“ [3] While saying these things to his friends, he offered other fictions to the Getæ and asked for half of their force, promising to give them the gold that he had on hand -- so inconsistent was he, and so anxious about the money that he had ordered to be thrown into the sea a little while before. Clœlius, seeing the messengers returning, asked in a loud voice whether they had brought the gold, and when they wanted to talk about something else he ordered them to speak of the gold first. When he learned that they did not have it, he led his army home without waiting to hear another word from them. Thus Perseus deprived himself of this powerful force of auxiliaries, which had opportunely arrived. He was so foolish, also, that while wintering with a large army at Phila he made no incursion into Thessaly, which furnished supplies to the Romans, but sent a force to Ionia to prevent the bringing of supplies to them from that quarter.
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“Some divinity was jealous of the prosperity of Paulus when he had reached such a pinnacle of fortune. Of his four sons he gave the two elder, Maximus and Scipio, for adoption into other families. The two younger ones died, one of them three days before his triumph and the other five days after it. Paulus alluded to this among other things in his address to the people. When he came to the forum to give an account of his doings, according to the custom of generals, he said, "I sailed from Brundusium to Corcyra in one day. Five days I was on the road from Corcyra to Delphi, where I sacrificed to the god. In five days more I arrived in Thessaly and took command of the army. Fifteen days later I overthrew Perseus and conquered Macedonia. All these strokes of good fortune coming so rapidly led me to fear the approach of some calamity to the army or to you. When the army was made safe, I feared for you on account of the invidiousness of fate. Now that the calamity falls upon me, in the sudden loss of my two sons, I am the most unfortunate of men for myself, but free from anxiety as to you." Having spoken thus, Paulus became the object of universal admiration, and commiseration on account of his children; and he died not long after.
”FROM PEIRESC
