Part 48

XXVIII. After these events he sent the army into cantonments, to rest, and he himself set out to visit Greece, making a progress which was both glorious and beneficent; for in the cities to which he came he restored the popular constitutions, and bestowed on them presents, from the king's treasury, of corn and oil. For so much, they say, was found stored up, that all those who received it and asked for it, were satisfied before the mass could be exhausted. At Delphi, seeing a large square column of white marble, on which a golden statue of Perseus was to have been placed, he ordered his own to be placed there, as the vanquished ought to give place to the victors. At Olympia, as the story goes, he uttered that well-known saying, that Pheidias had carved the very Zeus of Homer.

When ten commissioners arrived from Rome, he restored to the Macedonians their country to dwell in, and their cities free and independent, imposing upon them a tribute of a hundred talents, only half what they used to pay to their kings. He exhibited gymnastic spectacles of every kind, and gave splendid sacrifices and feasts in honour of the gods, having boundless resources for the purpose in the king's treasury; and in ordering and arranging each man's place at table, and saluting him according to his merit and degree, he showed such a delicate perception of propriety, that the Greeks were astonished that he should carry his administrative talent even into his amusements, and be so business-like in trifles. But he was always delighted that though many splendid things were prepared, he himself was the chief object of interest to his guests, and when they expressed their surprise at his taking such pains, he would answer that the same mind can array an army for battle in the most terrific fashion, or a feast in the most acceptable one. All men praised to the skies his generous magnanimity, because, when a great mass of gold and silver was collected from the king's treasury, he would not so much as look at it, but handed it over to the quaestors to be put into the public treasury. Of all the spoil, he only allowed his sons, who were fond of reading, to take the king's books; and when distributing prizes for distinguished bravery in action, he gave Aelius Tubero, his son-in-law, a silver cup of five pounds' weight. This Tubero is he whom we said lived with fifteen other kinsfolk on a small farm, which supported them all. And that, they say, was the first piece of plate that ever was seen in the Aelian household, brought there by honourable valour; for before that neither they nor their wives used either gold or silver plate.

XXIX. When he had settled all things properly he took leave of the Greeks, and reminding the Macedonians to keep by orderly and unanimous conduct the liberty which the Romans had bestowed upon them, he started for Epirus, as the Senate had passed a decree that the soldiers who had been present in the battle against Perseus should be gratified with the spoil of the cities of Epirus. Desiring therefore to fall upon them all at once and unexpectedly, he sent for ten of the chief men from each city, and ordered them to bring together, on a fixed day, all the gold and silver which they had in their houses and temples. With each party he sent, as if for this purpose, a guard of soldiers and a captain, who was to pretend that he came to seek for and receive the money. But when day broke, they all at the same time fell to sacking and plundering the cities, so that, in one hour, a hundred and fifty thousand people were reduced to slavery, and seventy cities plundered; yet from such ruin and destruction as this, there resulted no more than eleven drachmae for each soldier, while all mankind shuddered at this termination of the war, that a whole nation should be cut to pieces to produce such a pitiful present.

XXX. Aemilius, having performed this work, greatly against his real nature, which was kind and gentle, proceeded to Oricum, and thence crossed to Italy with his army. He himself sailed up the river Tiber in the king's own ship of sixteen banks of oars, adorned with the arms of the vanquished, and crowns of victory and crimson flags, so that all the people of Rome came out in a body as if to a foretaste of the spectacle of his triumphal entry, and walked beside his ship as she was gently rowed up the river. But the soldiery, casting longing glances at the king's treasure, like men who had not met with their deserts, were angry and dissatisfied with Aemilius; for this reason really, though the charge they openly put forward was that he was a harsh and tyrannical ruler: so they showed no eagerness for the triumph.

Servius Galba,[A] an enemy of Aemilius, who had once commanded a legion under him, hearing this, plucked up spirit to propose openly that he should not be allowed a triumph. He disseminated among the soldiers many calumnies against their general, and so still more exasperately their present temper; next he asked the tribunes of the plebs for another day, as that day would not suffice for his speech, only four hours remaining of it. However, the tribunes bade him speak, and he, beginning a long and abusive speech, consumed all the time. At nightfall the tribunes dismissed the assembly. But the soldiers, now grown bolder, assembled round Galba, and, forming themselves into an organized body, again at daybreak occupied the capitol; for it was thither that the tribunes had summoned the people.

