previous next
43. Marcus Aemilius, a military tribune, son of Marcus Lepidus, who, in a few years after, became chief pontiff, had the charge of the camp. [2] He, when he saw the troops flying, went out, with his whole guard, to meet them. He ordered them, first, to halt, and then to return to the fight; at the same time upbraiding them with cowardice and disgraceful flight. [3] He then proceeded to threats, —that if they did not obey his orders, they would rush blindly on their own destruction. At last he gave orders to his own men to kill the foremost of the runaways, and with sword-wounds to drive the crowd of fugitives back against the enemy. [4] The greater fear now overcame the less. Compelled by the danger on either side, they first halted, and then returned to the encounter, and Aemilius, with his guard, consisting of two thousand men of distinguished valour, gave a vigorous check to the furious pursuit of Antiochus. [5] At the same time, Attalus, the brother of Eumenes, came up in good time with two hundred horse from the right wing, by which the left of the enemy had been routed, at the beginning of the engagement, as soon as he observed the flight of his friends on the left, and the tumult near the camp. [6] When Antiochus saw those men renewing the fight, whom, but just before, he had seen running away, and another large body advancing from the camp, with a third from the line, he turned his horse to flight. [7] The Romans, thus victorious in both wings, advanced over heaps of slain, (which had been raised principally in the centre, where the strength of the bravest men and the armour by its weight had prevented flight,) to plunder the camp. [8] The horsemen of [p. 1701]Eumenes first, and then the rest of the cavalry, pursued the enemy through all parts of the plain, and killed the hindmost as they overtook them. [9] But the fugitives suffered more severe loss by the chariots, elephants, and camels intermixed, and by their own disorderly crowd; for, after they once broke their ranks, they rushed, as if blind, one upon another, and were trodden to death by the trampling of the beasts. [10] In the camp also there was great slaughter committed, rather greater than even in the field; for the flight of the first generally tended to the camp. The guard, through confidence in the great number of these, defended their works with the more obstinacy. [11] The Romans having been stopped at the gates and rampart, which they had expected to take at the first rush, when they did at length break through, actuated by rage, made the more dreadful carnage.

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.

load focus Notes (W. Weissenborn, 1873)
load focus Notes (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1873)
load focus Notes (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1911)
load focus Summary (Latin, Evan T. Sage, PhD professor of latin and head of the department of classics in the University of Pittsburgh, 1935)
load focus Summary (Latin, W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1911)
load focus Summary (English, Evan T. Sage, PhD professor of latin and head of the department of classics in the University of Pittsburgh, 1935)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, 1873)
load focus English (Rev. Canon Roberts, 1912)
load focus English (Evan T. Sage, PhD professor of latin and head of the department of classics in the University of Pittsburgh, 1935)
load focus Latin (Evan T. Sage, PhD professor of latin and head of the department of classics in the University of Pittsburgh, 1935)
load focus Latin (W. Weissenborn, H. J. Müller, 1911)
hide References (13 total)
  • Commentary references to this page (2):
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 33-34, commentary, 34.17
    • Titus Livius (Livy), Ab urbe condita libri, erklärt von M. Weissenborn, books 35-38, commentary, 35.29
  • Cross-references to this page (9):
  • Cross-references in general dictionaries to this page (2):
hide Display Preferences
Greek Display:
Arabic Display:
View by Default:
Browse Bar: