his country and be consul. He at first treated the people with little respect, and shunned their eager professions of zeal, on the plea that he did not wish for the command; but as they waited on him daily, and called for him to come into the forum and shouted his name, he was at length prevailed upon. When a candidate, he seemed to enter the field not with a view to getting office, but to giving victory and strength in battle to his fellow-citizens; with such zeal and confidence did they unanimously elect him consul for the second time, not permitting lots to be cast for provinces by the two consuls, as is usual, but at once decreeing to him the management of the Macedonian war. It is said that when he was named general against Perseus, he was escorted home in triumph by the people _en masse_, and found his daughter Tertia, who was quite a little child, in tears. He embraced her, and asked her why she was crying; and she, throwing her arms round him and kissing him, said, "Do you not know, father, that our Perseus is dead?" meaning a little dog which she had brought up, which was so named. Aemilius said, "May this bring good luck, my daughter: I accept the omen." This story Cicero the orator tells in his book on Divination.
XI. It being the custom that the consuls-elect should return thanks, and make a gracious speech to the people from the rostrum, Aemilius called together the people and said that he had sought for his former consulship because he wanted office, but for this one because they wanted a general: wherefore he felt no gratitude towards them, but would lay down his consulship if they thought that they would succeed better in the war under some one else; but if they felt confidence in him, he asked them not to interfere with his acts as general, nor to gossip about him, but to furnish quietly what was wanted for the war; for if they tried to command their commander they would afford even a more sorry spectacle than they had already done. By these words he made the citizens stand greatly in awe of him, and gave them great expectations of what he would effect, while all rejoiced that they had passed over those who used to flatter them, and had chosen a general of independence and spirit. So much did the Roman people respect bravery and honour, because it led to conquests, and to making them masters of the world.
XII. I consider it to have been by divine favour that Aemilius Paulus on starting for his campaign met with such a fortunate and calm voyage, and so speedily and safely arrived at the camp; but as to the war itself, and his conduct of it, accomplished as it was partly by swift daring, partly by wise dispositions, by the valour of friends, confidence in the midst of dangers, and reliance on sound plans, I cannot tell of any glorious and distinguished exploit, which, as in the case of other generals, owed its success to his good fortune; unless, indeed, any one should count as good fortune for Aemilius the avarice of Perseus, which destroyed the great and well-founded hopes of the Macedonians in the war, and brought them to ruin by the meanness of their chief. At his request there came a force of Basternae, a thousand horse and ten thousand light troops who fought with them, all mercenary soldiers--men who knew nothing of tilling the soil, or of sailing the sea, who did not live from the produce of their flocks, but who studied one art and business solely, ever to fight and overcome their antagonists. So, when in the camp at Maedike, these men mixed with the king's troops, tall in their person, admirable in their drill, boastful and haughty in their defiance of the foe, they gave confidence to the Macedonians, and made them think that the Romans never could withstand their attack, but would be terrified at their appearance and march, outlandish and ferocious as it was. But Perseus, now that he had got such auxiliaries as these, and put his men into such heart, because he was asked for a thousand staters for each officer, became bewildered at the amount of the sum which he would have to pay, and his meanness prevailing over his reason, refused their offers, and broke off the alliance, as if he had been steward of his kingdom for the Romans rather than fighting against them, and had to give an exact account of his expenses in the war to his enemies; though he might have been taught by them, who had besides other war materials, a hundred thousand soldiers collected together ready for use. Yet he, when engaged in war with such a power as this, where such great forces were kept on foot to contend with him, kept doling out and sparing his money as if it were not his own. And still he was not a Lydian or Phoenician, but a man who from his descent ought to have had a share of the spirit of Philip and Alexander, who made all their conquests by the principle that empire may be gained by gold, not gold by empire. It used, indeed, to be a proverb that "It is not Philip, but Philip's gold that takes the cities of Greece." Alexander, too, when beginning his Indian campaign, seeing the Macedonians laboriously dragging along the rich and unwieldy plunder of the Persians, first burned all the royal carriages, and then persuaded the soldiers to do the like with their own, and start for the war as light as if they had shaken off a burden.
