Book 32
17
Carystus was the next place to be attacked. Here before the troops were landed the entire population abandoned the city and took refuge in the citadel. Then they sent envoys to make terms with the Roman general. The townsmen were at once granted life and liberty; the Macedonians were allowed to depart after giving up their arms and paying a sum equivalent to 300 drachmae per man. After ransoming themselves at this sum they departed for Boeotia. After thus, within a few days, capturing two important cities in Euboea, the fleets rounded Sunium, a promontory in Attica, and brought up at Cenchreae, the commercial port of Corinth. Meanwhile the consul had on his hands a siege which proved to be more tedious and costly than any one anticipated, and the defence was conducted in a way he was quite unprepared for. He took it for granted that all his efforts would be devoted to the demolition of the walls and when once he had opened the way into the city the flight and slaughter of the enemy would follow as they usually do when cities are taken by assault. But after a portion of the wall had been battered down by the rams and the soldiers began to march over the debris into the city they found themselves at the beginning of a fresh task. The Macedonian garrison, a large body of picked men, considered it a special distinction to defend the city by their arms and courage rather than by walls, and they formed in close order, their front resting on a column of unusual depth. As soon as they saw the Romans clambering over the ruins of the wall they drove them back over ground covered with obstacles and ill-adapted for retirement.
