Aemilius Paulus

Plutarch

Plutarch. Plutarch's Lives, Vol. VI. Perrin, Bernadotte, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1918.

And it is said that he was not even a true-born son, but that Philip’s wife took him at his birth from his mother, a certain sempstress, an Argive woman named Gnathaenion, and passed him off as her own.

And this was the chief reason, as it would seem, why he feared Demetrius and compassed his death, lest the royal house having a true-born heir to the throne, should uncover his own spurious birth.

However, although he was ignoble and mean, the strength of his position led him to undertake the war, and he kept up the struggle for a long time, repulsing Roman commanders of consular rank with great armies and fleets, and actually conquering some of them.

Publius Licinius, for example, who was the first that invaded Macedonia, he routed in a cavalry battle, slew twenty-five hundred good men, and took six hundred prisoners besides;