Plutarch, Aemilius Paulus
Bernadotte Perrin, Ed.

28. After this, he gave his army a chance to rest, while he himself went about to see Greece, occupying himself in ways alike honourable and humane. For in his progress he restored the popular governments and established their civil polities; he also gave gifts to the cities, to some grain from the royal stores, to others oil. For it is said that so great stores were found laid up that petitioners and receivers failed before the abundance discovered was exhausted. [2] At Delphi, he saw a tall square pillar composed of white marble stones, on which a golden statue of Perseus was intended to stand, and gave orders that his own statue should be set there, for it was meet that the conquered should make room for their conquerors. And at Olympia, as they say, he made that utterance which is now in every mouth, that Pheidias had moulded the Zeus of Homer. [3] When the ten commissioners arrived from Rome, he restored to the Macedonians their country and their cities for free and independent residence; they were also to pay the Romans a hundred talents in tribute, a sum less than half of what they used to pay to their kings. He also held all sorts of games and contests and performed sacrifices to the gods, at which he gave feasts and banquets, making liberal allowances therefor from the royal treasury, [4] while in the arrangement and ordering of them, in saluting and seating his guests, and in paying to each one that degree of honour and kindly attention which was properly his due, he showed such nice and thoughtful perception that the Greeks were amazed, seeing that not even their pastimes were treated by him with neglect, but that, although he was a man of such great affairs, he gave even to trifling things their due attention. [5] And he was also delighted to find that, though preparations for entertainment were ever so many and splendid, he himself was the pleasantest sight to his guests and gave them most enjoyment; and he used to say to those who wondered at his attention to details that the same spirit was required both in marshalling a line of battle and in presiding at a banquet well, the object being, in the one case, to cause most terror in the enemy, in the other, to give most pleasure to the company. [6] But more than anything else men praised his freedom of spirit and his greatness of soul; for he would not consent even to look upon the quantities of silver and the quantities of gold that were gathered together from the royal treasuries, but handed them over to the quaestors for the public chest. It was only the books of the king that he allowed his sons, who were devoted to learning, to choose out for themselves, and when he was distributing rewards for valour in the battle, he gave Aelius Tubero, his son-in-law, a bowl of five pounds weight. [7] This was the Tubero, who, as I have said, ¹ dwelt with fifteen relations, and a paltry farm supported them all. And that is said to have been the first silver that ever entered the house of the Aelii, brought in as an honour bestowed upon valour, but up to that time neither they themselves nor their wives used either silver or gold.