Speech of L. Aemilius Paullus
"THEIR one idea, expressed at parties or conversations in
note
the street, was, that they should manage the war
in Macedonia while remaining quietly at home
in Rome, sometimes by criticising what the
generals were doing, at others what they were
leaving undone. From this the public interests
never got any good, and often a great deal of
harm. The generals themselves were at times
greatly hampered by this ill-timed loquacity.
For as it is the invariable nature of slander to
spread rapidly and stop at nothing, the people got thoroughly
infected by this idle talk, and the generals were consequently
rendered contemptible in the eyes of the enemy." . . .
