Lucius Aemilius Paullus

Roman aristocrat of the Aemilii Paulli, consul for the second time in 216 BCE alongside Gaius Terentius Varro. The two consuls commanded the Roman army at Cannae on alternating days under the convention of rotating command; ancient sources (especially Polybius and Livy) generally portray Paullus as the prudent commander who counseled caution and Varro as the rash demagogue who forced battle, though modern scholarship treats this as a senatorial-aristocratic rehabilitation of Paullus's memory rather than reliable history. Paullus fell in the battle. His son, also Lucius Aemilius Paullus (Macedonicus), would later defeat Perseus of Macedon at Pydna in 168 BCE; his daughter Aemilia married Scipio Africanus, drawing the family into the Scipionic circle that produced Polybius's patron Scipio Aemilianus.