) themselves for their narrow way of thinking, at a
time when they made the greatest figure, and had the highest regard paid
to them, of any family in Rome. This generous action, says Polybius, was
the more admired, because no person in Rome, so far from consenting to pay
50,000 crowns before they were due, would pay even a thousand before the
time for payment was elapsed.

It was from the same noble spirit that, two years after, Paulus AEmilius
his father being dead, he made over to his brother Fabius, who was not so
wealthy as himself, the part of their father's estate, which was his
(Scipio's) due, (amounting to above threescore thousand crowns,(930)) in
order that there might not be so great a disparity between his fortune and
that of his brother.

This Fabius being desirous to exhibit a show of gladiators after his
father's decease, in honour of his memory, (as was the custom in that
age,) and not being able to defray the expenses on this occasion, which
amounted to a very heavy sum, Scipio made him a present of fifteen
thousand(931) crowns, in order to defray at least half the charges of it.

The splendid presents which Scipio had made his mother Papiria, reverted
to him, by law as well as equity, after her demise; and his sisters,
according to the custom of those times had not the least claim to them.
Nevertheless, Scipio thought it would have been dishonourable in him, had
he taken them back again. He therefore made over to his sisters whatever
he had presented to their mother, which amounted to a very considerable
sum; and by this fresh proof of his glorious disregard of wealth, and the
tender friendship he had for his family, acquired the applause of the
whole city.

These different benefactions, which amounted all together to a prodigious
sum, seem to have received a brighter lustre from the age in which he
bestowed them, he being still very young; and yet more from the
circumstances of the time when they were presented, as well as the kind
and obliging carriage he assumed on those occasions.

The incidents I have here related are so repugnant to the maxims of this
age, that there might be reason to fear the reader would consider them
merely as the rhetorical flourishes of an historian who was prejudiced in
favour of his hero; if it was not well known, that the predominant
characteristic of Polybius, by whom they are related, is a sincere love
for truth, and an utter aversion to adulation of every kind. I