see my neighbour again to be aware that his sorrow will have brought
to him pettiness only; for sorrow does merely restore to us that
which our soul had lent in happier days.

41. But this was the misfortune that befell Paulus Aemilius. Rome,
still aglow with his triumph, waited, dismayed, wondering what was
to happen. Were the gods defying the sage, and how would the sage
reply? Would the hero be crushed by his sorrow, or would sorrow
acknowledge its master? Mankind, at moments like these, seems aware
that destiny is yet once again making trial of the strength of her
arm, and that change of some kind must befall if her blow crush not
where it alights. And see with what eagerness men at such moments
will question the eyes of their chiefs for the password against the
invisible.

But Paulus Aemilius has gathered to-gether an assembly of the people
of Rome; he advances gravely towards them, and thus does he speak:
"I, who never yet feared anything that was human, have, amongst such
as were divine, always had, a dread of fortune as faithless and
inconstant; and, for the very reason that in this war she had been
as a favourable gale in all my affairs, I still expected some change
and reflux of things. In one day I passed the Ionian Sea, and
reached Corcyra from Brundisium; thence in five more I sacrificed at
Delphi, and in other five days came to my forces in Macedonia,
where, after I had finished the usual sacrifices for the purifying
of the army, I entered on my duties, and in the space of fifteen
days put an honourable period to the war. Still retaining a jealousy
of fortune, even from the smooth current of my affairs, and seeing
myself secure and free from the danger of any enemy, I chiefly
dreaded the change of the goddess at sea, whilst conveying home my