45.4
About
this time M. Marcellus, who was on his way home from Spain, captured the
important city of Marcolica, and brought into the treasury 10 pounds' weight
of gold and a quantity of silver amounting to one million sesterces. The
consul Paulus Aemilius was, as I have already said, still in camp at Sirae, in
the Odomantic country, when three persons of mean appearance brought
him a letter from Perseus. On seeing the missive he is said to have shed tears
over the fate that befalls men, for the man who a short time ago was not
contented with his kingdom of Macedonia, but made an attack on the
Dardanians and the Illyrians, and had called out the auxiliary levies of the
Bastarnae -that man had now lost his army, was driven out of his kingdom a
homeless wanderer into a small island where, as a suppliant, he was
protected by the sanctity of the temple, not by any strength which he
possessed. When, however, he read the salutation, "From King Perseus to
the consul Paulus." the man's utter failure to realise his condition destroyed
all feeling of compassion. Consequently, though in the body of the letter
there were appeals for mercy which were anything but kingly, the
messengers were dismissed without any reply either by word of mouth or in
writing. Perseus saw that he must forget his royal title in his defeat, and a
second letter was sent in which he described himself by his personal name. In
this he begged most urgently that some persons might be sent to him with
whom he could confer as to his status and the circumstances in which he was
placed. The three who were sent to him were P. Lentulus, A. Postumius
Albinus and A. Antonius. Nothing resulted from this conference; Perseus
clung desperately to his royal title, and Paulus was determined that he should
place himself and all that he possessed at the mercy of Rome.
