Kitap 31
24
Philip was in Demetrias at the time. When the disaster that had overtaken a friendly city was announced to him, he determined, as he was too late to save it, to do the next best thing and avenge it. With a force of 5000 infantry in light marching order and 300 cavalry he went almost at a run to Chalcis, not for a moment doubting that he would be able to take the Romans by surprise. Finding that there was nothing to see but the uninviting spectacle of a smoking and ruined city in which hardly enough men were left to bury the victims of the war, he hurried away at the same speed and crossing the Euripus by the bridge marched through Boeotia to Athens, thinking that as he had shown as much enterprise as the Romans he would have the same success. And he would have had, if a scout had not observed the king's army on the march from a watch-tower. This man was what the Greeks call a hemerodromos, because these men cover enormous distances in a single day, and running on in advance he reached Athens at midnight. Here there was the same somnolence and negligence which had brought about the loss of Chalcis a few days before. Roused by the breathless messenger, the Athenian commander-in-chief and Dioxippus the prefect of the cohort of mercenaries mustered their soldiers in the forum and ordered the trumpets to sound the alarm from the citadel so that all might know that the enemy was at hand. There was a general rush to the gates and the walls.
