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 CHAPTER LXXIII

FLAMININUS IS COVERED WITH GARLANDS

Ten years before the struggle with Hannibal ended, Rome had declared war against Philip, King of Macedonia. This was the beginning of a war that ended with the conquest of the East.

But the Romans soon found that, with Hannibal in Italy, they would have neither time nor troops to spare for Macedonia. So for a time King Philip was left undisturbed, although he had dared to defy the Romans, and in 215 to make a treaty with Hannibal. Before the battle of Zama too, he sent four thousand Macedonian soldiers to help the Carthaginians in their struggle against Rome.

But when peace was made with Carthage, the day of reckoning with King Philip speedily came. A Roman army of twenty thousand men was sent across the Adriatic to punish him.

The Consul Flamininus was made commander of the Roman army in Greece in 198, and in the autumn of the following year he met Philip at Cynoscephalæ, where a great battle was fought.

In the morning, before the struggle began, a thick mist hid the armies from one another. Flamininus, wishing to find out the position of the enemy, sent a detachment of cavalry and infantry to reconnoitre.

Suddenly the detachment found itself face to face with the Macedonian reserves, which were stationed on the ridges of the hill named Cynoscephalæ, or Dogshead, as the difficult name is translated in our language.