Book 44
35
The consul had quite made up his mind to adopt another course, and the council broke up. There were two Perrhaebian traders, Coenus and Menophilus, whose honesty and sagacity he knew he could trust. He sent for them and questioned them privately about the routes leading into Perrhaebia. They told him that the country was not difficult; it was held by detachments of the king's troops. Hearing this he thought that by a sudden night attack delivered in force, when the enemy were not expecting it, they could be dislodged and driven back. Javelins and arrows and other missiles were useless in the dark, when it was impossible to see what to aim at; it was in close hand-to-hand fighting with the sword, in the melee of battle, that the Roman soldier was victorious. He decided to take these men as guides, and sent for Octavius, to whom he explained his plans, and he gave him instructions to sail to Heracleum and have in readiness ten days' rations for 1000 men. P. Scipio Nasica and Q. Fabius Maximus, his own son, were sent overland to Heracleum with 5000 select troops, as though they were going on board the fleet to devastate the Macedonian coast-the scheme which had been advocated in the council. They were privately informed that, to avoid any delay, there was food ready for these troops on board the fleet. The two guides were then ordered so to regulate the length of each day's march as to allow of an attack being made on Pythium in the fourth watch of the third day.