But Perseus, when spending his own money to defend himself, his children, and his kingdom, rather than sacrifice a little and win, preferred to be taken to Rome with many others, a rich captive, and show the Romans how much he had saved for them.
XIII. For not only did he dismiss the Gauls and break his word to them, but after inducing Genthius the Illyrian to take part in the war for a bribe of three hundred talents, he lodged the money with that prince's envoys, all counted, and let them put their seals upon it. Genthius then thinking that he had got what he asked, did a wicked and impious deed in seizing and throwing into prison some Roman ambassadors who were sent to him. Perseus, thinking that Genthius no longer needed money to make him hostile to Rome, since he had given him such a pledge of his hatred of it, and had involved himself in war with it by such a crime, deprived the poor man of his three hundred talents, and shortly afterwards looked calmly on while he and his family were plucked out of their kingdom, like birds out of a nest, by Lucius Anicius, who was sent with an army against him. Aemilius, when he came to contend with such a rival as this, despised him as a man, but was surprised at the force which he had at his disposal. These were four thousand cavalry, and of infantry soldiers of the Macedonian phalanx nearly forty thousand. Encamped by the sea-shore, near the skirts of Mount Olympus, on ground nowhere accessible, and strongly fortified by himself with outworks and defences of wood, Perseus lived in careless security, thinking that by time and expense he should wear out Aemilius's attack. But he, while he busied his mind with every possible mode of assault, perceiving that his army in consequence of its past want of discipline was impatient, and usurped the general's province by proposing all sorts of wild schemes, severely reprimanded the soldiers, and ordered them not to meddle with what was not their concern, but only take care that they and their arms were ready, and to use their swords as Romans should when their general should give the word. He ordered the night sentries to go on guard without their spears, that they might be more attentive and less inclined to sleep, having no arms to defend themselves against the enemy.
XIV. The army was chiefly troubled by want of water; for only a very little bad water ran or rather dripped out of a spring near the sea.
Aemilius perceiving that Olympus, immediately above him, was a large and well-wooded mountain, and guessing from the greenness of the foliage that it must contain some springs which had their courses underground, dug many pits and wells along the skirts of the mountain, which immediately were filled with pure water, which by the pressure above was driven into these vacant spaces. Yet some say that there are no hidden fountains of water, lying ready in such places as these, and say that it is not because they are dug out or broken into that they flow, but that they have their origin and cause in the saturation of the surrounding earth which becomes saturated by its close texture and coldness, acting upon the moist vapours, which when pressed together low down turn into water. For just as women's breasts are not receptacles full of milk ready to flow, but change the nutriment which is in them into milk, and so supply it, so also the cold places which are full of springs have no water concealed in them, nor any such reservoirs as would be needed to send out deep rivers from any fixed point, but by their pressure they convert the air and vapour which is in them into water. At any rate, those places which are dug over break more into springs and run more with water, in answer to this treatment of their surface, just as women's breasts respond to sucking, for it moistens and softens the vapour; whereas land which is not worked is incapable of producing water, not having the motion by which moisture is obtained. Those who argue thus have given sceptics the opportunity of saying, that if it be true, there can be no blood in animals, but that it gathers about wounds, and that the flow of blood is produced by the air, or some change which takes place in the flesh. They are proved to be wrong by those who sink shafts for mines, and meet with rivers in the depths of the earth, which have not collected themselves by degrees, as would be the case if they derived their origin from the sudden movements of the earth, but flow with a full stream. Also, when mountains and rocks are fissured by a blow, there springs out a gush of water, which afterwards ceases. But enough of this.
