by Plutarch
5. He married Papiria, the daughter of Maso,18 a man who had held the consulship. After he had lived with her for a long time, Aemilius divorced her, although she had given him superlative sons, for it was she who bore him the famous Scipio and Fabius Maximus.19 No reason for this divorce has been preserved for us in any document, but there is a story about divorce that has the ring of truth to it and may be pertinent here. A Roman once divorced his wife, which led his friends to reprove him with remarks like ‘But she is prudent, is she not? She is beautiful, is she not? She is fertile, is she not?’ In reply, he displayed to them his sandal (the sort the Romans call a calceus) and observed, ‘It is well made, is it not? It is new, is it not? Yet not one of you can know which bit of my foot it blisters.’20 For in reality women are rarely divorced by their husbands owing to serious or obvious failings. Instead, petty, but frequent, annoyance, stemming from some minor but irritating incompatibility, is exacerbated as a couple lives together – and it results in complete alienation, for all that it may pass undetected by others.
In any case, Aemilius divorced Papiria and married another woman. She bore him two sons whom he reared in his own home. But the sons from his earlier marriage he gave in adoption to two of Rome’s noblest and most illustrious families:21 the elder was adopted by Fabius Maximus,22 who had been consul five times; the younger by the son of Scipio Africanus23 (a man who was also his cousin), from whom he, too, took the name Scipio. As for Aemilius’ daughters, one married the son of Cato,24 the other Aelius Tubero.25
Now this Aelius was an excellent man, who, more than any other Roman, was successful in maintaining his dignity even in the face of poverty. For he was one of sixteen relations, all of the family Aelius, who lived together in a modest house and shared a small estate: this home they kept in common, they and their many children and wives. One of these wives was the daughter of Aemilius, who was twice consul and who celebrated two triumphs. However, far from feeling ashamed of her husband’s poverty, she admired the virtue that kept him poor. Nowadays, however, brothers and relations never cease their bickering unless they subdivide their common property by means of escarpments, rivers and walls, and unless they separate themselves from one another with conspicuous open spaces. History, then, offers the contemplative reader an opportunity to profit from the evidence of the past.
6. When Aemilius was elected consul,26 he campaigned against the Ligurians, who are also known as the Ligustinians. These people dwelt at the foot of the Alps, in the extreme northern limits of Italy and in that part of the Alps that looks across the Tyrrhenian Sea towards Africa. They shared this region with Gauls and with those Iberians who lived along the coast. The Ligurians were a people at once warlike and violent tempered, and because they lived so near the Romans, with whom they sometimes came into conflict, they continually gained in military competence. By this time, they had taken to the sea as pirates and were robbing and plundering in expeditions that went as far as the Pillars of Heracles.27
They met Aemilius’ advance with a force of 40,000 men, five times the number of his Roman forces, who numbered only 8,000. Nevertheless, Aemilius fell upon the Ligurians, routed them and penned them up in their fortified cities. He then offered them humane, even conciliatory, terms of surrender. He did this because the annihilation of the Ligurians would have been detrimental to Roman interests: the Ligurians served as a defensive bulwark against the migrations and depredations of the Gauls, who were a constant threat to Italy. The Ligurians trusted Aemilius, and therefore surrendered to him their cities and ships. The cities Aemilius returned, either undamaged or, at the worst, suffering only the loss of their fortifications. Their ships, however, he took away. He left them no craft larger than a three-oared vessel. He also freed everyone they had captured on land or at sea (of whom there were in fact many, both foreigners and Romans). These, then, were the celebrated and glorious achievements of Aemilius’ first consulship.28
Often, afterwards, Aemilius made it clear that he wished once again to be elected consul, and once he even went so far as to announce his candidature.29 When, however, he failed to obtain the office, he withdrew from active politics, devoting himself instead to his religious duties as augur and to the education of his sons. Each was reared in accordance with traditional Roman custom, just as he had been himself, to which training Aemilius added, with keen enthusiasm, a Greek education. Not only were the boys’ instructors in grammar, philosophy and rhetoric Greeks, but so too were the sculptors and painters employed by the family, as well as the trainers of their horses and dogs, and the men who taught the boys how to hunt. Unless he was hindered by public business, their father was always present at their studies and exercises. It was scarcely an exaggeration to say that he had become Rome’s fondest parent.
