1When Eucharistus
was archon at Athens, the Romans elected as consuls Quintus Servilius and Quintus Genucius.
During their term of office Philip sent ambassadors to Athens and persuaded the assembly to
make peace with him on the ground that he abandoned for all time any claim to Amphipolis.
2
[
2]
Now that he was relieved of the war with the Athenians and had
information that the king of the Paeonians, Agis, was dead, he conceived that he had the
opportunity to attack the Paeonians. Accordingly, having conducted an expedition into Paeonia
and defeated the barbarians in a battle, he compelled the tribe to acknowledge allegiance to
the Macedonians.
[
3]
And since the Illyrians were still left as
enemies, he was ambitious to defeat them in war also. So, having quickly called an assembly and
exhorted his soldiers for the war in a fitting speech, he led an expedition into the Illyrian
territory, having no less than ten thousand foot-soldiers and six hundred horsemen.
[
4]
Bardylis,
3 the king of the Illyrians, having learned of the presence of the enemy,
first dispatched envoys to arrange for a cessation of hostilities on the condition that both
sides remained possessed of the cities which they then controlled. But when Philip said that he
indeed desired peace but would not, however, concur in that proposal unless the Illyrians
should withdraw from all the Macedonian cities, the envoys returned without having accomplished
their purpose, and Bardylis, relying upon his previous victories and the gallant conduct of the
Illyrians, came out to meet the enemy with his army; and he had ten thousand picked infantry
soldiers and about five hundred cavalry.
[
5]
When the armies
approached each other and with a great outcry clashed in the battle, Philip, commanding the
right wing, which consisted of the flower of the Macedonians serving under him, ordered his
cavalry to ride past the ranks of the barbarians and attack them on the flank, while he himself
falling on the enemy in a frontal assault began a bitter combat.
4
[
6]
But the Illyrians, forming themselves into a square,
courageously entered the fray. And at first for a long while the battle was evenly poised
because of the exceeding gallantry displayed on both sides, and as many were slain and still
more wounded, the fortune of battle vacillated first one way then the other, being constantly
swayed by the valorous deeds of the combatants; but later as the horsemen pressed on from the
flank and rear and Philip with the flower of his troops fought with true heroism, the mass of
the Illyrians was compelled to take hastily to flight.
[
7]
When
the pursuit had been kept up for a considerable distance and many had been slain in their
flight, Philip recalled the Macedonians with the trumpet and erecting a trophy of victory
buried his own dead, while the Illyrians, having sent ambassadors and withdrawn from all the
Macedonian cities, obtained peace. But more than seven thousand Illyrians were slain in this
battle.