Aemilius Paulus

Perseus Greek · Perseus Greek · 319 sections

25.3.1
The first man who met them in front of the spring in the forum, where they were cooling their horses, which were reeking with sweat, was amazed at their report of the victory.
25.4.1
Then, we are told, they touched his beard with their hands, quietly smiling the while, and the hair of it was changed at once from black to red, a circumstance which gave credence to their story, and fixed upon the man the surname of Ahenobarbus, that is to say, Bronze-beard.
25.5.1
And all this is made credible by that which has happened in our time. When, namely, Antonius was in revolt from Domitian, and a great war was expected from Germany, and Rome was in commotion, suddenly and spontaneously the people of their own accord spread abroad a report of a victory, and a story coursed through Rome that Antonius himself had been slain, and that of his defeated army not a portion was left alive. Belief in the story became so strong and distinct that many of the magistrates actually offered sacrifices.
25.6.1
When, however, the author of the story was sought, none could be found, but it eluded all pursuit from one man to another, and finally disappeared in the limitless throng, as in a yawning sea, and was seen to have no sure source. This rumour, then, quickly melted away in the city; but when Domitian was setting out with an army for the war and was already on the march, messages and letters announcing the victory came to meet him.
25.7.1
And the success itself was gained on the day when the rumour of it came to Rome, although the distance between the places was more than twenty thousand furlongs. These facts are known to every one of our time.
26.1.1
But to resume, Gnaeus Octavius, the admiral of Aemilius, came to anchor off Samothrace, and while he allowed Perseus to enjoy asylum, out of respect to the gods, he took means to prevent him from escaping by sea.
26.2.1
However, Perseus somehow succeeded in persuading a certain Cretan named Oroandes, the owner of a small skiff to take him on board with his treasures.
26.3.1
So Oroandes, true Cretan that he was, took the treasures aboard by night, and after bidding Perseus to come during the following night to the harbour adjoining the Demetrium, with his children and necessary attendants, as soon as evening fell sailed off.
26.4.1
Now, Perseus suffered pitifully in letting himself down through a narrow window in the fortress, together with his wife and little children, who were unacquainted with wandering and hardships; but most pitiful of all was the groan he gave when some one told him, as he wandered along the shore, that he had seen Oroandes already out at sea and under full sail.
26.5.1
For day was beginning to dawn, and so, bereft of every hope, he fled back to the fortress with his wife, before the Romans could prevent him, though they saw him.
26.6.1
His children were seized and delivered to the Romans by Ion, who of old had been a favourite of Perseus, but now became his Betrayer, and furnished the most compelling reason for his coming, as a wild beast will do when its young have been captured, and surrendering himself to those who had them in their power.
26.7.1
Accordingly, having most confidence in Nasica, he called for him; but since Nasica was not there, after bewailing his misfortune and carefully weighing the necessity under which he lay, he gave himself into the power of Gnaeus, thus making it most abundantly clear that his avarice was a less ignoble evil than the love of life that was in him, and that led him to deprive himself of the only thing which Fortune cannot take away from the fallen, namely, pity.
26.8.1
For when at his request he was brought to Aemilius, Aemilius saw in him a great man whose fall was due to the resentment of the gods and his own evil fortune, and rose up and came to meet him, accompanied by his friends, and with tears in his eyes;
26.9.1
but Perseus, a most shameful sight, after throwing himself prone before him and then clasping his knees, broke out into ignoble cries and supplications. These Aemilius could not abide and would not hear; but looking upon him with a distressed and sorrowful countenance, said:
26.10.1
Why, wretched man, dost thou free Fortune from thy strongest indictment against her, by conduct which will make men think that thy misfortunes are not undeserved, and that thy former prosperity, rather than thy present lot, was beyond thy deserts?
26.11.1
And why dost thou depreciate my victory, and make my success a meagre one, by showing thyself no noble or even fitting antagonist for Romans?
26.12.1
Valour in the unfortunate obtains great reverence even among their enemies, but cowardice, in Roman eyes, even though it meet with success, is in every way a most dishonourable thing.
27.1.1
Notwithstanding his displeasure, he raised Perseus up, gave him his hand, and put him in charge of Tubero, while he himself drew his sons, his sons-in-law, and of the other officers especially the younger men, into his tent, where for a long time he sat in silent communion with himself, so that all wondered.
