­for he had won all hearts from the very beginning, having beyond all his kinsfolk the power of commanding the affections of men.  Very late at night, after he had been all but given up for lost, he came in with two or three comrades, covered with the blood of the enemies he had slain, having, like a well-bred hound, been thoughtlessly carried along by the joy of the chase.  This was that Scipio who afterwards took by storm Carthage and Numantia, and became by far the most famous and powerful of all the Romans of his time.  So fortune, deferring to another season the expression of her jealousy at his success, now permitted Aemilius to take an unalloyed pleasure in his victory.

XXIII.  Perseus fled from Pydna to Pella, his cavalry having, as one would expect, all got safe out of the action.  But when the infantry met them, they abused them as cowards and traitors, and began to push them from their horses and deal them blows, and so Perseus, terrified at the disturbance, forsook the main road, and to avoid detection took off his purple robe and laid it before him, and carried his crown in his hand; and, that he might talk to his friends as he walked, he got off his horse, and led him.  But one of them made excuse that he must tie his shoes, another that he must water his horse, another that he must get himself a drink, and so they gradually fell off from him and left him, not fearing the rage of the enemy so much as his cruelty:  for, exasperated by his defeat, he tried to fasten the blame of it upon others instead of himself.  When he came to Pella, his treasurers Euktus and Eulaeus met him and blamed him for what had happened, and in an outspoken and unseasonable way gave him advice:  at which he was so much enraged that he stabbed them both dead with his dagger.  After this no one