Through avarice Perseus also lost a chance to hire Gallic mercenaries. A body on infantry and cavalry of Gauls who lived in the Balkans offered its services to Perseus for money. Perseus went to one of his camps with a small amount of gold to give to a few of the men hoping that this would entice the others. He got an envoy to tell the Gauls to move their camp to a place near Macedon. The Gauls asked whether the gold had been brought. There was no reply and they said that they would not move unless they received the gold. Perseus gave his officers the excuse that the Gauls were savages and that he would hire only 5,000 cavalry, which were enough for war and not too many to be dangerous, in order to justify not wanting to spend money on the whole of the Gallic body. When the Gauls heard that only 5,000 cavalry and no infantry were going to be hired, the rest of their army was disgruntled. The Gallic chieftain asked whether the 5,000 men would receive the agreed pay, but received an evasive answer. The Gauls left, devastating part of Thrace as they went. Livy thought that this large force of effective fighters could have been used effectively in combined operations with the forces of Perseus, which could have put the Romans in an untenable position.