27.2.1
Then he began to discourse of Fortune and of human affairs, saying: Is it, then, fitting that one who is mortal should be emboldened when success comes to him, and have high thoughts because he has subdued a nation, or a city, or a kingdom? or should his thoughts dwell rather on this reversal of fortune, which sets before the warrior an illustration of the weakness that is common to all men, and teaches him to regard nothing as stable or safe?
27.3.1
For what occasion have men to be confident, when their conquest of others gives them most cogent reason to be in fear of Fortune, and when one who exults in success is thrown, as I am, into great dejection by reflecting upon the allotments of Fate, which take a circling course, and fall now upon some and now upon others?
27.4.1
Or, when the succession of Alexander, who attained the highest pinnacle of power and won the greatest might, has fallen in the space of a single hour and has been put beneath your feet, or when you see kings who but just now were surrounded by so many myriads of infantry and thousands of cavalry, receiving from their enemy’s hands the food and drink requisite for the day, can you suppose that we ourselves have any guarantee from Fortune that will avail against the attacks of time?
27.5.1
Abandon, then, young men, this empty insolence and pride of victory, and take a humble posture as you confront the future, always expectant of the time when the Deity shall at last launch against each one of you his jealous displeasure at your present prosperity.
27.6.1
Many such words were uttered by Aemilius, we are told, and he sent the young men away with their vainglorious insolence and pride well curbed by his trenchant speech, as by a bridle.
28.1.1
After this, he gave his army a chance to rest, while he himself went about to see Greece, occupying himself in ways alike honourable and humane.
28.2.1
For in his progress he restored the popular governments and established their civil polities; he also gave gifts to the cities, to some grain from the royal stores, to others oil.
28.3.1
For it is said that so great stores were found laid up that petitioners and receivers failed before the abundance discovered was exhausted.
28.4.1
At Delphi, he saw a tall square pillar composed of white marble stones, on which a golden statue of Perseus was intended to stand, and gave orders that his own statue should be set there, for it was meet that the conquered should make room for their conquerors.
28.5.1
And at Olympia, as they say, he made that utterance which is now in every mouth, that Pheidias had moulded the Zeus of Homer.
28.6.1
When the ten commissioners arrived from Rome, he restored to the Macedonians their country and their cities for free and independent residence; they were also to pay the Romans a hundred talents in tribute, a sum less than half of what they used to pay to their kings.
28.7.1
He also held all sorts of games and contests and performed sacrifices to the gods, at which he gave feasts and banquets, making liberal allowances therefor from the royal treasury, while in the arrangement and ordering of them, in saluting and seating his guests, and in paying to each one that degree of honour and kindly attention which was properly his due, he showed such nice and thoughtful perception that the Greeks were amazed,
28.8.1
seeing that not even their pastimes were treated by him with neglect, but that, although he was a man of such great affairs, he gave even to trifling things their due attention.
28.9.1
And he was also delighted to find that, though preparations for entertainment were ever so many and splendid, he himself was the pleasantest sight to his guests and gave them most enjoyment; and he used to say to those who wondered at his attention to details that the same spirit was required both in marshalling a line of battle and in presiding at a banquet well, the object being, in the one case, to cause most terror in the enemy, in the other, to give most pleasure to the company.
28.10.1
But more than anything else men praised his freedom of spirit and his greatness of soul; for he would not consent even to look upon the quantities of silver and the quantities of gold that were gathered together from the royal treasuries, but handed them over to the quaestors for the public chest.
28.11.1
It was only the books of the king that he allowed his sons, who were devoted to learning, to choose out for themselves, and when he was distributing rewards for valour in the battle, he gave Aelius Tubero, his son-in-law, a bowl of five pounds weight.
28.12.1
This was the Tubero, who, as I have said, dwelt with fifteen relations, and a paltry farm supported them all.
28.13.1
And that is said to have been the first silver that ever entered the house of the Aelii, brought in as an honour bestowed upon valour, but up to that time neither they themselves nor their wives used either silver or gold.
29.1.1
When he had put everything in good order, had bidden the Greeks farewell, and had exhorted the Macedonians to be mindful of the freedom bestowed upon them by the Romans and preserve it by good order and concord, he marched against Epirus, having an order from the senate to give the soldiers who had fought with him the battle against Perseus the privilege of pillaging the cities there.
29.2.1
Wishing to set upon the inhabitants all at once and suddenly, when no one expected it, he sent for the ten principal men of each city, and ordered them to bring in on a fixed day whatever silver and gold they had in their houses and temples.
29.3.1
He also sent with each of these bodies, as if for this very purpose, a guard of soldiers and an officer, who pretended to search for and receive the money.
