the point of a spear from the
other wing, where the king fought in person. The Achaeans obeyed their
order and stood fast; but the Illyrians were led on by their commanders
to the attack. Euclidas, the brother of Cleomenes; seeing the foot
thus severed from the horse, detached the best of his light-armed men,
commanding them to wheel about and charge the unprotected Illyrians
in the rear. This charge put things into confusion, and Philopoemen,
considering that those light-armed men could be easily repelled, went
first to the king's officers to make them sensible of what the occasion
required. But when they did not mind what he said, slighting him as a
hare-brained fellow (as indeed he was not yet of any repute sufficient
to give credit to a proposal of such importance). he charged with his
own citizens, and at the first encounter disordered, and soon after put
the troops to flight with great slaughter. Then, to encourage the
king's army further, to bring them all upon the enemy while he was in
confusion, he quitted his horse, and fighting with extreme difficulty
in his heavy horseman's dress, in rough, uneven ground, full of
water-courses and hollows, had both his thighs struck through with a
thonged javelin. It was thrown with great force, so that the head came
out on the other side, and made a severe though not a mortal wound.
There he stood awhile, as if he had been shackled, unable to move. The
fastening which joined the thong to the javelin made it difficult to
get it drawn out, nor would anybody about him venture to do it. But the
fight being now at the hottest, and likely to be quickly decided, he
was transported with the desire of partaking in it, and struggled and
strained so violently, setting one leg forward, the other back, that
at last he broke the shaft in two, and thus got the pieces pulled out.
Being in this manner set at liberty he caught up his sword, and running
through the midst of those who were fighting in the first ranks,
animated his men, and set them afire with emulation. Antigonus, after
the victory, asked the Macedonians, to try them, how it happened that
the cavalry had charged without orders before the signal? and when they
answered that they were forced to it against their wills by a young man
of Megalopolis, who had fallen in before it was time, Antigonus replied,
smiling, "That young man acted like an experienced commander."

A ROMAN TRIUMPH FROM THE LIFE OF PAULUS AEMILIUS

Paulus