[Footnote A: He had been military tribune of the second legion in Macedonia. Liv. xlv. 35.]

XXXI. The voting began as soon as it was day, and the first tribe voted against the triumph. Soon the rumour of this spread to the rest of the people and to the Senate. Though the masses were grieved at the shameful treatment of Aemilius, they exhausted themselves in useless clamour, but the leading men of the Senate crying out one to another that what was going on was scandalous, encouraged each other to resist the licentious violence of the soldiers, who, if not restrained, were ready to use any kind of lawless violence to prevent Paulus Aemilius enjoying the reward of his victory. These men pushed the mob aside, and mounting to the capitol in a body, bade the tribunes stop the voting until they had said what they wished to the people. When voting ceased and silence was obtained, Marcus Servilius, a man of consular rank, who had challenged and slain twenty-three enemies in single combat, spoke as follows:--"What a commander Aemilius Paulus must be, you are now best able to judge, seeing with what a disobedient and worthless army he has succeeded in such great exploits; but I am surprised at the people's being proud of the triumphs over the Illyrians and Ligurians, and begrudging itself the sight of the king of Macedon brought alive, and all the glories of Philip and Alexander carried captive to the arms of Rome. Is it not a strange thing that on the unfounded rumour of this victory being circulated, you sacrificed to the gods, praying that you soon might behold this spectacle, yet now that the army has returned after a real victory, you refuse the gods the honour and yourself the pleasure of it, as if you feared to see the extent of your successes, or wished to spare the feelings of your captive enemy; though it would show a nobler feeling than pity for him, not to deprive your general of his triumph for a mean grudge. Your baseness has reached such a pitch that a man without a scar, with his body delicately nurtured in the shade, dares to speak about generalship and triumphs before us who have learned by so many wounds to judge of a general's vice and virtues." As he spoke, he opened his clothes, and showed his breast with an incredible number of scars upon it; then turning to Galba, who had made some remarks not very decent "You laugh," said he, "at these other marks: but I glory in them before my countrymen, for I got them by riding, night and day, in their service. But come, bring them to vote; I will go amongst them and follow them all to the poll, that I may know those who are cowardly and ungrateful, and like rather to be ruled by a demagogue than by a true general."

XXXII. These words are said to have caused such remorse and repentance among the soldiers, that all the tribes voted Aemilius his triumph. It is said to have been celebrated thus. The people, dressed in white robes, looked on from platforms erected in the horse course, which they call the Circus, and round the Forum, and in all other places which gave them a view of the procession. Every temple was open, and full of flowers and incense, and many officials with staves drove off people who formed disorderly mobs, and kept the way clear. The procession was divided into three days. The first scarcely sufficed for the display of the captured statues, sculptures, and paintings, which were carried on two hundred and fifty carriages. On the following day the finest and most costly of the Macedonian arms and armour were borne along in many waggons, glittering with newly burnished brass and iron, and arranged in a carefully studied disorder, helmets upon shields, and corslets upon greaves, with Cretan targets, Thracian wicker shields and quivers mixed with horses' bits, naked swords rising out of these, and the long spears of the phalanx ranged in order above them, making a harmonious clash of arms, as they were arranged to clatter when they were driven along, with a harsh and menacing sound, so that the sight of them even after victory was not without terror. After the waggons which bore the arms walked three thousand men, carrying the silver coin in seven hundred and fifty earthen vessels, each carrying three talents, and borne by four men. Others carried the silver drinking horns, and goblets and chalices, each of them disposed so that it could be well seen, and all remarkable for their size and the boldness of their carving.

XXXIII. On the third day, at earliest dawn, marched the trumpeters, not playing the music of a march, but sounding the notes which animate the Romans for a charge. After them were led along a hundred and twenty fat oxen with gilded horns, adorned with crowns and wreaths. They were led by youths clad in finely-fringed waistcloths in which to do the sacrifice, while boys carried the wine for the libations in gold and silver vessels. After these came men carrying the gold coin, divided into vessels of three talents each like the silver. The number of these vessels was eighty all but three. Then came those who carried the consecrated bowl which Aemilius had made of ten talents of gold adorned with jewels, and men carrying the plate of Antigonus and Seleukus, and cups of Therikles-ware,[A] and all Perseus's own service of gold plate.