29.4.1
But when the appointed day came, at one and the same time these all set out to overrun and pillage the cities, so that in a single hour a hundred and fifty thousand persons were made slaves, and seventy cities were sacked;
29.5.1
and yet from all this destruction and utter ruin each soldier received no more than eleven drachmas as his share, and all men shuddered at the issue of the war, when the division of a whole nation’s substance resulted in so slight a gain and profit for each soldier.
30.1.1
Aemilius, then, after executing a commission so contrary to his mild and generous nature, went down to Oricus.
30.2.1
From there he crossed into Italy with his forces, and sailed up the river Tiber on the royal galley, which had sixteen banks of oars and was richly adorned with captured arms and cloths of scarlet and purple,
30.3.1
so that the Romans actually came in throngs from out the city, as it were to some spectacle of triumphant progress whose pleasures they were enjoying in advance, and followed along the banks as the splashing oars sent the ship slowly up the stream.
30.4.1
But the soldiers, who had cast longing eyes upon the royal treasures, since they had not got as much as they thought they deserved, were secretly enraged on this account and bitterly disposed towards Aemilius, while openly they accused him of having been harsh and imperious in his command of them; they were therefore not very ready to second his eager desires for a triumph.
30.5.1
And when Servius Galba, who was an enemy of Aemilius, although he had been one of his military tribunes, perceived this, he made bold to declare openly that the triumph ought not to be allowed him.
30.6.1
He also sowed many calumnies against their general among the masses of the soldiery, and roused still further the resentment they already felt, and then asked the tribunes of the people for another day in which to bring his accusations, since that day was not sufficient, of which only four hours still remained.
30.7.1
But when the tribunes ordered him to speak, if he had anything to say, he began a speech which was long and full of all sorts of injurious statements, and so consumed the time remaining in the day.
30.8.1
When darkness came, the tribunes dissolved the assembly, but the soldiers, now grown bolder, flocked to Galba, formed themselves into a faction, and before it was light proceeded to take possession of the Capitol; for it was there that the tribunes proposed to hold the assembly.
31.1.1
As soon as it was day the voting began, and the first tribe was voting against the triumph, when knowledge of the matter was brought down to the rest of the people and the senate.
31.2.1
The multitude, deeply grieved at the indignity offered to Aemilius, could only cry out against it in vain; but the most prominent senators, with shouts against the ignominy of the thing, exhorted one another to attack the bold license of the soldiers, which would proceed to any and every deed of lawlessness and violence if nothing were done to prevent their depriving Aemilius Paulus of the honours of his victory.
31.3.1
Then pushing their way through the throng and going up to the Capitol in a body, they told the tribunes to put a stop to the voting until they could finish what they wished to say to the people.
31.4.1
All voting stopped, silence was made, and Marcus Servilius, a man of consular dignity, and one who had slain twenty-three foes in single combat, came forward and said that he knew now better than ever before how great a commander Aemilius Paulus was, when he saw how full of baseness and disobedience the army was which he had used in the successful accomplishment of such great and fair exploits;
31.5.1
and he was amazed that the people, while exulting in triumphs over Illyrians and Ligurians, begrudged itself the sight of the king of Macedonia taken alive and the glory of Alexander and Philip made spoil by Roman arms.
31.6.1
For is it not a strange thing, said he, that when an unsubstantial rumour of victory came suddenly and prematurely to the city, you sacrificed to the gods and prayed that this report might speedily be verified before your eyes; but now that your general is come with his real victory, you rob the gods of their honour, and yourselves of your joy in it, as though afraid to behold the magnitude of his successes, or seeking to spare the feelings of your enemy? And yet it were better that out of pity towards him, and not out of envy towards your general, the triumph should be done away with.
31.7.1
But, said he, to such great power is malice brought by you that a man without a wound to show, and whose person is sleek from delicate and cowardly effeminacy, dares to talk about the conduct of a general and his triumph to us who have been taught by all these wounds to judge the valour and the cowardice of generals.
31.8.1
And with the words he parted his garment and displayed upon his breast an incredible number of wounds. Then wheeling about, he uncovered some parts of his person which it is thought unbecoming to have naked in a crowd, and turning to Galba, said:
31.9.1
Thou laughest at these scars, but I glory in them before my fellow-citizens, in whose defence I got them, riding night and day without ceasing.
31.10.1
But come, take these people off to their voting; and I will come down and follow along with them all, and will learn who are base and thankless and prefer to be wheedled and flattered in war rather than commanded.
