XXX. Aemilius, having performed this work, greatly against his real nature, which was kind and gentle, proceeded to Oricum, and thence crossed to Italy with his army. He himself sailed up the river Tiber in the king's own ship of sixteen banks of oars, adorned with the arms of the vanquished, and crowns of victory and crimson flags, so that all the people of Rome came out in a body as if to a foretaste of the spectacle of his triumphal entry, and walked beside his ship as she was gently rowed up the river. But the soldiery, casting longing glances at the king's treasure, like men who had not met with their deserts, were angry and dissatisfied with Aemilius; for this reason really, though the charge they openly put forward was that he was a harsh and tyrannical ruler: so they showed no eagerness for the triumph.
Servius Galba,[40] an enemy of Aemilius, who had once commanded a legion under him, hearing this, plucked up spirit to propose openly that he should not be allowed a triumph. He disseminated among the soldiers many calumnies against their general, and so still more exasperately their present temper; next he asked the tribunes of the plebs for another day, as that day would not suffice for his speech, only four hours remaining of it. However, the tribunes bade him speak, and he, beginning a long and abusive speech, consumed all the time. At nightfall the tribunes dismissed the assembly. But the soldiers, now grown bolder, assembled round Galba, and, forming themselves into an organized body, again at daybreak occupied the capitol; for it was thither that the tribunes had summoned the people.
XXXI. The voting began as soon as it was day, and the first tribe voted against the triumph. Soon the rumour of this spread to the rest of the people and to the Senate. Though the masses were grieved at the shameful treatment of Aemilius, they exhausted themselves in useless clamour, but the leading men of the Senate crying out one to another that what was going on was scandalous, encouraged each other to resist the licentious violence of the soldiers, who, if not restrained, were ready to use any kind of lawless violence to prevent Paulus Aemilius enjoying the reward of his victory. These men pushed the mob aside, and mounting to the capitol in a body, bade the tribunes stop the voting until they had said what they wished to the people. When voting ceased and silence was obtained, Marcus Servilius, a man of consular rank, who had challenged and slain twenty-three enemies in single combat, spoke as follows:—"What a commander Aemilius Paulus must be, you are now best able to judge, seeing with what a disobedient and worthless army he has succeeded in such great exploits; but I am surprised at the people's being proud of the triumphs over the Illyrians and Ligurians, and begrudging itself the sight of the king of Macedon brought alive, and all the glories of Philip and Alexander carried captive to the arms of Rome. Is it not a strange thing that on the unfounded rumour of this victory being circulated, you sacrificed to the gods, praying that you soon might behold this spectacle, yet now that the army has returned after a real victory, you refuse the gods the honour and yourself the pleasure of it, as if you feared to see the extent of your successes, or wished to spare the feelings of your captive enemy; though it would show a nobler feeling than pity for him, not to deprive your general of his triumph for a mean grudge. Your baseness has reached such a pitch that a man without a scar, with his body delicately nurtured in the shade, dares to speak about generalship and triumphs before us who have learned by so many wounds to judge of a general's vice and virtues." As he spoke, he opened his clothes, and showed his breast with an incredible number of scars upon it; then turning to Galba, who had made some remarks not very decent "You laugh," said he, "at these other marks: but I glory in them before my countrymen, for I got them by riding, night and day, in their service. But come, bring them to vote; I will go amongst them and follow them all to the poll, that I may know those who are cowardly and ungrateful, and like rather to be ruled by a demagogue than by a true general."
XXXII. These words are said to have caused such remorse and repentance among the soldiers, that all the tribes voted Aemilius his triumph. It is said to have been celebrated thus. The people, dressed in white robes, looked on from platforms erected in the horse course, which they call the Circus, and round the Forum, and in all other places which gave them a view of the procession. Every temple was open, and full of flowers and incense, and many officials with staves drove off people who formed disorderly mobs, and kept the way clear. The procession was divided into three days. The first scarcely sufficed for the display of the captured statues, sculptures, and paintings, which were carried on two hundred and fifty carriages. On the following day the finest and most costly of the Macedonian arms and armour were borne along in many waggons, glittering with newly burnished brass and iron, and arranged in a carefully studied disorder, helmets upon shields, and corslets upon greaves, with Cretan targets, Thracian wicker shields and quivers mixed with horses' bits, naked swords rising out of these, and the long spears of the phalanx ranged in order above them, making a harmonious clash of arms, as they were arranged to clatter when they were driven along, with a harsh and menacing sound, so that the sight of them even after victory was not without terror. After the waggons which bore the arms walked three thousand men, carrying the silver coin in seven hundred and fifty earthen vessels, each carrying three talents, and borne by four men. Others carried the silver drinking horns, and goblets and chalices, each of them disposed so that it could be well seen, and all remarkable for their size and the boldness of their carving.
