e Roman
camp.

XIX. When the battle began, Aemilius came up, and found the front ranks
of the Macedonians had struck their spear-heads into the Roman shields,
so that they could not reach them with their swords. When also the other
Macedonians took their shields off their shoulders and placed them in
front, and then at the word of command all brought down their pikes, he,
viewing the great strength of that serried mass of shields, and the
menacing look of the spears that bristled before them, was amazed and
terrified, having never seen a more imposing spectacle--and often
afterwards he used to speak of that sight, and of his own feelings at
it. At the time, however, he put on a cheerful and hopeful look, and
rode along the ranks showing himself to the men without helmet or
cuirass. But the Macedonian king, according to Polybius, having joined
battle, was seized with a fit of cowardice, and rode off to the city on
the pretext that he was going to sacrifice to Herakles, a god unlikely
to receive the base offerings of cowards or to fulfil their unreasonable
prayers; for it is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit
the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the
day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper. But
the god heard the prayers of Aemilius, for he prayed for victory whilst
fighting, sword in hand, and invited the god into the battle to aid him.
Not but what one Poseidonius, who says that he took part in these
transactions, and wrote a history of Perseus in many volumes, says that
it was not from cowardice, or on the pretext of offering sacrifice that
he left the field, but that on the day before the battle he was kicked
on the leg by a horse; that in the battle, though in great pain, and
entreated by his friends to desist, he ordered a horse to be brought,
and without armour rode up to the phalanx. Here as many missiles were
flying about from both sides, an iron javelin struck him, not fairly
with its point, but it ran obliquely down his left side, tearing his
tunic, and causing a dark bruise on his flesh, the scar of which was
long visible. This is what Poseidonius urges in defence of Perseus.

XX. Now as the Romans when they met the phalanx could make no impression
upon it, Salovius, the leader of the Pelignians, seized the standard of
his regiment and threw it among the enemy. The Pelignians, as the loss
of a standard is thought to be a crime and an i