At the time, however, he put on a cheerful and hopeful look, and
rode along the ranks showing himself to the men without helmet or
cuirass. But the Macedonian king, according to Polybius, having joined
battle, was seized with a fit of cowardice, and rode off to the city on
the pretext that he was going to sacrifice to Herakles, a god unlikely
to receive the base offerings of cowards or to fulfil their unreasonable
prayers; for it is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit
the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the
day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper. But
the god heard the prayers of Aemilius, for he prayed for victory whilst
fighting, sword in hand, and invited the god into the battle to aid him.
Not but what one Poseidonius, who says that he took part in these
transactions, and wrote a history of Perseus in many volumes, says that
it was not from cowardice, or on the pretext of offering sacrifice that
he left the field, but that on the day before the battle he was kicked
on the leg by a horse; that in the battle, though in great pain, and
entreated by his friends to desist, he ordered a horse to be brought,
and without armour rode up to the phalanx. Here as many missiles were
flying about from both sides, an iron javelin struck him, not fairly
with its point, but it ran obliquely down his left side, tearing his
tunic, and causing a dark bruise on his flesh, the scar of which was
long visible.
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