Aemilius Paulus

With such eager hopes did all receive him, and they made him consul for the second time,[*](In 168 B.C.) and did not permit a lot to be cast for the provinces, as was the custom, but at once voted him the conduct of the Macedonian war.

And it is said that when he had been appointed general against Perseus, and had been escorted home in splendid fashion by the whole people, he found there his daughter Tertia, who was still a little child, in tears.

He took her in his arms, therefore, and asked her why she grieved. And she, embracing and kissing him, said: Pray dost thou not know, Father, that our Perseus is dead? meaning a little pet dog of that name.

And Aemilius cried: Good fortune! my daughter, I accept the omen. Such, then, is the story which Cicero the orator relates in his work On Divination.[*](Cicero, De divinatione, I, 103.)