7. Public affairs, by contrast, had reached a difficult pass. The Romans were waging a war against Perseus,30 the king of the Macedonians, but the generals31 they had sent against him had, owing to inexperience or timidity, managed their campaigns both disgracefully and stupidly, with the result that they had all suffered greater losses than they had inflicted – and they had all earned the people’s opprobrium for their failures. After all, it had not been so long ago that the Romans had forced Antiochus, who was also called ‘the Great’, out of Asia and driven him beyond the Taurus mountains, where they had confined him to Syria.32 There he counted himself fortunate to settle matters with the Romans at a cost of 15,000 talents. Not long before that, the Romans had defeated Philip33 in Thessaly, thereby liberating the Greeks from Macedonian domination. And they had crushed Hannibal,34 who excelled every king in daring and might. Consequently, it was felt to be intolerable that they were reduced to struggling with Perseus as if he were a rival equal to Rome, not least because it was believed that all this time Perseus had been waging war with an army composed only of the survivors of his father’s past failure. The Romans were unaware that Philip, after his defeat, had strengthened the Macedonian army so that it was a vastly more formidable force than it had been before. Let me offer a brief explanation of this from the beginning.
8. Antigonus,35 the most powerful of Alexander’s generals and successors, acquired the title of king for himself and for his line. He had a son, Demetrius,36 whose own son was Antigonus surnamed Gonatas.37 This man’s son, Demetrius, reigned for only a brief time, and, when he died, he left behind a son named Philip,38 who was still a child. Because the leading men of Macedon feared that matters could descend into anarchy, they summoned Antigonus, who was a cousin of the deceased king, and arranged for him to marry Philip’s mother. At first he was designated regent and general. Subsequently, he exhibited such moderation and such enthusiasm for the common good that, he, too, received the title king. And he acquired the surname Doson owing to his habit of making promises that he failed to fulfil.39 Philip succeeded him, and, although still quite young, displayed in abundance all the finest qualities of a king. This led men to believe that he would restore Macedon to her former greatness – and that he was the man to check the power of the Romans, which by then extended everywhere.
But he was defeated by Titus Flamininus in a major battle near Scotussa,40 after which, reduced to a state of cringing fright, he handed his affairs over to the Romans and showed himself thankful to get off so lightly. Later, however, his condition grieved him: in his view, being king only by the good graces of the Romans was too much like being a slave grateful just to be fed, hardly the right position for a man possessing courage and resolution. He therefore applied his mind to making preparations for war, plotting in secret. He allowed his cities situated along the roads or on the coast to become so weak and desolated that they were held in contempt. In the hinterland, meanwhile, he was assembling a mighty army; his interior towns, fortresses and cities he filled with arms, money and fighting men. In this way he was secretly making himself fit for war, so to speak, even as he concealed his preparations. For he had stock-piled enough in the way of weaponry to equip 30,000 men, hoarded within his wal
ls 8 million bushels of grain and put aside enough money to employ 10,000 mercenaries in defence of his country for ten years.
Before he could put his plans into effect, however, Philip died of distress and grief when he realized that he had unjustly put to death one of his two sons, Demetrius,41 on the basis of a false accusation made by the other, who was his clear inferior. This remaining son was Perseus, who inherited his father’s hatred of the Romans along with his father’s kingdom. But he was too weak a man to shoulder this burden, on account of his deficient and depraved character, in which avarice was the most conspicuous of its many untoward desires. It is alleged by some that he was not actually Philip’s son but instead had been taken at birth by Philip’s wife from his mother, an Argive seamstress named Gnathaenion.42 Hence his fear of Demetrius and his principal motive for killing him: to prevent his being exposed as a bastard, if the royal house should have a legitimate heir.
