r undertaking, he
sent round a tribune, with two companies of soldiers, to cut off the
retreat of the men in arms, and took possession of the defenceless
city. The shouting on the capture of the city having been heard from
behind, a great slaughter was made of those who had been in ambuscade,
and who fled homewards from all parts of the woods. From Thaumaci the
consul came, on the second day, to the river Spercheus; and, sending
out parties, laid waste the country of the Hypataeans.

15. During these transactions, Antiochus was at Chalcis; and now,
perceiving that he had gained nothing from Greece agreeable, except
winter quarters and a disgraceful marriage at Chalcis, he warmly
blamed Thoas, and the fallacious promises of the Aetolians; while he
admired Hannibal, not only as a prudent man, but as the predicter of
all those events which were then transpiring. However, that he might
not still further defeat his inconsiderate enterprise by his own
inactivity, he sent requisitions to the Aetolians, to arm all
their young men, and assemble in a body at Lamia. He himself also
immediately led thither about ten thousand foot (the number having
been filled up out of the troops which had come after him from Asia)
and five hundred horse. Their assembly on this occasion was far less
numerous than ever before, none attending but the chiefs with a few
of their vassals. These affirmed that they had, with the utmost
diligence, tried every method to bring into the field as great a
number as possible out of their respective states, but that they had
not prevailed either by argument, persuasion, or authority, against
those who declined the service. Being disappointed thus on all sides,
both by his own people, who delayed in Asia, and by his allies, who
did not fulfil those engagements by which they had prevailed on him
to comply with their invitation, the king retired beyond the pass
of Thermopylae. A range of mountains here divides Greece in the same
manner as Italy is divided by the ridge of the Apennines. Outside
the strait of Thermopylae, towards the north, lie Epirus, Perrhaebia,
Magnesia, Thessaly, the Achaean Phthiotis, and the Malian bay; on the
inside, towards the south, the greater part of Aetolia, Acarnania,
Phocis, Locris, Boeotia, and the adjacent island of Euboea, the
territory of Attica, which stretches out like a promontory into the
sea, and, behind that, the Peloponnesus. This range of mountains,
which extends from Leuc