Aemilius Paulus

For Aemilius had four sons, of whom two, as I have already said,[*](Cf. chapter v. 3. ) had been adopted into other families, namely, Scipio and Fabius; and two sons still boys, the children of a second wife, whom he had in his own house.

One of these, fourteen years of age, died five days before Aemilius celebrated his triumph, and the death of the other, who was twelve years of age, followed three days after the triumph,

so that there was no Roman who did not share the father’s grief; nay, they all shuddered at the cruelty of Fortune, seeing that she had not scrupled to bring such great sorrow into a house that was full of gratulations, joy, and sacrifices, or to mingle lamentations and tears with paeans of victory and triumphs.

Aemilius, notwithstanding, rightly considering that men have need of bravery and courage, not only against arms and long spears, but against every onset of Fortune as well, so adapted and adjusted the mingled circumstances of his lot that the bad was lost sight of in the good, and his private sorrow in the public welfare, thus neither lowering the grandeur nor sullying the dignity of his victory.

The first of his sons who died he buried, and immediately afterwards celebrated the triumph, as I have said; and when the second died, after the triumph, he gathered the Roman people into an assembly and spoke to them as a man who did not ask for comfort, but rather sought to comfort his fellow-citizens in their distress over his own misfortunes.

He said, namely, that he had never dreaded any human agency, but among agencies that were divine he had ever feared Fortune, believing her to be a most untrustworthy and variable thing; and since in this war particularly she had attended his undertakings like a prosperous gale, as it were, he had never ceased to expect some change and some reversal of the current of affairs.

For in one day, said he, I crossed the Ionian Sea from Brundisium and put in at Corcyra; thence, in five days, I came to Delphi and sacrificed to the god; and again, in other five days, I took command of the forces in Macedonia, and after the usual lustration and review of them I proceeded at once to action, and in other fifteen days brought the war to the most glorious issue.

But I distrusted Fortune because the current of my affairs ran so smoothly, and now that there was complete immunity and nothing to fear from hostile attacks, it was particularly during my voyage home that I feared the reversal of the Deity’s favour after all my good fortune, since I was bringing home so large a victorious army, such spoils, and captured kings.