rogant to
be used to a king, and he answered,--"Your youth, the beauty of your
form, and, above all, the name of Roman, render you too presumptuous.
However, my first desire is, that you would observe the treaties, and
continue in peace with me; but if you begin an attack, I am, on my
part, determined to prove that the kingdom and name of the Macedonians
is not less formidable in war than that of the Romans." Having
dismissed the ambassador in this manner, Philip got possession of the
gold and silver which had been thrown together in a heap, but lost his
booty with respect to prisoners: for such violent frenzy had seized
the multitude, that, on a sudden, taking up a persuasion that those
who had fallen in the battle had been treacherously sacrificed, and
upbraiding one another with perjury, especially the priests, who would
surrender alive to the enemy those persons whom they themselves had
devoted, they all at once ran different ways to put their wives and
children to death; and then they put an end to their own lives
by every possible method. The king, astonished at their madness,
restrained the violence of his soldiers, and said, "that he would
allow the people of Abydus three days to die in;" and, during this
space, the vanquished perpetrated more deeds of cruelty on themselves
than the enraged conquerors would have committed; nor did any one of
them come into his hands alive, except such as chains, or some other
insuperable restraint, forbade to die. Philip, leaving a garrison in
Abydus, returned to his kingdom; and, just when he had been encouraged
by the destruction of the people of Abydus to proceed in the war
against Rome, as Hannibal had been by the destruction of Saguntum, he
was met by couriers, with intelligence that the consul was already in
Epirus, and had drawn his land forces to Apollonia, and his fleet to
Corcyra, into winter quarters.

19. In the mean time, the ambassadors who had been sent into Africa,
on the affair of Hamilcar, the leader of the Gallic army, received
from the Carthaginians this answer: that "it was not in their power
to do more than to inflict on him the punishment of exile, and to
confiscate his effects; that they had delivered up all the deserters
and fugitives, whom, on a diligent inquiry, they had been able to
discover, and would send ambassadors to Rome, to satisfy the senate on
that head." They sent two hundred thousand measures of wheat to
Rome, and the same quantity to the