which the faint-hearted man not having the spirit for, and made effeminate by I know not what hopes, allowed himself to appear as a part of his own spoils. After these were cariued four hundred crowns, all made of gold, sent from the cities by their respective deputations to Æmilius, in honor of his victory. Then he himself came, seated on a chariot magnificently adorned (a man well worthy to be looked at, even without these ensigns of power), dressed in a robe of purple, interwoven with gold, and holding a laurel branch in his right hand. All the army, in like manner, with boughs of laurel in their hands, divided into their bands and companies, followed the chariot of their commander; some singing verses, according to the usual custom, mingled with raillery; others, songs of triumph, and the praise of Æmilius's deeds; who, indeed, was admired and accounted happy by all men, and unenvied by every one that was good; except so far as it seems the province of some god to lessen that happiness which is too great and inordinate, and so to mingle the affairs of human life that no one should be entirely free and exempt from calamities; but, as we read in Homer,[1] that those should think themselves truly blessed to whom fortune has given an equal share of good and evil.
Æmilius had four sons, of whom Scipio and Fabius, as is already related, were adopted into other families; the other two, whom he had by a second wife, and who were yet but young, he brought up in his own house. One of
- ↑ "Grief is useless; cease to lament," says Achilles to Priam, his suppliant for the body of Hector. "For thus have the gods appointed for mortal men; that they should live in vexation, while they themselves are untroubled. Two vessels are set upon the threshold of Zeuz, of the gifts that he dispenses; one of evil things, the other of good; he who receives from both at the hand of thundering Zeus, he meets at one time with evil, and at another with good; he who receives from only one, is a miserable wretch."