9. Remarkably, for all that he was ignoble and base, Perseus seized the advantage of Philip’s preparations in order to prosecute the war with constancy and vigour, repulsing consuls in command of armies and large fleets and sometimes winning victories over them. Publius Licinius43 was the first of the Roman commanders to invade Macedon. Perseus routed him in a cavalry battle in which he slew 2,500 good men and took 600 others as prisoners.44 He then launched an unexpected naval attack on the Roman fleet lying at anchor near Oreus.45 In this raid he captured twenty transport ships along with their cargoes and sank the rest, which were filled with grain. He also seized four quinqueremes. He fought a second battle, in which he checked the consul Hostilius when he was trying to force his way into Macedon at Elimiae.46 Later, when Hostilius had made his way into Macedon undetected, by way of Thessaly, Perseus offered him battle, but the Roman was too afraid to fight.
In addition to waging this war, as if he were a man with time on his hands, Perseus led a campaign against the Dardanians,47 an action intended to convey how much he despised the Romans. He slaughtered 10,000 barbarians and carried home much plunder. Furthermore, he secretly stirred up the Gauls who dwell along the Danube, a warlike tribe of horsemen called Basternae,48 and he invited the Illyrians,49 through their king, Genthius, to join him in the war. It was widely rumoured that he had suborned the barbarians to make their way through Cisalpine Gaul, along the coast of the Adriatic, in order to invade Italy.
10. When the Romans discovered these things, they decided that this was not a time for the ingratiating promises of candidates who merely desired to be generals. Instead, they summoned a man of intelligence, who already knew how to conduct great affairs, to take command of the war. This man was Aemilius Paullus, who, although he was somewhat advanced in age (he was around sixty years old), was nonetheless in excellent physical condition. He was also bolstered by his sons-in-law, by his young sons and by an abundance of friends and influential relatives, all of whom endeavoured to persuade him to yield when the people summoned him to the consulship. At first he pretended to spurn the masses, averting their zealous solicitations on the grounds that he did not want the office. But when they returned to his house every day, insisting that he come to the forum50 and urging him with their cries, he relented. He immediately presented himself as a candidate for the consulship. When he entered the Campus Martius,51 however, he did not give the impression of being someone who hoped to win an election, but rather a man who, already in possession of military victory, was offering this prize to his fellow-citizens. Everyone welcomed him with hope and enthusiasm, and they elected him consul for the second time. Moreover, they forbade the drawing of lots, the customary practice for awarding provincial commands. Instead, they voted him the command52 of the Macedonian War without delay.
It is reported that, after he had been proclaimed general in the war against Perseus, he was escorted home, in splendid fashion, by the whole of the people. There he found his daughter, Tertia, who was still a child, weeping. So he embraced her and asked her why she was distressed. She hugged him and kissed him and said, ‘Don’t you know, father, that our Perseus has died?’ She was speaking of a pet puppy called by that name. To this Aemilius responded, ‘This is good fortune! Daughter, I accept the omen.’ This is what Cicero the orator records in his book On Divination.53
11. It was customary for men who were elected to the consulship to express their gratitude for the favour, as it were, in a friendly speech delivered to the people from the rostra. Aemilius, however, when he had assembled his fellow-citizens, told them that, whereas he had sought his first consulship owing to his own desire for high office, he had sought his second owing to their need for a general:54 consequently he owed them no gratitude. Nevertheless, he continued, if they believed the war could be conducted better by someone else, he would resign his command. If, however, they placed their trust in him, they should not endeavour to become his fellow-generals or even to give speeches about the war. Instead, they should quietly furnish the supplies needed for the campaign. For if they tried to command their commander, the conduct of the war would look even more foolish than it already did. With this speech, he instilled in his fellow-citizens a deep reverence for himself and great expectations for the future. They were all pleased that they had ignored the flatterers and instead elected a man who was candid and who knew the business of being a general. This was how the Roman people subjected themselves to virtue and goodness, so that they might gain power and become the greatest of all nations.
