for thirty thousand men; eight million medimni of corn were stored in his fortresses, and such a mass of treasure as would pay an army of ten thousand men for ten years.  But before he could put all these forces in motion and begin the great struggle, he died of grief and remorse, for he had, as he admitted, unjustly put his other son Demetrius to death on the calumnies of one far worse than he was.  Perseus, the survivor, inherited his father’s hatred of the Romans with his kingdom, but was not of a calibre to carry out his designs, as his small and degraded mind was chiefly possessed by avarice.  He is said not even to have been legitimate, but that Philip’s wife obtained him when a baby from his real mother, a midwife of Argos, named Gnathaina, and palmed him off upon her husband.  And this seems to have been one reason for her putting Demetrius to death, for fear that if the family had a legitimate heir, this one’s bastardy would be discovered.

IX.  However, low-born and low-minded though he was, yet having by the force of circumstances drifted into war, he held his own and maintained himself for a long time against the Romans, defeating generals of consular rank with great armies, and even capturing some of them.  Publius Licinius, who first invaded Macedonia, was defeated in a cavalry engagement, with a loss of two thousand five hundred brave men killed, and six hundred prisoners.  Perseus next by a sudden attack made himself master of the Roman naval station at Oreus, took twenty store ships, sunk the rest, which were loaded with grain, and took also four quinqueremes.[A] He fought also a second battle, in which he drove back the consular general Hostilius, who was trying to invade Macedonia near Elimiae; and when he tried to steal in through Thessaly, he again offered battle, which the Roman declined.  As an accessory to the war he now made a campaign against the Dardans, as if affecting to despise the Romans and to be at leisure.  Here he cut to pieces ten thousand of the barbarians, and carried off much plunder.  He also had secret negotiations with the Gauls who dwell near the Ister, called Basternae, a nation of warlike horsemen, and by means of Genthius their king he endeavoured to induce the Illyrians to take part in the war.  There was even a report that the barbarians had been induced by his bribes to march through the southern part of Gaul beside the Adriatic, and so invade Italy.

[Footnote A:  Ships of war with five banks of oars.]

X. The Romans, when they learnt all this, determined that they would disregard political influence in their choice of a general, and choose some man of sense and capable of undertaking great operations.  Such a one was Paulus Aemilius, a man of advanced age, being about sixty years old, but still in full vigour of body, and surrounded by kinsmen, grown-up sons, and friends, who all urged him to listen to the appeal of his country and be consul.  He at first treated the people with little respect, and shunned their