In the year 546 from the founding of the City, the Second Punic War, which had been waged for seventeen years, came to an end. It was at once followed by the Macedonian war; the consul Quinctius Flamininus, to whom it fell by lot, after many and most grievous battles in which the Macedonians were defeated, granted peace to Philip.
1 Anno ab urbe condita DXLVI bellum Punicum secundum finitum est, quod gestum est annis decem et septem. cui Macedonicum continuo successit, quod Quintius Flamininus consul sortitus post multa et grauissima proelia, quibus Macedones uicti sunt, pacem Philippo dedit.
Then he fought with the Lacedaemonians; and, having defeated their leader Nabis, he led before his chariot the most noble hostages, Demetrius, the son of Philip, and Armenes, the son of Nabis.
2 deinde cum Lacedaemoniis pugnauit, uicto Nauide duce ipsorum nobilissimos obsides Demetrium Philippi filium et Armenen Nauidis filium ante currum duxit.
The Roman captives who had been sold throughout Greece under Hannibal were all recovered and, with their heads shaved as a sign that slavery had been wiped away, followed the chariot of the triumphing general.
3 Romani captiui, qui sub Hannibale per Graeciam uenditi fuerant, uniuersi recepti, capitibus rasis ob detersam seruitutem currum triumphantis secuti sunt.
At the same time the Insubres, the Boii and the Cenomani, having gathered their forces into one under the leadership of Hamilcar the Carthaginian, who had remained in Italy, were laying waste Cremona and Placentia, and were overcome in a most difficult war by the praetor Lucius Fulvius.1
4 eodem tempore Insubres Boi atque Cenomanni contractis in unum uiribus Hamilcare Poeno duce, qui in Italia remanserat, Cremonam Placentiamque uastantes, difficillimo bello a L. Fuluio praetore superati sunt.
1The praetor who defeated the Gauls at Cremona in 200 BC was Lucius Furius Purpurio; Orosius writes Fulvius.
Afterwards Flamininus, as proconsul, subdued in war King Philip and with him the Thracians, the Macedonians, the Illyrians and many other nations besides, which had come to his aid.
5 postea Flamininus proconsule Philippum regem et cum eo Thracas Macedonas Illyrios multasque praeterea gentes, quae in auxilium ei uenerant, bello subegit.
The Macedonians were defeated and lost their camp. Polybius writes that eight thousand of the enemy were slain that day and five thousand captured; Valerius says that forty thousand were slaughtered; Claudius, however, records that thirty-two thousand were killed.2
6 uicti Macedones castra amiserunt, VIII milia hostium eo die caesa, V milia capta Polybius scribit; Valerius dicit XL milia trucidata; Claudius uero XXXII milia interfecta commemorat.
2Valerius Antias and Claudius Quadrigarius, Roman annalists of the first century BC. Orosius takes the three conflicting figures from Livy.
But this disagreement among the writers is certainly deceit; and the cause of the deceit is surely flattery, as they strive to heap up the praises of the victor and to extol the valour of their fatherland, whether for their contemporaries or for posterity: otherwise, if the number had not been searched out, no figure of any kind would have been stated.
7 Sed haec uarietas scriptorum utique fallacia est; fallaciae autem causa profecto adulatio est, dum uictoris laudes accumulare uirtutemque patriae extollere uel praesentibus uel posteris student: alioquin, si inquisitus non fuisset numerus, nec qualiscumque fuisset expressus.
But if it is glorious for a general and his fatherland to have destroyed very many of the enemy, how much more joyful for the fatherland and blessed for the general may it seem to have lost none of their own, or very few!
8 quodsi gloriosum est duci et patriae plurimos hostium peremisse, quanto magis laetum patriae et duci beatum potest uideri suorum uel nullos uel paucissimos perdidisse.
Thus it is most clearly evident that, with the same shamelessness in lying by which additions are made to the number of enemies slain, the losses of their own allies too are diminished, or even passed over in silence altogether.
