Aemilius Paulus

For his funeral procession called forth men’s admiration, and showed a desire to adorn his virtue with the best and most enviable obsequies.

This was manifest, not in gold or ivory or the other ambitious and expensive preparations for such rites, but in good will and honour and gratitude on the part, not only of his fellow citizens, but also of his enemies.

At all events, out of all the Iberians and Ligurians and Macedonians who chanced to be present, those that were young and strong of body assisted by turns in carrying the bier, while the more elderly followed with the procession calling aloud upon Aemilius as benefactor and preserver of their countries.

For not only at the times of his conquests had he treated them all with mildness and humanity, but also during all the rest of his life he was ever doing them some good and caring for them as though they had been kindred and relations.

His estate, we are told, hardly amounted to three hundred and seventy thousand drachmas, to which he left both his sons heirs; but the younger, Scipio, who had been adopted into the wealthier family of Africanus, allowed his brother to have it all. Such, as we are told, was the life and character of Paulus Aemilius.