Book 44
6
The conveyance of supplies and their own return through Tempe were thus alike cut off, and they would have had to make their way back to the mountains over which they had come. They had escaped the observation of the enemy before; they could not do so now with his troops posted on the commanding heights, and the difficulties they had experienced destroyed all hopes. There was no course left in this rash adventure but to go through the midst of the enemy and enter Macedonia by way of Dium, and this, if the gods had not deprived the king of his reason, would have been a task of enormous difficulty. The spurs of Mount Olympus leave only a width of a mile between the mountain and the sea. Half this space is filled by the broad marshes at the mouth of the Baphyrus, the rest of the ground is taken up either by the temple of Jupiter or the town itself. The little bit that is left could be blocked by a small fosse and rampart, and there was such a quantity of stones and growing timber at hand that a wall might have been thrown up and turrets raised. Blinded by the suddenness of the danger, the king took none of these things into consideration; he withdrew his garrisons, leaving every place open and defenceless, and fled to Pydna.
