Livius Picture Archive: the battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BCE)

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	Cynoscephalae (197 BCE)
	Unless otherwise indicated, pictures on this page © Marco Prins and Jona Lendering. Photos can be downloaded and used for non-commercial purposes, but you have to acknowledge Livius.
	The battlefield of Cynoscephalae, "Dog's Heads". In June 197, the Roman general Titus Quinctus Flamininus defeated the Macedonian king Philip V in these hills. The Macedonian phalanx was unable to adapt itself to the terrain; the Roman legions, on the other hand, were able to turn and could attack the Macedonian phalanx in the rear.
	Camp of a Roman auxiliary unit. The legions had proven to be more flexible than the phalanx, and it comes as no surprise that the Greek historian Polybius of Megalopolis concluded that Cynoscephalae was the best example to show the flexible legions were superior to the phalanx. Plutarch of Chaeronea describes the battle in the following words:
	Towards morning on the following day, after a mild and damp night, the clouds turned to mist, the whole plain was filled with profound darkness, a dense air came down from the heights into the space between the two camps, and as soon as day advanced all the ground was hidden from view. The parties sent out on either side for purposes of ambush and reconnaissance encountered one another in a very short time and went to fighting near what are called the Cynoscephalae. These are the sharp tops of hills lying close together alongside one another, and got their name from a resemblance in their shape. As was natural on a field so difficult, each party sending out aid from their camps to those who from time to time were getting the worst of it and retreating, until at last, when the air cleared up and they could see what was going on, they engaged with all their forces.
	With his right wing, then, Philip [picture] had the advantage, since from higher ground he threw his entire phalanx upon the Romans, who could not withstand the weight of its interlocking shields and the sharpness of its projecting pikes; but his left wing was broken up and scattered along the hills, and Titus, despairing of his defeated wing, rode swiftly along to the other, and with it fell upon the Macedonians. These were unable to hold their phalanx together and maintain the depth of its formation (which was the main source of their strength), being prevented by the roughness and irregularity of the ground, while for fighting man to man they had armor which was too cumbersome and heavy.
	For the phalanx is like an animal of invincible strength as long as it is one body and can keep its shields locked together in a single formation; but when it has been broken up into its parts, each of its fighting men loses also his individual force, as well because of the manner in which he is armed as because his strength lies in the mutual support of the parts of the whole body rather than in himself. This wing of the Macedonians being routed, some of the Romans pursued the fugitives, while others dashed out upon the flank of the enemy who were still fighting and cut them down, so that very soon their victorious wing also faced about, threw away their weapons, and fled. The result was that no fewer than 8,000 Macedonians were slain, and 5,0000 were taken prisoners. Philip, however, got safely away, and for this the Aetolians were to blame, who fell to sacking and plundering the enemy's camp while the Romans were still pursuing, so that when the Romans came back to it they found nothing there. [Plutarch, Life of Flaminius, 8; tr. Charles Whitaker, Dryden series]
	This portrait of a melancholic Roman probably is that of Titus Quinctius Flamininus; it is in the museum of Delphi. The Roman victory was hailed as the "liberation of Greece", but the Greeks never fully understood that according to Roman law, a freed person still had obligations to the man who had released him. The first half of the second century saw several conflicts between the Greeks and Romans, which culminated in the sack of Corinth and the annexation of Greece in 146. According to the historian Appian of Alexandria, Syrian War, §16, the dead at Cynoscephalae were still unburied in 191.

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