EDIT: A little background to the question for people saying scouting (and to clarify why I initially posted). This was my first thought as well, but in reading about Roman history, I’d found out that they were notoriously bad at scouting, as it was something that they felt was below them (and it cost them at Lake Trasimene). Thats when I realized I had no idea how these armies would actually find each other
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Most battles were actually sieges. An invader gradually ended up outside the city walls with all previous battles leading up to that were running skirmishes.
Spies in foreign courts would usually report hostilities, army composition, method and direction of travel etc then runners would be dispatched to deliver these reports. Finding and hunting down dispatch runners to retain the element of surprise was an important and dirty business.
It was pretty rare that the fate of a nation was decided in the open field of a single battle but rather several battles culminating into a siege.
As stated by others, travel routes were limited and heavily scouted. That’s why the Viking raids were so terrifying to defending states, the Viking longships were so versatile they could navigate deep water or shallow rivers bypassing heavy defences and traditional army routes while delivering large groups of men deep into enemy territory with no warning.
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