Scipio

Scipio, PUBLIUS CORNELIUS, surnamed AFRICANUS MAJOR, one of the most famous soldiers of ancient Rome, was born in 237 B.C. He took part in the disastrous battle of the Ticinus (218), where he saved his father's life, and later at the Trebia and the fatal field of Cannæ. In 212 he was elected ædile, though not yet of legal age, and in 210 was specially selected by acclamation of the people as a general extraordinary for Spain. His noble beauty and personal charm proved irresistible, but in this gracious and self-reliant youth of twenty-seven the people had found a hero and the state a saviour. His arrival gave a new turn to the war. By a bold and sudden march he captured Nova Carthago, the stronghold of the Carthaginians, and his courtesy soon won over many of the native chiefs. He checked Hasdrubal, but failed to prevent him from crossing the Pyrenees to the assistance of Hannibal. In 207 he won a decisive victory over the other Hasdrubal (son of Gisgo) and Mago, which gave him the whole of Spain. Soon after he returned to Rome, where he was elected consul (205) though he had not yet filled the office of prætor. His favourite plan to transfer the war to Africa was opposed by a party in the senate; but the popular enthusiasm for the name of Scipio proved too strong, and in 204 he sailed from Lilybæum, in Sicily, with 30,000 men, and landed on the coast near Utica. His successes against Syphax and their own armies compelled the Car- thaginians to recall Hannibal from Italy—the very object Scipio had laboured to achieve. After some abortive efforts at reconciliation the great struggle between Rome and Carthage, between Scipio and Hannibal, was terminated by the battle fought near Zama, 19th October 202, in which the Carthaginian troops were routed with immense slaughter. Hannibal advised his countrymen to abandon what had now become a hopeless and ruinous contest, and his advice was taken. The noble magnanimity of Scipio's character made submission the more easy; and peace was concluded in the following year, when the conqueror returned to Rome to enjoy a triumph. The surname of Africanus was conferred on him, and so extravagant was the popular gratitude that it was proposed to make him consul and dictator for life, honours which would have been the destruction of the constitution, but which Scipio was either wise enough or magnanimous enough to refuse. In 190, in order to give him his aid, he served as legate under his brother Lucius in the war with Antiochus, and crushed his power in the great victory of Magnesia. But after their triumphant return a prosecution was raised against Lucius for allowing himself to be bribed by Antiochus, the colour being the too lenient terms he had been granted. Lucius was declared guilty by the senate; his property was confiscated, and he himself would have been thrown into prison had not Africanus forcibly rescued him from the hands of the officers of justice. In 185 Scipio was himself accused by the tribune M. Nævius; but, instead of refuting the charges brought against him, he delivered, on the first day of his trial, a eulogy on his own achievements, and opened the second day by reminding the citizens that it was the anniversary of the battle of Zama, and therefore a time to return thanks to the immortal gods, and to pray for other citizens like himself. The people followed him to the Capitol in a fever of excitement, and the prosecution was at an end. But Scipio felt that popular enthusiasm was uncertain, that the power of the oligarchy was irresistible, that its hatred of him was unappeasable, and that his day was over. He retired to his country-seat at Liternum, in Campania, where he spent the remainder of his life, and where he died about 183. His wife was daughter to the Æmilius Paulus who fell at Cannæ; his daughter was Cornelia, mother of the Gracchi. Scipio Africanus is commonly regarded as the greatest Roman general before Julius Caesar; and certainly in the brilliancy of his gifts and accomplishments he was unsurpassed; but if his career be strictly examined it will be found that he owed as much to fortune as to genius. No doubt he won splendid successes, and made the most of his great advantages. Yet his fondness for sounding titles and lavish display, his nepotism, his corruption of the public spirit by largesses, and his assumption of personal superiority to the common law were influences distinctly harmful to the state. His beauty, bravery, and courtesy, his proud yet pious belief that the gods favoured him with their inspiration, won him the love and reverence of soldiers and of women; and his magnanimity towards his fallen foe, who flitted about the eastern courts in dreary exile, is a bright feature in his character, and nobly distinguishes him from the cruel-hearted oligarchs of the senate.