After these events he sent the army into cantonments, to rest,
and he himself set out to visit Greece, making a progress which was both
glorious and beneficent; for in the cities to which he came he restored
the popular constitutions, and bestowed on them presents, from the
king's treasury, of corn and oil. For so much, they say, was found
stored up, that all those who received it and asked for it, were
satisfied before the mass could be exhausted. At Delphi, seeing a large
square column of white marble, on which a golden statue of Perseus was
to have been placed, he ordered his own to be placed there, as the
vanquished ought to give place to the victors. At Olympia, as the story
goes, he uttered that well-known saying, that Pheidias had carved the
very Zeus of Homer.
When ten commissioners arrived from Rome, he restored to the Macedonians
their country to dwell in, and their cities free and independent,
imposing upon them a tribute of a hundred talents, only half what they
used to pay to their kings. He exhibited gymnastic spectacles of every
kind, and gave splendid sacrifices and feasts in honour of the gods,
having boundless resources for the purpose in the king's treasury; and
in ordering and arranging each man's place at table, and saluting him
according to his merit and degree, he showed such a delicate perception
of propriety, that the Greeks were astonished that he should carry his
administrative talent even into his amusements, and be so business-like
in trifles.
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