XV. Aemilius remained quiet for some days, and it is said two such great hosts never were so near together and so quiet. After exploring and trying every place he discovered that there was still one pass unguarded, that, namely, through Perrhaebae by Pythium and Petra. He called a council of war to consider this, being himself more hopeful of success that way, as the place was not watched, than alarmed at the precipices on account of which the enemy neglected it. First of those present, Scipio, surnamed Nasica, son-in-law to Scipio Africanus, afterwards a leading man in the Senate, volunteered to lead the party which was to make this circuitous attack. And next Fabius Maximus, the eldest of the sons of Aemilius, though still only a youth, rose and spiritedly offered his services. Aemilius, delighted, placed under their command not so many troops as Polybius says in his history, but so many as Nasica himself tells us that he had, in a letter which he wrote to one of the princes of that region about this affair. He had three thousand Italians, besides his main body, and five thousand who composed the left wing. Besides these, Nasica took a hundred and twenty horse, and two hundred of Harpalus's light troops, Thracians and Cretans mixed.
He began his march along the road towards the sea, and encamped near the temple of Herakles, as though he intended to sail round to the other side of the enemy's camp, and so surround him: but when the soldiers had supped, and it was dark, he explained his real plan to his officers, marched all night away from the sea, and halted his men for rest near the temple of Apollo. At this place Olympus is more than ten furlongs high: and this is proved by the epigram which the measurer wrote as follows: "The height of Olympus' crest at the temple of Pythian Apollo consists of (measured by the plumb line) ten stades, and besides a hundred feet all but four. It was Xenagoras, the son of Eumelus, who discovered its height. King Apollo, hail to thee; be thou propitious to us."
And yet geometricians say that neither the height of any mountain nor the depth of any sea is above ten stades (furlongs). However, Xenophanes did not take its altitude conjecturally, but by a proper method with instruments.
XVI. Here then Nasica halted. Perseus in the morning saw Aemilius's army quiet in its place, and would have had no idea of what was going on had not a Cretan deserter come and told him of the flank march of the Romans. Then he became alarmed, but still did not disturb his camp, but, placing ten thousand foreign mercenaries and two thousand Macedonians under the command of Milo, ordered him to march swiftly and occupy the passes. Now Polybius says that the Romans fell upon these men when they were in their beds, but Nasica tells us that a sharp and dangerous conflict took place upon the heights. He himself was assailed by a Thracian, but struck him through the breast with his spear. However, the enemy were forced back; Milo most shamefully fled in his shirt, without his arms, and Scipio was able to follow, and at the same time lead his forces on to level ground. Perseus, terrified and despairing when he saw them, at once broke up his camp and retreated. But still he was obliged either to give battle before Pydna, or else to disperse his army among the various cities of the kingdom, and so to await the Romans, who, being once entered into his country, could not be driven out without much slaughter and bloodshed. It was urged by his friends that he had a great numerical superiority, and that the troops would fight desperately in defence of their wives and families, especially if their king took the command and shared their danger. He pitched his camp and prepared for battle, viewed the ground, and arranged the commands, intending to set upon the Romans as soon as they appeared. Now the position both possessed a flat plain for the manoeuvres of the phalanx, which requires level ground, and also hills rising one above another offered refuges and means for outflanking the enemy to his light troops. Also two rivers, the Aeson and Leukus, which ran across as it, though not very deep at that season (late autumn), were expected to give some trouble to the Romans.