[Footnote A: This was a particular kind of pottery, originally made at Corinth.]

Next came the chariot of Perseus with his armour; and his crown set upon the top of his armour: and then after a little interval came the captive children of the king, and with them a tearful band of nurses and teachers, who held out their hands in supplication to the spectators, and taught the children to beg them for mercy. There were two boys and one girl, all too young to comprehend the extent of their misfortune. This carelessness made their fallen state all the more pitiable, so that Perseus himself walked almost unnoticed; for the Romans in their pity had eyes only for the children, and many shed tears, while all felt that the sight was more painful than pleasing till the children were gone by.

XXXIV. Behind the children and their attendants walked Perseus himself, dressed in a dark-coloured cloak with country boots, seeming to be dazed and stupefied by the greatness of his fall. A band of his friends and associates followed him with grief-laden countenances, and, by their constantly looking at Perseus, and weeping, gave the spectators the idea that they bewailed his fate without taking any thought about their own. However, Perseus had sent to Aemilius asking to be excused the walking in procession; but he, as it seems in mockery of his cowardice and love of life, answered, "That was formerly in his own hands, and is now if he pleases." Meaning that death was preferable to dishonour; but the dastard had not spirit enough for that, but buoyed up by some hope, became a part of his own spoils.

After these were borne golden crowns, four hundred in number, which the cities of Greece had sent to Aemilius with deputations, in recognition of his success. Next he came himself, sitting in a splendid chariot, a man worth looking upon even without his present grandeur, dressed in a purple robe sprinkled with gold, and holding a branch of laurel in his right hand. All the army was crowned with laurel and followed the car of the general in military array, at one time singing and laughing over old country songs, then raising in chorus the paean of victory and recital of their deeds, to the glory of Aemilius, who was gazed upon and envied by all, disliked by no good man. Yet it seems that some deity is charged with tempering these great and excessive pieces of good fortune, and skimming as it were the cream off human life, so that none may be absolutely without his ills in this life; but as Homer says, they may seem to fare best whose fortune partakes equally of good and evil.

XXXV. For he had four sons, two, as has been already related, adopted into other families, Scipio and Fabius; and two others who were still children, by his second wife, who lived in his own house. Of these, one died five days before Aemilius's triumph, at the age of fourteen, and the other, twelve years old, died three days after it; so that there was no Roman that did not grieve for him, and all trembled at the cruelty of fortune, which had burst into a house filled with joy and gladness, and mingled tears and funeral dirges with the triumphal paeans and songs of victory.

XXXVI. Yet Aemilius, rightly thinking that courage is as valuable in supporting misfortunes as it is against the Macedonian phalanx, so arranged matters as to show that for him the evil was overshadowed by the good, and that his private sorrows were eclipsed by the successes of the state, lest he should detract from the importance and glory of the victory. He buried the first child, and immediately afterwards triumphed, as we have said: and when the second died after the triumph, he assembled the people and addressed them, not so much in the words of one who needs consolation, as of one who would console his countrymen, who were grieved at his misfortunes. He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution. "In one day," said he, "I crossed the Ionian sea from Brundisium to Corcyra; on the fifth day I sacrificed at Delphi; in five more I entered upon my command in Macedonia, performed the usual lustration of the army; and, at once beginning active operations, in fifteen days more I brought the war to a most glorious end. I did not trust in my good fortune as lasting, because every thing favoured me, and there was no danger to be feared from the enemy, but it was during my voyage that I especially feared that the change of fortune would befall me, after I had conquered so great a host, and was bearing with me such spoils and even kings as my captives. However, I reached you safe, and saw the city full of gladness and admiration and thanksgiving, but still I had my suspicions about Fortune, knowing that she never bestows any great kindness unalloyed and without exacting retribution for it. And no sooner had I dismissed this foreboding about some misfortune being about to happen to the state, than I met with this calamity in my own household, having during these holydays had to bury my noble sons, one after the other, who, had they lived, would alone have borne my name.

"Now therefore I fear no further great mischance, and am of good cheer; for a sufficient retribution has been exacted from me for my successes, and the triumpher has been made as notable an example of the uncertainty of human life as the victim; except that Perseus, though conquered, still has his children, while Aemilius, his conqueror, has lost his."

