Marcus Cato

So then Cato halted his forces there, and summoned the men of Firmum to a private conference. These soldiers he had always found trusty and zealous in his service. When they had run up and stood grouped about him he said: I must take one of the enemy’s men alive, and learn from him who they are that form this advance guard, what their number is, aid with what disposition and array their main body awaits us.

But the task demands the swift and bold leap of lions fearlessly rushing all unarmed upon the timorous beasts on which they prey. So spake Cato, and the Firmians instantly started, just as they were, rushed down the mountain-side, and ran upon the enemy’s sentinels. Falling upon them unexpectedly, they threw them all into confusion and scattered them in flight; one of them they seized, arms and all, and delivered him over to Cato.

From the captive Cato learned that the main force of the enemy was encamped in the pass with the king himself, and that the detachment guarding the pass over the mountains was composed of six hundred picked Aetolians. Despising their small numbers and their carelessness, he led his troops against them at once, with bray of trumpet and battle-cry, being himself first to draw his sword. But when the enemy saw his men pouring down upon them from the cliffs, they fled to the main army, and filled them all with confusion.

Meanwhile Manius also, down below, threw his whole force forward into the pass and stormed the enemy’s fortifications. Antiochus, being hit in the mouth with a stone which knocked his teeth out, wheeled his horse about for very anguish. Then his army gave way everywhere before the Roman onset.

Although flight for them meant impracticable roads and helpless wanderings, while deep marshes and steep cliffs threatened those who slipped and fell, still, they poured along through the pass into these, crowding one another on in their fear of the enemy’s deadly weapons, and so destroyed themselves. Cato, who was ever rather generous, it would seem, in his own praises, and did not hesitate to follow up his great achievements with boastings equally great, is very pompous in his account of this exploit.

He says that those who saw him at that time pursuing the enemy and hewing them down, felt convinced that Cato owed less to Rome than Rome to Cato; also that the consul Manius himself, flushed with victory, threw his arms about him, still flushed with his own victory, and embraced him a long time, crying out for joy that neither he himself nor the whole Roman people could fittingly requite Cato for his benefactions.