Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 45
Alfred C. Schlesinger, Ph.D., Ed.

41. "Although you, my fellow-citizens, are not unaware, I believe, of the good fortune with which I have conducted the affairs of the state, and of the two thunderbolts which have recently struck my house —for you were eyewitnesses first of my triumph, and then of the funerals of my sons —yet [2] I beg you to permit me in a few words to compare, in the proper [p. 395]spirit, my personal fortune with the good fortune of¹ the state.

[3] “When I left Italy, I set sail from Brundisium at sunrise; at the ninth hour of the day I reached Corcyra with all my ships. Five days later at Delphi I offered sacrifice to Apollo on my own behalf, and on that of your armies and fleets. [4] From Delphi I arrived five days later in camp. I took command of the army, removed certain great obstacles to victory, and advanced. Because the camp of the enemy was impregnable, and the king could not be compelled to fight, I slipped between his garrisons through the pass at Petra,² and at Pydna I conquered the king in battle. [5] I brought Macedonia under the control of the Roman People, and in fifteen days I finished a war which three consuls before me had waged over a period of four years, each in such a way as always to leave a worse situation for his successor. [6] A harvest, as it were, of further successes followed; all the cities of Macedonia surrendered, the royal treasures were secured, the king was taken prisoner along with his children in the temple of Samothrace, almost as if the gods themselves delivered him into our hands. Even to me this good fortune seemed excessive, and therefore I viewed it askance. I began to fear the dangers. [7] of the sea during the carrying of the great royal treasure to Italy, and the transfer of the victorious army. [8] After everything had been brought to Italy in a successful voyage, and I had nothing left to pray for, my hope was that, since fortune is wont to plunge downward from its high point, the brunt of this [p. 397]change should fall not upon the state, but upon my³ household. [9] And so I hope that the fortune of Rome has completed its course in so extraordinary a disaster as mine, since my triumph, as if in mockery of human vicissitudes, was interposed between the two funerals of my sons. Both Perseus and I are now on view as especially conspicuous samples of man's lot. [10] Yet he, who as a prisoner saw his children led as prisoners before him, yet has those children unharmed; [11] whereas I who celebrated the triumph over him mounted my chariot after the funeral of one son, and when I returned from the Capitol found the other almost on the point of death, nor is there one left of so splendid a generation of sons to carry on the name of Lucius Aemilius Paulus. For two sons were given in adoption, as if from a great stock of children, and they belong to the Cornelian and Fabian clans. [12] Not a Paulus is left in my house, save one old man. But I am consoled in this disaster to my house by your happiness and the good fortune of the state.”