XXVIII.  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.  But he was always delighted that though many splendid things were prepared, he himself was the chief object of interest to his guests, and when they expressed their surprise at his taking such pains, he would answer that the same mind can array an army for battle in the most terrific fashion, or a feast in the most acceptable one.  All men praised to the skies his generous magnanimity, because, when a great mass of gold and silver was collected from the king’s treasury, he would not so much as look at it, but handed it over to the quaestors to be put into the public treasury.  Of all the spoil, he only allowed his sons, who were fond of reading, to take the king’s books; and when distributing prizes for distinguished bravery in action, he gave Aelius Tubero, his son-in-law, a silver cup of five pounds’ weight.  This Tubero is he whom we said lived with fifteen other kinsfolk on a small farm, which supported them all.  And that, they say, was the first piece of plate that ever was seen in the Aelian household, brought there by honourable valour; for before that neither they nor their wives used either gold or silver plate.