XVII. Aemilius, on effecting a junction with Nasica, marched in battle array against the enemy. When, however, he saw their position and their numbers, he halted in surprise, considering within himself what he should do. His young officers, eager for battle, rode up to him and begged him not to delay. Conspicuous among these was Nasica, excited by his successful flank march round Olympus. Aemilius smiled at them and answered, "I would do so if I were of your age, but many victories have shown me the mistakes of the vanquished, and prevent my attacking a body of men drawn up in a chosen position with troops on the march and undeployed." He gave orders that those troops who were in front should gather together and appear to be forming in battle array, while those who were behind pitched their palisades and fortified a camp. Then by wheeling off men by degrees from the front line, he gradually broke up his line of battle, and quietly drew all his forces within the ramparts of his camp. When night fell, and after supper the army had betaken itself to sleep and rest, suddenly the moon, which was full and high in the heavens, became obscured, changed colour, and became totally eclipsed. The Romans, after their custom, called for her to shine again by clattering with brass vessels, and uplifting blazing faggots and torches. The Macedonians did nothing of the sort, but dismay spread over their camp, and they muttered under their breath that this portended the eclipse of their king. Now Aemilius was not unacquainted with the phenomena of eclipses, which result from the moon being at fixed periods brought into the shadow of the earth and darkened, until it passes the obscured tract and is again enlightened by the sun, yet being very devout and learned in divination, he offered to her a sacrifice of eleven calves. At daybreak he sacrificed twenty oxen to Herakles without obtaining a favourable response; but with the one-and-twentieth favourable signs appeared and portents of victory for them, provided they did not attack. He then vowed a hecatomb and sacred games in honour of the god, and ordered his officers to arrange the men in line of battle. But he waited till the sun declined and drew towards the west, that his troops might not fight with the morning sun in their eyes. He passed away the day sitting in his tent, which was pitched looking towards the flat country and the camp of the enemy.
XVIII. Some writers tell us, that about evening, by a device of Aemilius, the battle was begun by the enemy, the Romans having driven a horse without a bridle out of their camp and then tried to catch it, from which pursuit the battle began; but others say that Roman soldiers who were carrying fodder for the cattle were set upon by the Thracians under Alexander, and that to repel them a vigorous sortie was made with seven hundred Ligurians; that many on both sides came up to help their comrades, and so the battle began. Aemilius, like a pilot, seeing by the motion and disturbance of his camp that a storm was at hand, came out of his tent, and going along the lines of the infantry spoke encouraging words to them, while Nasica, riding up to the skirmishers, saw the whole army of the enemy just on the point of attacking. First marched the Thracians, whose aspect they saw was most terrible, as they were tall men, dressed in dark tunics, with large oblong shields and greaves of glittering white, brandishing aloft long heavy swords over their right shoulders. Next to the Thracians were the mercenaries, variously armed, and mixed with Paeonians. After these came a third corps, of Macedonians, picked men of proved courage, and in the flower of their age, glittering with gilded arms and new purple dresses. Behind them again came the phalanxes from the camp with their brazen shields, filling all the plain with the glittering of their armour, and making the hills ring with their shouts. So swiftly and boldly did they advance that those who were first slain fell two furlongs only from the Roman camp.
XIX. When the battle began, Aemilius came up, and found the front ranks of the Macedonians had struck their spear-heads into the Roman shields, so that they could not reach them with their swords. When also the other Macedonians took their shields off their shoulders and placed them in front, and then at the word of command all brought down their pikes, he, viewing the great strength of that serried mass of shields, and the menacing look of the spears that bristled before them, was amazed and terrified, having never seen a more imposing spectacle--and often afterwards he used to speak of that sight, and of his own feelings at it. At the time, however, he put on a cheerful and hopeful look, and rode along the ranks showing himself to the men without helmet or cuirass. But the Macedonian king, according to Polybius, having joined battle, was seized with a fit of cowardice, and rode off to the city on the pretext that he was going to sacrifice to Herakles, a god unlikely to receive the base offerings of cowards or to fulfil their unreasonable prayers; for it is not reasonable that he who does not shoot should hit the mark, nor that he who does not stand fast at his post should win the day, or that the helpless man should succeed or the coward prosper. But the god heard the prayers of Aemilius, for he prayed for victory whilst fighting, sword in hand, and invited the god into the battle to aid him.
