Aemilius Paulus

When the Romans learned of these things, they decided that they would bid good-bye to the favours and promises of those who wanted to be generals, and themselves summon to the leadership a man of wisdom who understood how to manage great affairs.

This man was Paulus Aemilius, now advanced in life and about sixty years of age, but in the prime of bodily vigour, and hedged about with youthful sons and sons-in-law, and with a host of friends and kinsmen of great influence, all of whom urged him to give ear to the people when it summoned him to the consulship.

At first he was for declining the appeals of the multitude, and tried to avert their eager importunities, saying that he did not want office; but when they came daily to his house and called him forth into the forum and pressed him with their clamours, he yielded;

and when he presented himself at once among the candidates for the consulship, he did not appear to come into the Campus in order to get office, but as one who brought victory and might in war and offered them to the citizens.