9 ita lucidissime patet, quia simili impudentia mentiendi, qua occisorum hostium numero adiicitur, sociorum quoque amissorum damna minuuntur uel etiam omnino reticentur.
Thus Sempronius Tuditanus, crushed in war in Hither Spain, was killed with the whole Roman army;
10 Igitur Sempronius Tuditanus in Hispania citeriore bello oppressus cum omni exercitu Romano interfectus est;
the consul Marcellus, crushed by the Boii in Etruria, lost a great part of his army; afterwards Furius, the other consul, came to his aid; and so, laying waste the whole nation of the Boii with fire and sword, they destroyed it almost to nothing.
11 consul Marcellus in Etruria a Bois oppressus magnam partem exercitus perdidit; cui postea Furius alter consul auxilio accessit: atque ita uniuersam Boiorum gentem igni ferroque uastantes propemodum usque ad nihilum deleuerunt.
In the consulship of Lucius Valerius Flaccus and Marcus Porcius Cato, Antiochus, king of Syria, preparing war against the Roman people, crossed from Asia into Europe.
12 L. Valerio Flacco M. Porcio Catone consulibus Antiochus rex Syriae bellum contra populum Romanum struens in Europam transiit ex Asia.
At that time too Hannibal, because of the rumours spread about him among the Romans that he was stirring up war, was ordered by the senate to be produced at Rome; he set out secretly from Africa and went over to Antiochus, and, finding him hesitating at Ephesus, he soon drove him into war.
13 tunc etiam Hannibal propter excitandi belli rumores, qui de eo apud Romanos serebantur, exhiberi Romam a senatu iussus, clam ex Africa profectus ad Antiochum migrauit: quem cum apud Ephesum inuenisset cunctantem, mox in bellum inpulit.
At that time also the law which had been carried by Oppius, tribune of the plebs — that no woman should possess more than half an ounce of gold, nor wear a garment of varied colours, nor use a carriage in the City — was repealed after twenty years.
14 tunc etiam lex, quae ab Oppio tribuno plebi lata fuerat, ne qua mulier plus quam semunciam auri haberet neue uersicolori uestimento nec uehiculo per urbem uteretur, post uiginti annos abrogata est.
In the consulship of Publius Scipio Africanus, for the second time, and Titus Sempronius Longus, ten thousand Gauls were slain at Milan; and in a following battle eleven thousand Gauls, but also five thousand Romans, were killed.
15 P. Scipione Africano iterum T. Sempronio Longo consulibus apud Mediolanium decem milia Gallorum caesa, sequenti autem proelio undecim milia Gallorum, Romanorum uero quinque milia occisa sunt.
The praetor Publius Digitius lost almost his whole army in Hither Spain. The praetor Marcus Fulvius defeated the Celtiberians together with the neighbouring nations and captured their king.
16 Publius Digitius praetor in Hispania citeriore paene omnem amisit exercitum. M. Fuluius praetor Celtiberos cum proximis gentibus uicit regemque eorum cepit.
Minucius, brought by the Ligurians into the utmost danger and surrounded by an ambush of the enemy, was barely rescued through the efforts of the Numidian cavalry.
17 Minucius a Liguribus in extremum periculi adductus et insidiis hostium circumuentus uix Numidarum equitum industria liberatus est.
Scipio Africanus, sent among the other envoys to Antiochus, also had a friendly conversation with Hannibal.
18 Scipio Africanus inter ceteros legatos ad Antiochum missus, etiam cum Hannibale conloquium familiare habuit.
But, the business of peace being left unaccomplished, he departed from Antiochus. In both Spains wars most horrible and bloody for both peoples were waged by the praetors Flaminius and Fulvius.
19 sed infecto pacis negotio ab Antiocho discessit. in utraque Hispania per Flaminium Fuluiumque praetores bella multum horrida cruentaque utrisque populis gesta sunt.
