Aemilius Paulus

As to public affairs, that was the period when the Romans were at war with Perseus,[*](171-168 B.C.) the king of Macedonia, and were taking their generals to task because their inexperience and cowardice led them to conduct their campaigns ridiculously and disgracefully, and to suffer more harm than they inflicted.

For the people which had just forced Antiochus, surnamed the Great, to retire from the rest of Asia, driven him over the Taurus mountains, and shut him up in Syria, where he had been content to buy terms with a payment of fifteen thousand talents;

which had a little while before set the Greeks free from Macedonia by crushing Philip in Thessaly; and which had utterly subdued Hannibal, to whom no king was comparable for power or boldness;

this people thought it unendurable that they should be compelled to contend with Perseus as though he were an even match for Rome, when for a long time already he had carried on his war against them with the poor remains of his father’s routed army;

for they were not aware that after his defeat Philip had made the Macedonian armies far more vigorous and warlike than before. This situation I will briefly explain from the beginning.

Antigonus, who was the most powerful of Alexander’s generals and successors, and acquired for himself and his line the title of King, had a son Demetrius, and his son was Antigonus surnamed Gonatas.

His son in turn was Demetrius, who, after reigning himself for a short time, died, leaving a son Philip still in his boyhood.

The leading Macedonians, fearing the anarchy which might result, called in Antigonus, a cousin of the dead king, and married him to Philip’s mother, calling him first regent and general, and then, finding his rule moderate and conducive to the general good, giving him the title of King. He received the surname of Doson, which implied that he was given to promising but did not perform his engagements.

After him Philip succeeded to the throne, and, though still a youth, flowered out in the qualities which most distinguish kings, and led men to believe that he would restore Macedonia to her ancient dignity, and that he, and he alone, would check the power of Rome, which already extended over all the world.

But after he was defeated in a great battle at Scotussa by Titus Flamininus,[*](In 197 B.C. The battle is usually named from a range of hills near Scotussa called Cynoscephalae. See the Flamininus, chapters iii. and iv. ) for a time he took a humble posture, entrusted all his interests to the Romans, and was content to come off with a moderate fine.