Titus, seeing that his left was hopelessly routed, rode quickly to his own right, and suddenly attacked the enemy, who, because of the uneven nature of the ground, were unable to form their phalanx with its deep ranks, in which lies the peculiar strength of that order of battle, while the soldiers of which it is composed are armed in an unwieldy fashion which renders them helpless in a hand-to-hand fight.  For the Macedonian phalanx[34] is like some huge beast of invincible strength so long as it remains one body, close locked together in serried ranks; but when broken up it loses even the advantage of each individual soldier’s strength, because of the fashion in which they are armed, as they can only act together, not separately.  When this body was routed some of the Romans pursued the fugitives, while others charged the victorious Macedonians in flank, soon forcing them to break up their array and fly in confusion, throwing away their arms.  There fell no less than eight thousand of them, and five thousand were taken prisoners.  The AEtolian cavalry were blamed for letting Philip escape, because they betook themselves to plundering the camp of the Macedonians even before the Romans ceased their pursuit, so that on their return they found that nothing had been left for them.

IX.  From this there arose quarrels between the AEtolians and the Romans; and afterwards they exasperated Titus by taking to themselves the credit of the victory, and being the first to spread abroad that report among the Greeks so that they received all the honours due to victors, and were mentioned first in all the poems and ballads written about the battle.  Of these, that which was most in vogue was the following:—­

    “Unwept, unburied, on this mountain high,
    Stranger, Thessalians thirty thousand lie;
    They fell before AEtolia’s sons in war. 
    And Romans, brought by Titus from afar. 
    AEmathia weeps their loss.  Bold Philip too,
    Flies like a deer, and knows not what to do.”

This was written by Alkaeus to insult Philip, exaggerating the number of the slain; but when it came to be repeated many times and by many men, it vexed Titus more than Philip.  The latter indeed parodied it in the following lines.

    “Unshaped, unpolished, stands a gibbet strong,
    Upon this hill to hang Alkaeus on.”

But Titus, who felt that the eyes of Greece were upon him, was wonderfully vexed by these incidents.  For this reason he conducted the operations which followed without in the least degree consulting the AEtolians.  They were angry at this neglect, and when Titus began negotiations with Philip, and received an embassy from him to treat for peace, they spread it abroad throughout Greece that Titus was being bribed by Philip into making peace, when he had it in his power to utterly cut off and destroy that power which first destroyed the independence of Greece.  Philip himself however put an end to this suspicion, by placing