Not but what one Poseidonius, who says that he took part in these transactions, and wrote a history of Perseus in many volumes, says that it was not from cowardice, or on the pretext of offering sacrifice that he left the field, but that on the day before the battle he was kicked on the leg by a horse; that in the battle, though in great pain, and entreated by his friends to desist, he ordered a horse to be brought, and without armour rode up to the phalanx. Here as many missiles were flying about from both sides, an iron javelin struck him, not fairly with its point, but it ran obliquely down his left side, tearing his tunic, and causing a dark bruise on his flesh, the scar of which was long visible. This is what Poseidonius urges in defence of Perseus.
XX. Now as the Romans when they met the phalanx could make no impression upon it, Salovius, the leader of the Pelignians, seized the standard of his regiment and threw it among the enemy. The Pelignians, as the loss of a standard is thought to be a crime and an impiety by all Italians, rushed to the place, and a fierce conflict began there with terrible slaughter. The one party tried to dash aside the long spears with their swords, and to push them with their shields, and to seize them away with their very hands, while the Macedonians, wielding their spears with both hands, drove them through their opponents, armour and all: for no shield or corslet could resist their thrust. They then cast over their own heads the bodies of these Pelignians and Marrucini, who pressed madly like wild creatures up to the line of spears and certain death. When the first rank fell in this manner, those behind gave way: it cannot be said that they fled, but they retreated to a mountain called Olokrus.
Poseidonius tells us that Aemilius tore his clothes in despair at seeing these men give ground, while the other Romans were confounded at the phalanx, which could not be assailed, but with its close line of spears, like a palisade, offered no point for attack. But when he saw that, from the inequalities of the ground, and the length of their line, the Macedonian phalanx did not preserve its alignment, and was breaking into gaps and breaches, as is natural should happen in a great army, according to the different attacks of the combatants, who made it bulge inwards in one place, and outward in another, then he came swiftly up, and dividing his men into companies, ordered them to force their way into the spaces and intervals of the enemy's line, and to make their attack, not in any one place all together, but in several, as they were broken up into several bodies. As soon as Aemilius had given these instructions to the officers, who communicated them to the men, they charged into the spaces, and at once some attacked the now helpless Macedonians in flank, while others got into their rear and cut them off.
The phalanx dissolved immediately, and with it was lost all the power and mutual assistance which it gave. Fighting in single combats or small groups, the Macedonians struck in vain with their little daggers at the strong shields reaching to their feet carried by the Romans. Their light targets could ill ward off the blows of the Roman sword, which cut right through all their defensive armour. After a useless resistance they turned and fled.
XXI. But the fight was a sharp one. Here Marcus, the son of Cato, Aemilius's son-in-law, whilst fighting with great valour let fall his sword. Educated as he had been in the strictest principles of honour, and owing it to such a father to give extraordinary proofs of courage, he thought that life would be intolerable for him if he allowed an enemy to carry off such a trophy from him, and ran about calling upon every friend or acquaintance whom he saw to help him to recover it. Many brave men thus assembled, and with one accord left the rest of the army and followed him. After a sharp conflict and much slaughter, they succeeded in driving the enemy from the ground, and having thus chased it, they betook themselves to searching for the sword. When at last after much trouble it was found among the heaps of arms and corpses, they were overjoyed, and with a shout assailed those of the enemy who still resisted. At length the three thousand picked men were all slain fighting in their ranks. A great slaughter took place among the others as they fled, so that the plain and the skirts of the hills were covered with corpses, and the stream of the river Leukus ran red with blood even on the day after the battle; for, indeed, it is said that more than twenty-five thousand men perished. Of the Romans there fell a hundred, according to Poseidonius, but Nasica says only eighty.
