both surprised and disheartened; for they could not tell, either by sight or hearing, that they were close to the enemy.  It was now about daybreak, and they thought that they heard voices near at hand, and soon were able to see a Greek camp and an outpost at the foot of the precipice.  Cato hereupon halted his army, and ordered the Firmiani,[30] in whom he reposed especial confidence, to come forward alone.  When they had assembled round him, he said, “I wish to take one of the enemy prisoner, and learn from him of what troops this outpost is formed, what their numbers are, how the rest of the army are placed, and what preparations they have made to resist us.  You must dash upon them as quickly and boldly as lions do upon their defenceless prey.”  At these words of Cato’s the Firmiani at once rushed down and attacked the outpost.  The suddenness of their onset threw the enemy into complete confusion, and they soon caught one of them and brought him before Cato.  Learning from this man that all the rest of the army was with King Antiochus himself, guarding the pass of Thermopylae, and that only a body of six hundred picked AEtolians were watching the path over the mountains, Cato despising so small and contemptible a force, at once drew his sword, and led on his troops with shouts and trumpets sounding the charge.  The AEtolians, as soon as they saw the Romans descending from the hills, fled to the main body, and filled it with confusion and terror.

XIV.  Meanwhile Manius on the lower ground had attacked the fortifications in the pass with his entire force.  Antiochus was struck on the mouth with a stone which knocked out several of his teeth, and the pain of his wound compelled him to wheel round his horse and retreat.  His troops nowhere withstood the Romans, but, although they had endless means of escape by roads where they could scarcely be followed, yet they crowded through the narrow pass with deep marshy ground on the one hand and inaccessible rocks upon the other, and there trampled each other to death for fear of the swords of the Romans.

Cato never seems to have been sparing of his own praise, and thought that great deeds required to be told in boastful language.  He gives a very pompous account of this battle, and says that all those who saw him pursuing and cutting down the enemy felt that Cato did not owe so much to the Romans, as the Romans owed to Cato.  He also says that the consul Manius immediately after the victory was won, enfolded him for a long time in a close embrace, and loudly declared that neither he nor all the Roman people could ever do as much for Cato as he had that day done for them.  He was sent immediately after the battle to bear the news of the victory to Rome, and reached Brundusium after a prosperous voyage.

From that place he drove in one day to Tarentum, and in four more days reached Rome with the news, on the fifth day after his landing.  His arrival filled the whole city with feasting and rejoicing, and made the Roman people believe that there was no nation in the world which could resist their arms.