32.1.1
This speech, they tell us, so rebuffed the soldiery and changed their minds that the triumph was voted to Aemilius by all the tribes.
32.2.1
And it was conducted, they say, after the following fashion. The people erected scaffoldings in the theatres for equestrian contests, which they call circuses, and round the forum, occupied the other parts of the city which afforded a view of the procession, and witnessed the spectacle arrayed in white garments.
32.3.1
Every temple was open and filled with garlands and incense, while numerous servitors and lictors restrained the thronging and scurrying crowds and kept the streets open and clear.
32.4.1
Three days were assigned for the triumphal procession. The first barely sufficed for the exhibition of the captured statues, paintings, and colossal figures, which were carried on two hundred and fifty chariots.
32.5.1
On the second, the finest and richest of the Macedonian arms were borne along in many waggons. The arms themselves glittered with freshly polished bronze and steel, and were carefully and artfully arranged to look exactly as though they had been piled together in heaps and at random,
32.6.1
helmets lying upon shields and breast-plates upon greaves, while Cretan targets and Thracian wicker shields and quivers were mixed up with horses’ bridles, and through them projected naked swords and long Macedonian spears planted among them,
32.7.1
all the arms being so loosely packed that they smote against each other as they were borne along and gave out a harsh and dreadful sound, and the sight of them, even though they were spoils of a conquered enemy, was not without its terrors.
32.8.1
After the waggons laden with armour there followed three thousand men carrying coined silver in seven hundred and fifty vessels, each of which contained three talents and was borne by four men,
32.9.1
while still other men carried mixing-bowls of silver, drinking horns, bowls, and cups, all well arranged for show and excelling in size and in the depth of their carved ornaments.
33.1.1
On the third day, as soon as it was morning, trumpeters led the way, sounding out no marching or processional strain, but such a one as the Romans use to rouse themselves to battle.
33.2.1
After these there were led along a hundred and twenty stall-fed oxen with gilded horns, bedecked with fillets and garlands. Those who led these victims to the sacrifice were young men wearing aprons with handsome borders, and boys attended them carrying gold and silver vessels of libation.
33.3.1
Next, after these, came the carriers of the coined gold, which, like the silver, was portioned out into vessels containing three talents; and the number of these vessels was eighty lacking three.
33.4.1
After these followed the bearers of the consecrated bowl, which Aemilius had caused to be made of ten talents of gold and adorned with precious stones, and then those who displayed the bowls known as Antigonids and Seleucids and Theracleian, together with all the gold plate of Perseus’s table.
33.5.1
These were followed by the chariot of Perseus, which bore his arms, and his diadem lying upon his arms.
33.6.1
Then, at a little interval, came the children of the king, led along as slaves, and with them a throng of foster-parents, teachers, and tutors, all in tears, stretching out their own hands to the spectators and teaching the children to beg and supplicate.
33.7.1
There were two boys, and one girl, and they were not very conscious of the magnitude of their evils because of their tender age;
33.8.1
wherefore they evoked even more pity in view of the time when their unconsciousness would cease, so that Perseus walked along almost unheeded, while the Romans, moved by compassion, kept their eyes upon the children, and many of them shed tears, and for all of them the pleasure of the spectacle was mingled with pain, until the children had passed by.
34.1.1
Behind the children and their train of attendants walked Perseus himself, clad in a dark robe and wearing the high boots of his country, but the magnitude of his evils made him resemble one who is utterly dumbfounded and bewildered.
34.2.1
He, too, was followed by a company of friends and intimates, whose faces were heavy with grief, and whose tearful gaze continually fixed upon Perseus gave the spectators to understand that it was his misfortune which they bewailed, and that their own fate least of all concerned them.
34.3.1
And yet Perseus had sent to Aemilius begging not to be led in the procession and asking to be left out of the triumph. But Aemilius, in mockery, as it would seem, of the king’s cowardice and love of life, had said: But this at least was in his power before, and is so now, if he should wish it,
34.4.1
signifying death in preference to disgrace; for this, however, the coward had not the heart, but was made weak by no one knows what hopes, and became a part of his own spoils.
34.5.1
Next in order to these were carried wreaths of gold, four hundred in number, which the cities had sent with their embassies to Aemilius as prizes for his victory.
34.6.1
Next, mounted on a chariot of magnificent adornment, came Aemilius himself, a man worthy to be looked upon even without such marks of power, wearing a purple robe interwoven with gold, and holding forth in his right hand a spray of laurel.