In the consulship of Publius Cornelius Scipio and Manius Acilius Glabrio, Antiochus, although he had occupied Thermopylae, so as to be safer behind its fortification against the uncertain outcomes of war, was nevertheless, when battle was joined, overcome by the consul Glabrio, and barely fled from the battle with a few men and reached Ephesus.3
20 P. Cornelio Scipione M. Acilio Glabrione consulibus Antiochus quamuis Thermopylas occupasset, quarum munimine tutior propter dubios belli euentus fieret, tamen commisso bello a consule Glabrione superatus uix cum paucis fugit e proelio Ephesumque peruenit.
3The Latin has M., but the consul’s praenomen was Manius (usually abbreviated M’).
He is said to have had sixty thousand armed men, of whom forty thousand are reported to have been slain and more than five thousand captured. The other consul, Scipio, clashed with the nation of the Boii, and in that battle killed twenty thousand of the enemy.
21 is habuisse fertur armatorum LX milia, ex quibus XL milia caesa, capta plus quam V milia fuisse referuntur. alter consul Scipio cum Boiorum gente conflixit, in quo proelio XX milia hostium interfecit.
In the following year Scipio Africanus, having Eumenes, the son of Attalus, as his ally, waged a naval war against Hannibal, who then commanded the fleet of Antiochus. Antiochus, now that Hannibal had been defeated and put to flight and he himself had at the same time lost his whole army, asked for peace, and of his own accord sent back the son of Africanus, whom he had captured — whether while reconnoitring or in battle is uncertain.4
22 Sequenti anno Scipio Africanus, habens in auxilio Eumenem Attali filium, aduersus Hannibalem, qui tunc Antiochi classi praeerat, bellum nauale gessit; Antiochus uicto Hannibale atque in fugam acto simulque omni exercitu amisso pacem rogauit filiumque Africani, quem utrum explorantem an in proelio cepisset incertum est, ultro remisit.
4Orosius compresses the campaign of 190 BC. Hannibal’s fleet was beaten by the Rhodians off Side, and Antiochus’s army was destroyed at Magnesia by Lucius Scipio, with Africanus serving as his brother’s legate.
In Further Spain the proconsul Lucius Aemilius was cut down by the Lusitanians with his entire army, and perished.5
23 in Hispania ulteriore L. Aemilius proconsule a Lusitanis cum uniuerso exercitu caesus interiit.
5Lucius Aemilius Paulus survived his defeat by the Lusitanians in 190 BC; he is the later victor of Pydna (4.20.39).
Lucius Baebius, setting out for Spain, was surrounded by the Ligurians and killed with his entire army; so completely, indeed, that it is agreed that not even a messenger survived, and the people of Marseille took it upon themselves to announce the massacre itself at Rome.
24 L. Baebius in Hispaniam proficiscens, a Liguribus circumuentus cum uniuerso exercitu occisus est; unde adeo ne nuntium quidem superfuisse constat, ut internecionem ipsam Romae Massilienses nuntiare curauerint.
The consul Fulvius, crossing from Greece into Gallograecia, which is now Galatia, came to Mount Olympus, to which all the Gallograeci had fled with their wives and children, and there waged a most bitter war; for the Romans, grievously battered from the higher ground by arrows, sling-bullets, stones and other missiles, at last broke through to close quarters with the enemy. Forty thousand Gallograeci are reported to have been killed in that battle.6
25 Fuluius consul de Graecia in Gallograeciam, quae nunc est Galatia, transuectus, ad Olympum montem peruenit, ad quem uniuersi Gallograeci cum coniugibus et liberis confugerant, ibique acerbissimum bellum gessit; namque de superioribus locis sagittis glandibus saxis ceterisque telis Romani grauiter contriti, tandem usque ad congressum hostium perruperunt: quadraginta milia Gallograecorum eo proelio interfecta referuntur.