XXXIII. On the third day, at earliest dawn, marched the trumpeters, not playing the music of a march, but sounding the notes which animate the Romans for a charge. After them were led along a hundred and twenty fat oxen with gilded horns, adorned with crowns and wreaths. They were led by youths clad in finely-fringed waistcloths in which to do the sacrifice, while boys carried the wine for the libations in gold and silver vessels. After these came men carrying the gold coin, divided into vessels of three talents each like the silver. The number of these vessels was eighty all but three. Then came those who carried the consecrated bowl which Aemilius had made of ten talents of gold adorned with jewels, and men carrying the plate of Antigonus and Seleukus, and cups of Therikles-ware,[41] and all Perseus's own service of gold plate.
Next came the chariot of Perseus with his armour; and his crown set upon the top of his armour: and then after a little interval came the captive children of the king, and with them a tearful band of nurses and teachers, who held out their hands in supplication to the spectators, and taught the children to beg them for mercy. There were two boys and one girl, all too young to comprehend the extent of their misfortune. This carelessness made their fallen state all the more pitiable, so that Perseus himself walked almost unnoticed; for the Romans in their pity had eyes only for the children, and many shed tears, while all felt that the sight was more painful than pleasing till the children were gone by.
XXXIV. Behind the children and their attendants walked Perseus himself, dressed in a dark-coloured cloak with country boots, seeming to be dazed and stupefied by the greatness of his fall. A band of his friends and associates followed him with grief-laden countenances, and, by their constantly looking at Perseus, and weeping, gave the spectators the idea that they bewailed his fate without taking any thought about their own. However, Perseus had sent to Aemilius asking to be excused the walking in procession; but he, as it seems in mockery of his cowardice and love of life, answered, "That was formerly in his own hands, and is now if he pleases." Meaning that death was preferable to dishonour; but the dastard had not spirit enough for that, but buoyed up by some hope, became a part of his own spoils.
After these were borne golden crowns, four hundred in number, which the cities of Greece had sent to Aemilius with deputations, in recognition of his success. Next he came himself, sitting in a splendid chariot, a man worth looking upon even without his present grandeur, dressed in a purple robe sprinkled with gold, and holding a branch of laurel in his right hand. All the army was crowned with laurel and followed the car of the general in military array, at one time singing and laughing over old country songs, then raising in chorus the paean of victory and recital of their deeds, to the glory of Aemilius, who was gazed upon and envied by all, disliked by no good man. Yet it seems that some deity is charged with tempering these great and excessive pieces of good fortune, and skimming as it were the cream off human life, so that none may be absolutely without his ills in this life; but as Homer says, they may seem to fare best whose fortune partakes equally of good and evil.
XXXV. For he had four sons, two, as has been already related, adopted into other families, Scipio and Fabius; and two others who were still children, by his second wife, who lived in his own house. Of these, one died five days before Aemilius's triumph, at the age of fourteen, and the other, twelve years old, died three days after it; so that there was no Roman that did not grieve for him, and all trembled at the cruelty of fortune, which had burst into a house filled with joy and gladness, and mingled tears and funeral dirges with the triumphal paeans and songs of victory.
XXXVI. Yet Aemilius, rightly thinking that courage is as valuable in supporting misfortunes as it is against the Macedonian phalanx, so arranged matters as to show that for him the evil was overshadowed by the good, and that his private sorrows were eclipsed by the successes of the state, lest he should detract from the importance and glory of the victory. He buried the first child, and immediately afterwards triumphed, as we have said: and when the second died after the triumph, he assembled the people and addressed them, not so much in the words of one who needs consolation, as of one who would console his countrymen, who were grieved at his misfortunes. He said, that he never had feared what man could do to him, but always had feared Fortune, the most fickle and variable of all deities; and in the late war she had been so constantly present with him, like a favouring gale, that he expected now to meet with some reverse by way of retribution. "In one day," said he, "I crossed the Ionian sea from Brundisium to Corcyra; on the fifth day I sacrificed at Delphi; in five more I entered upon my command in Macedonia, performed the usual lustration of the army; and, at once beginning active operations, in fifteen days more I brought the war to a most glorious end. I did not trust in my good fortune as lasting, because every thing favoured me, and there was no danger to be feared from the enemy, but it was during my voyage that I especially feared that the change of fortune would befall me, after I had conquered so great a host, and was bearing with me such spoils and even kings as my captives. However, I reached you safe, and saw the city full of gladness and admiration and thanksgiving, but still I had my suspicions about Fortune, knowing that she never bestows any great kindness unalloyed and without exacting retribution for it. And no sooner had I dismissed this foreboding about some misfortune being about to happen to the state, than I met with this calamity in my own household, having during these holydays had to bury my noble sons, one after the other, who, had they lived, would alone have borne my name.