nian War, which sputtered on for two years without any
major battles. In 168 b.c., Paullus was reelected consul,
and the Roman Senate appointed him to lead its forces
in Macedonia. He fought Perseus at Pydna, a port on the
east coast of Macedonia, on 22 June 168 b.c., defeating
the Macedonians and taking Perseus captive. To impress
his victory on his enemies, he ordered the executions of
500 Macedonians who refused to vow allegiance to the
Roman victors.
The victory at Pydna ended the war, Paullus re-
turned to Rome in glory, and the Senate gave him
the surname of Macedonicus to herald his victory. He
had siezed the Macedonian treasury and returned with
enough to allow the Roman government to cease collect-
ing taxes for a period. He was elected as censor in 164
b.c. and died four years later.
Because of the single victory at Pydna, Paullus is re-
membered for ending the Macedonian war and captur-
ing his opponent. With his death, however, the power
of the Aemilii Paullii family ended as well. Nevertheless,
one of his sons was adopted by the elder son of sciPio
africanus (the elder) and became Scipio Aemilia-
nus, better known as Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilia-
nus, or Scipio Africanus the Younger.
References: Reiter, William, Aemilius Paullus: Conqueror
of Greece (London: Croom Helm, 1988); “Paullus,” in
The Penguin Dictionary of Ancient History, edited by Gra-
ham Speake (London: Penguin Books, 1995), 471–472;
“Paullus, Lucius Aemilius,” in The Hutchinson Dictionary
of Ancient and Medieval Warfare (Oxford, U.K.: Helicon
Publishing, Ltd., 1998), 243.
Paulus, Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst (1890–1957)
German general
Born in the village of Breitenau-Gershagen, in Hesse,
Germany, on 23 September 1890, Friedrich Paulus re-
ceived his education at the Wilhelms-Gymnasium in
Kassel. In 1909, he completed his school examinations
and hoped for a career in the navy. However, the Ger-
man navy rejected him, and he turned to the study of the
law, attending Marburg University from 1909 to 1910.
When he heard that the army was recruiting, he signed
up and was accepted as a cadet officer in the Markgraf
Ludwig Wilhelm Infantry Regiment No. 111, stationed
at Rastatt. He saw action with the German army during
the First World War.
Following the end of the war, Paulus remained in
the military as a member of the Freikorps, the German
militia. During the interwar period, he rose in the ranks,
and in September 1935 he succeeded Heinz Guderian
as head of the German mechanized forces. He became
a close friend and confidant of Adolf Hitler, the Ger-
man leader, and was instrumental in the organization
and growth of the Wehrmacht (the German army) and
the establishment of a plan for Germany to win the war
in Europe that it had lost in 1918.
In 1939, Paulus was named as chief of staff of the
Tenth Army, and in September 1940 he became chief of
operations for the Wehrmacht. In January 1941, Hit-
ler appointed him commander of the Sixth Army, then
readying its march into southern Russia as part of Op-
eration Barbarossa. Paulus had not commanded a unit
during the First World War, and he had no leadership
experience, but this was not evident at the beginning
of the operation. The Sixth Army had already crashed
through France, quickly defeating Germany’s largest
European enemy, and had taken the Low Countries.
Then came Barbarossa, the invasion of Russia in June
1941, for which Hitler had long planned. Under the
command of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the
German armies fought their way into the Ukraine and
captured its capital, Kiev, also taking some 600,000 Rus-
sian soldiers as prisoners. However, the Germans had not
planned for the horrific Russian winter, and—like na-
Poleon’s French army in 1812—they quickly became
bogged down. Von Rundstedt resigned his position after
Hitler refused to allow him to retreat from the worsen-
ing winter conditions, and he was replaced by General
Walther von Reichenau on 5 January 1942. This left
Paulus completely responsible for the Sixth army. Paulus
biographer Martin Middlebrook states: “The man who
had never commanded any unit in war was given direct
responsibility for an army of more than a quarter of a
million men.”
Ordered by Hitler to capture Stalingrad no mat-
ter the cost, Paulus marched on the city and took it
in September 1942, the high-water mark of German
conquest in Russia. The Russians, however, had lured
the Germans into a trap, and they quickly surrounded
Stalingrad in a siege that began in November 1942. At
first, Hitler tried a rescue mission, sending Field Mar-
shal Erich von Manstein and the 4th Panzer Division
to Stalingrad. Halted by the Soviets 30 miles from the
city, von Manstein ordered Paulus to try to break out pAuluS, FRieDRich wilhelm eRnSt