6The Galatian campaign of 189 BC, with the battle on Mount Olympus, was fought by the consul Gnaeus Manlius Vulso; his colleague Marcus Fulvius Nobilior was campaigning against the Aetolians.
The consul Marcius, setting out against the Ligurians, was defeated and lost four thousand soldiers; and had he not, once beaten, quickly fled back to his camp, he would have suffered the same disaster of annihilation which Baebius had received some time before from the same enemies.
26 Marcius consul aduersus Ligures profectus superatusque IIII milia militum amisit et, nisi uictus celeriter refugisset in castra, eandem internecionis cladem, quam Baebius dudum ab isdem hostibus acceperat, pertulisset.
In the consulship of Marcus Claudius Marcellus and Quintus Fabius Labeo, King Philip, who had killed envoys of the Roman people, obtained pardon on account of the most modest entreaties of his son Demetrius, whom he had sent as an envoy;
27 M. Claudio Marcello Q. Fabio Labeone consulibus Philippus rex, qui legatos populi Romani interfecerat, propter Demetrii filii sui, quem legatum miserat, uerecundissimas preces ueniam meruit,
and straightway he killed that same son with poison, as a friend of the Romans and a traitor to himself, with Demetrius’s own brother serving as agent of the parricide for their father, while the wretched youth suspected no evil from either of them.
28 eundemque continuo uelut Romanis amicum suique proditorem, fratre quoque ipsius ad parricidium patris ministro, nihil de utroque miserum mali suspicantem ueneno necauit.
In the same year Scipio Africanus, who had long lived in exile from a city ungrateful to him, died of disease at the town of Amiternum. In those same days too Hannibal, at the court of Prusias, king of Bithynia, when his surrender was demanded by the Romans, killed himself with poison; and Philopoemen, the general of the Achaeans, was captured by the Messenians and killed.7
29 eodem anno Scipio Africanus ab ingrata sibi urbe diu exulans apud Amiternum oppidum morbo periit. isdem etiam diebus Hannibal apud Prusiam Bithyniae regem, cum a Romanis reposceretur, ueneno se necauit, Philopoemenes, dux Achiuorum a Messanis captus occisusque est.
7Scipio retired to his estate at Liternum on the Campanian coast and died there; Orosius writes Amiternum.
In Sicily at that time the island of Vulcan, which had not existed before, suddenly rose out of the sea, to the amazement of all, and remains to this day.
30 in Sicilia tunc Vulcani insula, quae ante non fuerat, repente mari edita cum miraculo omnium usque ad nunc manet.
The praetor Quintus Fulvius Flaccus in Hither Spain routed twenty-three thousand men in a very great battle and captured four thousand.
31 Q. Fuluius Flaccus praetor in citeriore Hispania maximo proelio XXIII milia hominum fudit, IIII milia cepit.
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus in Further Spain forced to surrender 105 towns, emptied and shattered by wars.
32 Ti. Sempronius Gracchus in Hispania ulteriore centum quinque oppida uacuata quassataque bellis ad deditionem coegit.
In the same summer Lucius Postumius in Hither Spain also killed forty thousand of the enemy in war. Gracchus the praetor, in the same region, again stormed and took two hundred towns.
33 eadem aestate etiam L. Postumius in citeriore Hispania quadraginta milia hostium bello interfecit. Gracchus praetor ibidem iterum ducenta oppida expugnauit et cepit.
In the consulship of Lepidus and Mucius, the most ferocious nation of the Bastarnae, incited by Perseus, the son of Philip, with the hope of plunder and the opportunity of crossing the river Hister, was destroyed without a single battle or any enemy. For at that time, as it happened, the Danube, which is also the Hister, was covered with thick ice and easily allowed a crossing on foot.
