20.10
and cut off others by falling upon their rear, and the strength and general efficiency of the phalanx was lost when it was thus broken up; and now that the Macedonians engaged man to man or in small detachments, they could only hack with their small daggers against the firm and long shields of the Romans, and oppose light wicker targets to their swords, which, such was their weight and momentum, penetrated through all their armour to their bodies. They therefore made a poor resistance and at last were routed.
21.1
But the struggle between them was fierce. Here, too, Marcus, the son of Cato and the son-in-law of Aemilius, while displaying all possible prowess, lost his sword.
21.2
Since he was a young man of the most generous education and owed to a great father proofs of great valour, he thought life not worth the living if he abandoned such spoil of his own person to the enemy, and ran along the ranks telling every friend and companion whom he saw of his mishap and begging them for aid.
21.3
These made a goodly number of brave men, and making their way with one impulse through the rest, they put themselves under his lead and fell upon the enemy.
21.4
With a great struggle, much slaughter, and many wounds, they drove them from the ground, and when they had won a free and empty place, they set themselves to looking for the sword.
