Aemilius Paulus

then he made an unexpected attack upon the Roman fleet which was lying at anchor near Oreus, seized twenty ships of burden with their cargoes, and sank the rest together with the grain that filled them; he also made himself master of four quinqueremes.

He fought a second battle, too, in which he repulsed the consul Hostilius as he was trying to force his way into Macedonia at Elimiae; and after Hostilius had broken into the country undetected by way of Thessaly, he gave him a challenge to battle which he was afraid to accept.

Furthermore, as a side issue of the war, he made an expedition against the Dardanians, implying that he ignored the Romans and that time hung heavy on his hands; he cut to pieces ten thousand of the Barbarians and drove off much booty.

He also secretly stirred up the Gauls settled along the Danube, who are called Bisternae, an equestrian host and warlike; and he invited the Illyrians, through Genthius their king, to take part with him in the war. And a report prevailed that the Barbarians had been hired by him to pass through lower Gaul, along the coast of the Adriatic, and make an incursion into Italy.

When the Romans learned of these things, they decided that they would bid good-bye to the favours and promises of those who wanted to be generals, and themselves summon to the leadership a man of wisdom who understood how to manage great affairs.

This man was Paulus Aemilius, now advanced in life and about sixty years of age, but in the prime of bodily vigour, and hedged about with youthful sons and sons-in-law, and with a host of friends and kinsmen of great influence, all of whom urged him to give ear to the people when it summoned him to the consulship.

At first he was for declining the appeals of the multitude, and tried to avert their eager importunities, saying that he did not want office; but when they came daily to his house and called him forth into the forum and pressed him with their clamours, he yielded;