34 Lepido et Mucio consulibus Basternarum gens ferocissima auctore Perseo Philippi filio praedarum spe sollicitata et transeundi Histri fluminis facultate sine una pugna uel aliquo hoste deleta est. nam tunc forte Danuuius, qui et Hister, crassa glacie superstratus pedestrem facile transitum patiebatur.
And so, when an incalculable multitude of men and horses was improvidently crossing all at once in one whole and very great column, the frozen surface, cracking under the enormity of the weight and the shaking of the marchers, burst apart; and the icy crust, overcome and shattered at last, abandoned in the midst of the eddies the whole column which it had long supported, and then, closing back over it, with its fragments hindering them, submerged it. A few out of the whole people barely escaped to either bank, their bodies cut to pieces.
35 itaque cum inprouide toto et maximo simul agmine inaestimabilis hominum uel equorum multitudo transiret, enormitate ponderis et concussione gradientum concrepans gelu et glacialis crusta dissiluit uniuersumque agmen, quod diu sustinuerat, mediis gurgitibus uicta tandem et conminuta destituit atque eadem rursus fragmentis inpedientibus superducta summersit. pauci ex omni populo per utramque ripam uix concisis uisceribus euaserunt.
In the consulship of Publius Licinius Crassus and Gaius Cassius Longinus the Macedonian war was waged, which deserves to be reckoned among the greatest wars. For on the side of the Romans there were, first, the whole of Italy, and then Ptolemy, king of Egypt, Ariarathes of Cappadocia, Eumenes of Asia and Masinissa of Numidia. Perseus and the Macedonians were followed by the Thracians with their king Cotys, and by all the Illyrians with their king Gentius.
36 P. Licinio Crasso C. Cassio Longino consulibus Macedonicum bellum gestum est, merito inter maxima bella referendum. nam in auxilio Romanorum tota primum Italia, deinde Ptolemaeus rex Aegypti et Ariarathes Cappadociae, Eumenes Asiae, Masinissa Numidiae fuerunt. Perseum et Macedonas secuti sunt Thraces cum rege Cotye et uniuersi cum rege Gentio Illyrii.
And so Perseus met the consul Crassus on his arrival, and when battle was joined the Romans were pitiably defeated and fled. In a following battle, with almost equal losses on both sides, they withdrew into winter quarters.
37 itaque aduenienti Crasso consuli Perseus occurrit, commissoque proelio miserabiliter uicti fugere Romani. sequenti pugna paene pari clade partis utriusque in hiberna discessum est.
Then Perseus, having routed the Roman army in many battles, crossed into Illyricum and took by fighting the town of Sulcamum, which was defended by Roman garrisons; there he partly killed, partly sold into slavery, and partly led away with him into Macedonia a great multitude of the Roman garrison troops.
38 deinde Perseus profligato multis proeliis exercitu Romano in Illyricum transgressus Sulcamum oppidum defensum a praesidiis Romanis pugnando cepit: ubi magnam Romanorum praesidiorum multitudinem partim occidit partim sub corona uendidit partim secum in Macedoniam duxit.
Afterwards the consul Lucius Aemilius Paulus fought with him and conquered: for he killed twenty thousand foot soldiers in that war. The king slipped away with his cavalry, but was soon captured and driven in the triumph with his sons before the chariot, and afterwards died in custody at Alba.
39 Postea cum eo L. Aemilius Paulus consul dimicauit et uicit: nam XX milia peditum in eo bello interfecit; rex cum equitatu subterfugit, sed continuo captus atque in triumpho cum filiis ante currum actus est et post apud Albam in custodia defecit.
His younger son learned the craft of a coppersmith at Rome in order to bear his poverty, and there wasted away. Very many other wars besides, with quite diverse outcomes, were waged everywhere among many nations, which I have passed over for the sake of brevity.
40 filius eius iunior fabricam aerariam ob tolerandam inopiam Romae didicit ibique consumptus est. plurima praeterea et satis diuersis prouentibus bella multarum ubique gentium gesta sunt, quae breuitatis causa praetermisi.