XXXVII. Such was the noble discourse which they say Aemilius from his simple and true heart pronounced before the people. As to Perseus, though he pitied his fallen fortunes and was most anxious to help him, all he could do was to get him removed from the common prison, called Carcer by the Romans, to a clean and habitable lodging, where, in confinement, according to most authors, he starved himself to death; but some give a strange and extraordinary account of how he died, saying that the soldiers who guarded him became angry with him, and not being able to vex him by any other means, they prevented his going to sleep, watching him by turns, and so carefully keeping him from rest by all manner of devices, that at last he was worn out and died. Two of his children died also; but the third, Alexander, they say became accomplished in repoussé work and other arts. He learned to speak and write the Roman language well, and was employed by the magistrates as a clerk, in which profession he was much esteemed.

XXXVIII. The most popular thing which Aemilius did in connection with Macedonia was that he brought back so much money that the people were not obliged to pay any taxes till the consulship of Hirtius and Pausa, during the first war between Antony and Augustus Caesar. This was remarkable about Aemilius, that he was peculiarly respected and loved by the people, though of the aristocratical party; and though he never said or did anything to make himself popular, but always in politics acted with the party of the nobles. Scipio Africanus was afterwards reproached with this by Appius. These were the leading men in the city, and were candidates for the office of Censor: the one with the Senate and nobles to support him, that being the hereditary party of the Appii; the other being a man of mark in himself, and one who ever enjoyed the greatest love and favour with the people. So when Appius saw Scipio coming into the forum surrounded by men of low birth and freed men, yet men who knew the forum, and who could collect a mob and by their influence and noise could get any measure passed, he called out, "O Paulus Aemilius, groan in your grave, at your son being brought into the Censorship by Aemilius the crier and Licinius Philonicus." But Scipio kept the people in good humour by constantly augmenting their privileges, whereas Aemilius, though of the aristocratic party, was no less loved by the people than those who courted their favour and caressed them. They showed this by electing him, amongst other dignities, to the Censorship; which office is most sacred, and confers great power, especially in examining men's lives; for the Censor can expel a senator of evil life from his place, and elect the President of the Senate, and punish licentious young men by taking away their horses. They also register the value of property, and the census of the people. In his time they amounted to three hundred and thirty-seven thousand four hundred and fifty-two. He appointed Marcus Aemilius Lepidus President of the Senate, who four times already had enjoyed that dignity, and he expelled three senators, not men of mark. With regard to the Equites, he and his colleague Marcius Philippus showed equal moderation.

XXXIX. After most of the labours of his life were accomplished, he fell sick of a disorder which at first seemed dangerous, but as time went on appeared not to be mortal, but wearisome and hard to cure.

At length he followed the advice of his physicians, and sailed to Paestum, in Italy. There he passed his time chiefly in the peaceful meadows near the sea-shore; but the people of Rome regretted his absence, and in the public theatre often would pray for his return, and speak of their longing to see him. When the time for some religious ceremony at which he had to be present approached, and he also considered himself sufficiently strong, he returned to Rome. He performed the sacrifice, with the other priests, the people surrounding him with congratulations. On the next day he again officiated, offering a thank-offering to the gods for his recovery. When this sacrifice was finished, he went home and lay down, and before any one noticed how changed he was, he fell into a delirious trance, and died in three days, having in his life wanted none of those things which are thought to render men happy. Even his funeral procession was admirable and enviable, and a noble tribute to his valour and goodness. I do not mean gold, ivory, and other expensive and vain-glorious apparatus, but love, honour, and respect, not only shown by his own countrymen, but also by foreigners. For of the Iberians, Ligurians, and Macedonians who happened to be in Rome, the strongest carried the bier, while the elder men followed after, praising Aemilius as the saviour and benefactor of their countries. For he not only during his period of conquest had treated them mildly and humanely, but throughout the rest of his life was always bestowing benefits upon them as persons peculiarly connected with himself. His estate, they say, scarcely amounted to three hundred and seventy thousand sesterces,[A] which he left to be shared between his two sons; but Scipio, the younger, consented to give up his share to his brother, as he was a member of a rich family, that of Africanus. Such is said to have been the life and character of Aemilius Paulus.

[Footnote A: Little more than £3000.]

COMPARISON OF PAULUS AEMILIUS AND TIMOLEON.