45.28
After
sacrificing to Minerva, the tutelary deity in the Acropolis, he left for Corinth,
which he reached on the following day. At that time, before its destruction, it
was a glorious city. The citadel and the Isthmus presented a striking
spectacle -the citadel inside the walls rising to a great height, with streams
flowing everywhere, and the Isthmus separating by a narrow belt of land two
seas, one to the east and the other to the west. Sicyon and Argos were the
next places visited, both of them famous cities; and next to them Epidaurus,
not so wealthy as those, but celebrated for the splendid temple of
Aesculapius, five miles distant from the city, filled at the present day with the
relics and vestiges of the offerings which then enriched it, offerings made to
the god by the sick as a grateful reward for their recovery. From there he
went on to Lacedaemon, a city memorable, not for the magnificence of its
buildings, but for its discipline and its institutions. Passing through
Megalopolis he went up to Olympia. Here among the different objects which
attracted his attention, he was deeply impressed as he gazed on Jupiter,
standing as it were before him, and he gave orders for a sacrifice to be
prepared on an ampler scale than usual, just as if he were going to sacrifice
in the Capitol.
In this progress through Greece he was careful to avoid doing
anything that might alarm those who were friends of Rome, and therefore he
made no enquiry into the sentiments entertained by communities as a whole
or by individual citizens during the war with Perseus. On his return to
Demetrias he was met by a crowd of Aetolians dressed in mourning. On his
asking with some surprise what the matter was, they told him that five
hundred and fifty of their principal citizens had been put to death by Lyciscus
and Tisippus, after they had placed round the senate-house a cordon of
Roman soldiers sent by A. Baebius, the commandant of the garrison. Others
they had sent into exile, and they were keeping the property of those who
had been killed as well as of those who had been banished. He sent orders
for those who were accused to await him at Amphipolis. He met Cnaeus
Octavius at Demetrias, and while he was there a report reached him that the
ten commissioners had landed in Greece, and laying aside all other business
he proceeded to Apollonia. Through the slackness of his guard Perseus had
been able to get away from Amphipolis and met Aemilius at Apollonia -it is
only a day's journey. Aemilius is said to have spoken to him in a kindly tone,
but when he arrived in the camp at Amphipolis he severely censured C.
Sulpicius, in the first place because he had allowed Perseus to wander so far
away in the province and secondly because he had shown such indulgence to
his soldiers that he allowed them to remove the tiles from the city walls in
order to roof their winter huts. He ordered the tiles to be taken back and the
uncovered places to be restored to their former condition. Perseus and his
elder son Philip were handed over to A. Postumius to be kept under guard;
Aemilius treated the daughter and the younger son, who had been brought
from Samothrace, with every mark of respect and kindness.