12. When Aemilius set out on his campaign, he met with good luck on his voyage and enjoyed an easy journey to the Roman camp, which he reached quickly and safely.55 All of this I can attribute to divine favour. But when I observe how, under his command, the war was won by his bold courage, by his skilful planning, by the eager service of his friends and by his brave tactics in the face of danger, I cannot attribute this man’s glorious and brilliant achievement to his celebrated good fortune (which is often the case with other generals). Unless, that is, someone should suggest that Perseus’ avarice should be ascribed to Aemilius’ good luck, for it was Perseus’ cowardice – where money is concerned – that entirely ruined the Macedonians’ grand and glorious prospects for the war, during which their hopes had run high.
Perseus was joined, at his own request, by a force of Basternae comprising 10,000 cavalry and 10,000 light troops, all of them mercenaries, men ignorant of farming or sailing or pasturing flocks, who instead were constantly practising their sole occupation and craft, which was fighting and defeating their adversaries. When these men camped in the territory of the Maedi,56 they began mingling with soldiers of the king. The size of these men, their astonishing military training, their arrogant boasts and their violent threats against the enemy, all combined to inspire courage among the Macedonians, who came to believe that the Romans could never withstand these men but would instead be terrified at the sight of them and their bizarre, horrifying gestures. It had been Perseus’ intention to raise the morale of his troops in just this way. But when he was asked to pay each mercenary commander 1,000 pieces of gold, the sheer quantity of the expense made his head swim and he became insanely stingy. He refused to pay57 and quit the alliance. It was as if he were keeping the Romans’ accounts for them instead of waging war against them, and was anxious about giving them an accurate record of his expenses in the conflict between them. He should have taken a lesson from the Romans, who, in addition to their other preparations, had mustered 100,000 men58 who were ready to do whatever was needed.
Instead, although he was contending with a foe so numerous – in a war for which he held in reserve vast resources – Persius nevertheless counted out his gold and sealed it himself, as timid of touching it as if it were another’s property. Yet he was not the offspring of some Lydian or Phoenician,59 but rather a descendant of Philip and Alexander, whose nobility he claimed to share.60 They were men who mastered their enemies because they believed that success should come at the cost of money, not money at the price of success. Indeed, it is commonly said tha
t the cities of Greece were not captured by Philip but by Philip’s gold.61 And Alexander, when he noticed, at the start of his expedition to India, that his Macedonians were encumbered by their Persian spoils, which had become bulky and heavy, first he set fire to his own royal wagons and then persuaded his men to do the same thing with theirs. As a result, they marched off to war unburdened, like men released from their bonds.62 Perseus, by contrast, although he had lavished his wealth on himself, his children and his kingdom, was unwilling to spend even a small sum in order to purchase deliverance. Instead, he chose to become a rich captive, carried off with the rest of his great wealth, and to show the Romans how much he had saved and looked after on their behalf.
13. Not only did Perseus deceive the Gauls and send them away, he also persuaded Genthius the Illyrian, for a price of 300 talents, to join him in the war. He exhibited the money, all counted out, to Genthius’ representatives, whom he allowed to seal it for themselves. After he was convinced that he had what he wanted, however, Genthius committed an act of terrible sacrilege: he arrested and imprisoned ambassadors who had been sent to him from Rome. Perseus then came to think that his money was no longer needed, inasmuch as Genthius had already made war with the Romans inevitable on account of his hostile and unjust actions. And so he deprived the wretched man of his 300 talents,63 and he did nothing but watch when Genthius was removed from his kingdom, along with his wife and children, like birds taken from their nest, by Lucius Anicius,64 the Roman in command of the army sent against him.
