ost terrific fashion, or a feast in the most acceptable one. All men
praised to the skies his generous magnanimity, because, when a great
mass of gold and silver was collected from the king's treasury, he would
not so much as look at it, but handed it over to the quaestors to be put
into the public treasury. Of all the spoil, he only allowed his sons,
who were fond of reading, to take the king's books; and when
distributing prizes for distinguished bravery in action, he gave Aelius
Tubero, his son-in-law, a silver cup of five pounds' weight. This Tubero
is he whom we said lived with fifteen other kinsfolk on a small farm,
which supported them all. And that, they say, was the first piece of
plate that ever was seen in the Aelian household, brought there by
honourable valour; for before that neither they nor their wives used
either gold or silver plate.

XXIX. When he had settled all things properly he took leave of the
Greeks, and reminding the Macedonians to keep by orderly and unanimous
conduct the liberty which the Romans had bestowed upon them, he started
for Epirus, as the Senate had passed a decree that the soldiers who had
been present in the battle against Perseus should be gratified with the
spoil of the cities of Epirus. Desiring therefore to fall upon them all
at once and unexpectedly, he sent for ten of the chief men from each
city, and ordered them to bring together, on a fixed day, all the gold
and silver which they had in their houses and temples. With each party
he sent, as if for this purpose, a guard of soldiers and a captain, who
was to pretend that he came to seek for and receive the money. But when
day broke, they all at the same time fell to sacking and plundering the
cities, so that, in one hour, a hundred and fifty thousand people were
reduced to slavery, and seventy cities plundered; yet from such ruin and
destruction as this, there resulted no more than eleven drachmae for
each soldier, while all mankind shuddered at this termination of the
war, that a whole nation should be cut to pieces to produce such a
pitiful present.

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