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.
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