Aemilius Paulus

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.

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.

This speech, they tell us, so rebuffed the soldiery and changed their minds that the triumph was voted to Aemilius by all the tribes.

And it was conducted,[*](In November, 167 B.C.) 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.

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.

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.

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,

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,