Aemilius Paulus

At all events, when he sued for the first of the high offices in the state, the aedileship, he was elected over twelve competitors,[*](In 192 B.C.) all of whom, we are told, afterwards became consuls.

Moreover, when he was made one of the priests called Augurs, whom the Romans appoint as guardians and overseers of the art of divination from the flight of birds and from omens in the sky, he so carefully studied the ancestral customs of the city, and so thoroughly understood the religious ceremonial of the ancient Romans, that his priestly function,

which men had thought to be a kind of honour, sought merely on account of the reputation which it gave, was made to appear one of the higher arts, and testified in favour of those philosophers who define religion as the science of the worship of the gods.

For all the duties of this office were performed by him with skill and care, and he laid aside all other concerns when he was engaged in these, omitting nothing and adding nothing new, but ever contending even with his colleagues about the small details of ceremony, and explaining to them that, although the Deity was held to be good-natured and slow to censure acts of negligence, still, for the city at least it was a grievous thing to overlook and condone them;

for no man begins at once with a great deed of lawlessness to disturb the civil polity, but those who remit their strictness in small matters break down also the guard that has been set over greater matters.

Furthermore, he showed a like severity in scrutinising and preserving his country’s military customs and traditions also, not courting popular favour when he was in command, nor yet, as most men did at this time, courting a second command during his first by gratifying his soldiers and treating them with mildness;

but, like a priest of other dread rites, he explained thoroughly all the details of military custom and was a terror to disobedient transgressors, and so restored his country to her former greatness, considering the conquest of his enemies hardly more than an accessory to the training of his fellow-citizens.