XXII. This battle, fraught with such important issues, was decided in a remarkably short time; beginning to fight at the ninth hour, the Romans were victorious before the tenth. The remainder of the day was occupied in pursuit, which being pressed for some fifteen (English) miles, it was late before they returned to their camp. All the officers on their return were met by their servants with torches, and conducted with songs of triumph to their tents, which were illuminated and wreathed with ivy and laurel; but the general himself was deeply dejected. The youngest of the two sons who were serving under him--his own favourite, the noblest of all his children in character--was nowhere to be found; and it was feared that, being high-spirited and generous, though but a boy in years, he must have become mixed up with the enemy, and so perished. The whole army learned the cause of his sorrow and perplexity, and quitting their suppers, ran about with torches, some to the tent of Aemilius, and some outside the camp to look for him among the corpses. The whole camp was filled with sorrow, and all the plain with noise, covered as it was with men shouting for Scipio--for he had won all hearts from the very beginning, having beyond all his kinsfolk the power of commanding the affections of men. Very late at night, after he had been all but given up for lost, he came in with two or three comrades, covered with the blood of the enemies he had slain, having, like a well-bred hound, been thoughtlessly carried along by the joy of the chase. This was that Scipio who afterwards took by storm Carthage and Numantia, and became by far the most famous and powerful of all the Romans of his time. So fortune, deferring to another season the expression of her jealousy at his success, now permitted Aemilius to take an unalloyed pleasure in his victory.
XXIII. Perseus fled from Pydna to Pella, his cavalry having, as one would expect, all got safe out of the action. But when the infantry met them, they abused them as cowards and traitors, and began to push them from their horses and deal them blows, and so Perseus, terrified at the disturbance, forsook the main road, and to avoid detection took off his purple robe and laid it before him, and carried his crown in his hand; and, that he might talk to his friends as he walked, he got off his horse, and led him. But one of them made excuse that he must tie his shoes, another that he must water his horse, another that he must get himself a drink, and so they gradually fell off from him and left him, not fearing the rage of the enemy so much as his cruelty: for, exasperated by his defeat, he tried to fasten the blame of it upon others instead of himself. When he came to Pella, his treasurers Euktus and Eulaeus met him and blamed him for what had happened, and in an outspoken and unseasonable way gave him advice: at which he was so much enraged that he stabbed them both dead with his dagger. After this no one stayed with him except Evander a Cretan, Archedamus an Aetolian, and Neon a Boeotian. Of the common soldiers the Cretans followed him, not from any love they bore him, but being as eager for his riches as bees are for honey. For he carried great store of wealth with him, and out of it distributed among the Cretans cups and bowls and other gold and silver plate to the amount of fifty talents. But when he reached first Amphipolis, and then Galepsus, and had got a little the better of his fears, his old malady of meanness attacked him, and he would complain to his friends that he had flung some of the drinking cups of Alexander the Great to the Cretans by mistake, and entreated with tears those who had them to give back and take the value in money. Those who understood his character were not taken in by this attempt to play the Cretan with men of Crete, but some believed him and lost their cups for nothing. For he never paid the money, but having swindled his friends out of thirty talents, which soon fell into the hands of the enemy, he sailed with the money to Samothrace, and took sanctuary in the temple of the Dioskuri as a suppliant.
XXIV. The people of Macedon have always been thought to love their kings, but now, as if some main prop had broken, and the whole edifice of government fallen to the ground, they gave themselves up to Aemilius, and in two days constituted him master of the entire kingdom. This seems to confirm the opinion of those who say that these successes were owing to especial good fortune: and the incident of the sacrifice also was clearly sent from Heaven. For when Aemilius was offering sacrifice at Amphipolis, when the sacred rites had been performed, lightning came down upon the altar, and burned up the offering. But in its miraculous character and good luck the swiftness with which the news spread surpasses all these; for on the fourth day after Perseus had been vanquished at Pydna, while the people at Rome were assembled at a horse race, suddenly there arose amongst them a rumour that Aemilius had defeated Perseus in a great battle and had subdued all Macedonia. This report soon spread among the populace, who expressed their joy by applause and shouts throughout the city all that day. Afterwards, as the report could be traced to no trustworthy source, but was merely repeated among them vaguely, it was disbelieved and came to nothing; but in a few days they learned the real story, and wondered at the rumour which had preceded it, combining truth with falsehood.