34.7.1
The whole army also carried sprays of laurel, following the chariot of their general by companies and divisions, and singing, some of them divers songs intermingled with jesting, as the ancient custom was, and others paeans of victory and hymns in praise of the achievements of Aemilius, who was gazed upon and admired by all, and envied by no one that was good.
34.8.1
But after all there is, as it seems, a divinity whose province it is to diminish whatever prosperity is inordinately great, and to mingle the affairs of human life, that no one may be without a taste of evil and wholly free from it, but that, as Homer says, those may be thought to fare best whose fortunes incline now one way and now another.
35.1.1
For Aemilius had four sons, of whom two, as I have already said, had been adopted into other families, namely, Scipio and Fabius; and two sons still boys, the children of a second wife, whom he had in his own house.
35.2.1
One of these, fourteen years of age, died five days before Aemilius celebrated his triumph, and the death of the other, who was twelve years of age, followed three days after the triumph,
35.3.1
so that there was no Roman who did not share the father’s grief; nay, they all shuddered at the cruelty of Fortune, seeing that she had not scrupled to bring such great sorrow into a house that was full of gratulations, joy, and sacrifices, or to mingle lamentations and tears with paeans of victory and triumphs.
36.1.1
Aemilius, notwithstanding, rightly considering that men have need of bravery and courage, not only against arms and long spears, but against every onset of Fortune as well, so adapted and adjusted the mingled circumstances of his lot that the bad was lost sight of in the good, and his private sorrow in the public welfare, thus neither lowering the grandeur nor sullying the dignity of his victory.
36.2.1
The first of his sons who died he buried, and immediately afterwards celebrated the triumph, as I have said; and when the second died, after the triumph, he gathered the Roman people into an assembly and spoke to them as a man who did not ask for comfort, but rather sought to comfort his fellow-citizens in their distress over his own misfortunes.
36.3.1
He said, namely, that he had never dreaded any human agency, but among agencies that were divine he had ever feared Fortune, believing her to be a most untrustworthy and variable thing; and since in this war particularly she had attended his undertakings like a prosperous gale, as it were, he had never ceased to expect some change and some reversal of the current of affairs.
36.4.1
For in one day, said he, I crossed the Ionian Sea from Brundisium and put in at Corcyra; thence, in five days, I came to Delphi and sacrificed to the god; and again, in other five days, I took command of the forces in Macedonia, and after the usual lustration and review of them I proceeded at once to action, and in other fifteen days brought the war to the most glorious issue.
36.5.1
But I distrusted Fortune because the current of my affairs ran so smoothly, and now that there was complete immunity and nothing to fear from hostile attacks, it was particularly during my voyage home that I feared the reversal of the Deity’s favour after all my good fortune, since I was bringing home so large a victorious army, such spoils, and captured kings.
36.6.1
Nay more, even when I had reached you safely and beheld the city full of delight and gratulation and sacrifices, I was still suspicious of Fortune, knowing that she bestows upon men no great boon that is without alloy or free from divine displeasure.
36.7.1
Indeed, my soul was in travail with this fear and could not dismiss it and cease anxiously forecasting the city’s future, until I was smitten with this great misfortune in my own house, and in days consecrated to rejoicing had carried two most noble sons, who alone remained to be my heirs, one after the other to their graves.
36.8.1
Now, therefore, I am in no peril of what most concerned me, and am confident, and I think that Fortune will remain constant to our city and do her no harm.
36.9.1
For that deity has sufficiently used me and my afflictions to satisfy the divine displeasure at our successes, and she makes the hero of the triumph as clear an example of human weakness as the victim of the triumph; except that Perseus, even though conquered, has his children, while Aemilius, though conqueror, has lost his.
37.1.1
With such noble and lofty words, we are told, did Aemilius, from an unfeigned and sincere spirit, address the people.
37.2.1
But for Perseus, although he pitied him for his changed lot and was very eager to help him, he could obtain no other favour than a removal from the prison which the Romans called carcer to a clean place and kindlier treatment; and there, being closely watched, according to most writers the king starved himself to death. But some tell of a very unusual and peculiar way in which he died, as follows.
37.3.1
The soldiers who guarded his person found some fault with him and got angry at him, and since they could not vex and injure him in any other way, they prevented him from sleeping, disturbing his repose by their assiduous attentions and keeping him awake by every possible artifice, until in this way he was worn out and died.
37.4.1
Two of his children also died. But the third, Alexander, is said to have become expert in embossing and fine metal work; he also learned to write and speak the Roman language, and was secretary to the magistrates, in which office he proved himself to have skill and elegance.

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