4. This was a most unexpected relief to the Medionians. They met in public assembly and deliberated on the whole business, and especially as to the inscribing the arms reserved for dedication. They decided, in mockery of the Aetolian decree, that the inscription should contain the name of the Aetolian commander on the day of battle, and of the candidates for succession to his office. And indeed Fortune seems, in what happened to them, to have designed a display of her power to the rest of mankind. The very thing which these men were in momentary expectation of undergoing at the hands of their enemies, she put it in their power to inflict upon those enemies, and all within a very brief interval. The unexpected disaster of the Aetolians, too, may teach all the world not to calculate on the future as though it were the actually existent, and not to reckon securely on what may still turn out quite otherwise, but to allow a certain margin to the unexpected. And as this is true everywhere and to every man, so is it especially true in war.
Death of Agron, who is succeeded by his wife Teuta, B.C. 231.
When his galleys returned, and he heard from his officers the events of the expedition, King Agron was so beside himself with joy at the idea of having conquered the Aetolians, whose confidence in their own prowess had been extreme, that, giving himself over to excessive drinking and other similar indulgences, he was attacked by a pleurisy of which in a few days he died. His wife Teuta succeeded him on the throne; and managed the various details of administration by means of friends whom she could trust. But her woman’s head had been turned by the success just related, and she fixed her gaze upon that, and had no eyes for anything going on outside the country. Her first measure was to grant letters of marque to privateers, authorising them to plunder all whom they fell in with; and she next collected a fleet and military force as large as the former one, and despatched them with general instructions to the leaders to regard every land as belonging to an enemy.
Teuta’s piratical fleet, B.C. 230.
5. Their first attack was to be upon the coast of Elis and Messenia, which had been from time immemorial the scene of the raids of the Illyrians. For owing to the length of their seaboard, and to the fact that their most powerful cities were inland, troops raised to resist them had a great way to go, and were long in coming to the spot where the Illyrian pirates landed; who accordingly overran those districts, and swept them clean without having anything to fear.
Takes Phoenice in Epirus.
However, when this fleet was off Phoenice in Epirus they landed to get supplies. There they fell in with some Gauls, who to the number of eight hundred were stationed at Phoenice, being in the pay of the Epirotes; and contracted with them to betray the town into their hands. Having made this bargain, they disembarked and took the town and everything in it at the first blow, the Gauls within the walls acting in collusion with them. When this news was known, the Epirotes raised a general levy and came in haste to the rescue. Arriving in the neighbourhood of Phoenice, they pitched their camp so as to have the river which flows past Phoenice between them and the enemy, tearing up the planks of the bridge over it for security. But news being brought them that Scerdilaidas with five thousand Illyrians was marching overland by way of the pass near Antigoneia, they detached some of their forces to guard that town; while the main body gave themselves over to an unrestrained indulgence in all the luxuries which the country could supply; and among other signs of demoralisation they neglected the necessary precaution of posting sentries and night pickets. The division of their forces, as well as the careless conduct of the remainder, did not escape the observation of the Illyrians; who, sallying out at night, and replacing the planks on the bridge, crossed the river safely, and having secured a strong position, remained there quietly for the rest of the night. At daybreak both armies drew up their forces in front of the town and engaged. In this battle the Epirotes were decidedly worsted: a large number of them fell, still more were taken prisoners, and the rest fled in the direction of the country of the Atintanes.
The Aetolian and Achaean leagues send a force to the relief of the Epirotes. A truce is made. The Illyrians depart.
6. Having met with this reverse, and having lost all the hopes which they had cherished, the Epirotes turned to the despatch of ambassadors to the Aetolians and Achaeans, earnestly begging for their assistance. Moved by pity for their misfortunes, these nations consented; and an army of relief sent out by them arrived at Helicranum. Meanwhile the Illyrians who had occupied Phoenice, having effected a junction with Scerdilaidas, advanced with him to this place, and, taking up a position opposite to this army of relief, wished at first to give it battle. But they were embarrassed by the unfavourable nature of the ground; and just then a despatch was received from Teuta, ordering their instant return, because certain Illyrians had revolted to the Dardani. Accordingly, after merely stopping to plunder Epirus, they made a truce with the inhabitants, by which they undertook to deliver up all freemen, and the city of Phoenice, for a fixed ransom. They then took the slaves they had captured and the rest of their booty to their galleys, and some of them sailed away; while those who were with Scerdilaidas retired by land through the pass at Antigoneia, after inspiring no small or ordinary terror in the minds of the Greeks who lived along the coast. For seeing the most securely placed and powerful city of Epirus thus unexpectedly reduced to slavery, they one and all began henceforth to feel anxious, not merely as in former times for their property in the open country, but for the safety of their own persons and cities.
The Epirotes were thus unexpectedly preserved: but so far from trying to retaliate on those who had wronged them, or expressing gratitude to those who had come to their relief, they sent ambassadors in conjunction with the Acarnanians to Queen Teuta, and made a treaty with the Illyrians, in virtue of which they engaged henceforth to co-operate with them and against the Achaean and Aetolian leagues. All which proceedings showed conclusively the levity of their conduct towards men who had stood their friends, as well as an originally short-sighted policy in regard to their own interests.
7. That men, in the infirmity of human nature, should fall into misfortunes which defy calculation, is the fault not of the sufferers but of Fortune, and of those who do the wrong; but that they should from mere levity, and with their eyes open, thrust themselves upon the most serious disasters is without dispute the fault of the victims themselves. Therefore it is that pity and sympathy and assistance await those whose failure is due to Fortune: reproach and rebuke from all men of sense those who have only their own folly to thank for it.
The career of a body of Gallic mercenaries,
at Agrigentum,
at Eryx.
It is the latter that the Epirotes now richly deserved at the hands of the Greeks. For in the first place, who in his senses, knowing the common report as to the character of the Gauls, would not have hesitated to trust to them a city so rich, and offering so many opportunities for treason? And again, who would not have been on his guard against the bad character of this particular body of them? For they had originally been driven from their native country by an outburst of popular indignation at an act of treachery done by them to their own kinsfolk and relations. Then having been received by the Carthaginians, because of the exigencies of the war in which the latter were engaged, and being drafted into Agrigentum to garrison it (being at the time more than three thousand strong), they seized the opportunity of a dispute as to pay, arising between the soldiers and their generals, to plunder the city; and again being brought by the Carthaginians into Eryx to perform the same duty, they first endeavoured to betray the city and those who were shut up in it with them to the Romans who were besieging it; and when they failed in that treason, they deserted in a body to the enemy: whose trust they also betrayed by plundering the temple of Aphrodite in Eryx.
Disarmed by the Romans.