XXV. There is a legend that the news of the battle on the river Sagra in Italy against the natives was carried the same day into Peloponnesus, and that of the battle of Mykale against the Medes was so carried to Plataea. The victory of the Romans over the Latins under the exiled Tarquins was reported at Rome a little after it took place, by two men, tall and fair, who came from the army. These men they conjectured to have been the Dioskuri (Castor and Pollux). The first man who fell in with them as they stood in the forum, near the fountain, found them washing their horses, which were covered with sweat. He marvelled much at their tale of the victory; and then they are said to have smiled serenely and stroked his beard, which instantly changed from black to yellow, thus causing his story to be believed, besides winning for him the soubriquet of Ahenobarbus, which means 'brazen beard.' But that which happened in our own time will make all these credible. When Antonius rebelled against Domitian, and a great war in Germany was expected, Rome was greatly disturbed till suddenly there arose among the people a rumour of victory, and a story ran through Rome that Antonius himself was killed, and that the army under him had been utterly exterminated. And this report was so clear and forcible, that many of the magistrates offered sacrifice for the victory. When the originator of it was sought for, as he could not be found, but the story when traced from one man to another was lost in the vast crowd as if in the sea, and appeared to have no solid foundation, all belief in it died away: but when Domitian set out with his forces to the war, he was met on the way by messengers with despatches describing the victory. The day of this success was the same as that stated by the rumours, though the places were more than two thousand five hundred (English) miles distant.
All men of our own time know this to be true.
XXVI. Cnaeus Octavius, the admiral under Aemilius's orders, now cruised round Samothrace. He did not, from religious motives, violate Perseus's right of sanctuary, but prevented his leaving the island and escaping.
But nevertheless Perseus somehow outwitted him so far as to bribe one Oroandes, a Cretan, who possessed a small vessel, to take him on board.
But this man like a true Cretan took the money away by night, and bidding him come the next night with his family and attendants to the harbour near the temple of Demeter, as soon as evening fell, set sail.
Now Perseus suffered pitiably in forcing himself, and his wife and children, who were unused to hardships, through a narrow window in the wall, and set up a most pititul wailing when some one who met him wandering on the beach showed him the ship of Oroandes under sail far away at sea. Day was now breaking, and having lost his last hope, he made a hasty retreat to the town wall, and got into it with his wife, before the Romans, though they saw him, could prevent him. But his children he had entrusted to a man named Ion, who once had been a favourite of his, but now betrayed him, and delivered them up to the Romans, thus providing the chief means to compel him, like a wild animal, to come and surrender himself into the hands of those who had his children. He felt most confidence in Nasica, and inquired for him, but as he was not present, after lamenting his fate, and reflecting on the impossibility of acting otherwise, he surrendered himself to Cnaeus.
Now he was able to prove that he had a vice yet more sordid than avarice, namely, base love of life; by which he lost even his title to pity, the only consolation of which fortune does not deprive the fallen.
He begged to be brought into the presence of Aemilius, who, to show respect to a great man who had met with a terrible misfortune, rose, and walked to meet him with his friends, with tears in his eyes. But Perseus offered a degrading spectacle by flinging himself down upon his face and embracing his knees, with unmanly cries and entreaties, which Aemilius could not endure to listen to; but looking on him with a pained and sad expression, said, "Wretched man: why do you by this conduct deprive fortune of all blame, by making yourself seem to deserve your mishaps, and to have been unworthy of your former prosperity, but worthy of your present misery? And why do you depreciate the value of my victory, and make my success a small one, by proving degenerate and an unworthy antagonist for Romans? Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous."
XXVII. However, he raised him from the ground, and, having given him his hand, he entrusted him to Tubero, and then taking into his own tent his sons, sons-in-law, and most of the younger officers, he sat silent, wrapt in thought for some time, to their astonishment. Then he said, "Ought a man to be confident that he deserves his good fortune, and think much of himself when he has overcome a nation, or city, or empire; or does fortune give this as an example to the victor also of the