Λεύκιος Αἰμίλιος

The conqueror of Perseus,¹ became master of the Macedonian kingdom, in which, apart from other booty and riches, were found more than six thousand talents of gold and silver in the treasuries; but he, so far from coveting any of these things, did not even want to look at them and left the handling of the above-mentioned items to others -- this despite the fact that his own personal life was not affluent, but on the contrary rather meagre. At any rate when he died, not long after the war, and his natural sons Publius Scipio and Quintus Maximus² wanted to return to his wife³ her pherne -- that is, dowry⁴ -- of 25 talents, they found it so hard to raise the money that they could not even have done so without selling off the household contents and the slaves and some real-estate with them. So the finest proof of his integrity was what he left behind at his death. For the man who had brought into Rome from Spain↗ more gold than any of his contemporaries, who had become master of the enormous treasuries of Macedonia, ended his own life in such a state that [his sons] could not discharge the pherne to his wife without selling some of the family real-estate.