Scipio Africanus
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus Major (
Latin:
P·CORNELIVS·P·F·L·N·SCIPIO·AFRICANVS¹) (
235–
183 BC) was a general in the
Second Punic War and statesman of the
Roman Republic. He was best known for defeating
Hannibal of
Carthage, a feat that earned him the surname
Africanus, the nickname 'the Roman Hannibal' and recognition as one of the finest commanders in military history.
Early years
Scipio was born in
236 BC in
Rome into the highly political and patrician
Cornelii family, and into a famous branch (stirp)
Scipio. [The cognomen Scipio means rod or staff]. Several ancestors had been consuls successively, his great-grandfather Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus had been patrician censor in 280 BC. The Cornelii counted among the five major patrician families (the others being the Fabii, the Aemilii, the Claudii, and the Valerii); the Scipiones were probably its most prominent branch even in Early Roman history.
Scipio was the elder son of
Publius Cornelius Scipio later praetor and consul, by his wife Pomponia, apparently of a prominently knightly and plebian family. From his mother, he inherited his religiosity. He is known to have visited the temple daily, to take dreams about gods and omens seriously, and to have consulted with (or at least informed his mother) before deciding to run for curule aedile (the most junior magistrate who was entitled to enter the Senate) at the age of 24. Little otherwise is known about his childhood; he is known to have a younger brother Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus.
At an early age, Scipio joined the Roman struggle against Carthage in the Second Punic War. At some point, like his enemy Hannibal, he is said to have promised his father to continue the struggle against Carthage all his life.
The young Scipio survived the disastrous battles at
Ticinus (where, according to one tradition, he saved his
father's life when he was 18),
Trebia and
Cannae where his would-be father-in-law
Lucius Aemilius Paullus was killed in 216 BC. Even after the last and most terrible of these defeats at the hands of the
Carthaginians, he was resolutely focused on securing Roman victory. On hearing that a plebian-nobleman
Lucius Caecilius Metellus and other politicians were at the point of giving up the struggle and quitting
Italy in despair, Scipio gathered what few followers he could find and stormed into the meeting, where at sword-point he forced all present to swear that they would continue in faithful service to Rome. Fortunately, the Roman Senate was of like mind and refused to entertain thoughts of peace despite losing one-fifth of the men of military age within a few years.
At the elections for the year 212 BCE, Scipio offered himself as a candidate for the curule aedileship, apparently to assist a less popular cousin (a Lucius Cornelius) who was also standing for election. The Tribunes of the Plebs (elected representatives from the Plebian Assembly) objected to his candidature, saying that he could not be allowed to stand because he had not yet reached the legal age (30); curule aediles were automatically entitled to enter the Senate and the legal age for Senate membership was 30. Scipio's reply was: "If the
quirites (the Roman citizens) are unanimous in their desire to appoint me Aedile, I am quite old enough...". Scipio, already known for his bravery and patriotism, was elected unanimously and the Tribunes abandoned their opposition.
This marked the beginning of a dramatic political and military career, made all the more urgent in the following year when his father and uncle were killed in Spain.
Campaign in Hispania
 |
Nicholas Poussin's painting of the Continence of Scipio, depicting his return of a captured young woman to her fiancé, having refused to accept her from his troops as a prize of war. |
The year 211 BC was certainly a momentous year for the Scipiones. That year his father, Publius Scipio, and uncle
Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus were both killed in battle against
Hasdrubal Barca, the brother of Hannibal Barca. The year after his father's death, he offered himself for the command of the new army which the Romans resolved to send to
Hispania. In spite of his youth, his noble demeanor and enthusiastic language had made so great an impression that he was unanimously elected to be sent there as proconsul. In the year of his arrival (
210 BC), all Hispania south of the
Ebro river was under Carthaginian control, but to his fortune the three Carthaginian generals—Hannibal's brothers Hasdrubal and
Mago, and Hasdrubal the son of Gisgo—were not disposed to act in concert and were preoccupied with revolts in Africa. Scipio landed at the mouth of the Ebro and was able to surprise and capture
Carthago Nova, the headquarters of the Carthaginian power in Hispania. He obtained a rich booty of war stores and supplies, and an excellent harbor and base of operations.
His humanitarian conduct toward prisoners and hostages in Hispania helped in qualifying the Romans as liberators as opposed to conquerors. Livy tells the story of the capture of a beautiful woman by his troops, who offered her to Scipio as a prize of war. Scipio, astonished by her beauty, thanked his troops but discovered that the woman was betrothed to a local chieftain. He returned her to her fiancé, along with the money that had been offered by her parents to ransom her. While Scipio was long known for his great chivalry, Scipio doubtless also realized that the Senate's first priority was the war in Italy, and in the midst of the Carthaginian base in Hispania, he was to be outnumbered without much hope of reinforcement. It was paramount therefore that Scipio cooperate with local chieftains to both supply and reinforce his small army. The woman's fiance (who soon married her) naturally brought over his tribe to support the Roman armies.
In
209 BC he fought his first set piece battle, and drove back Hasdrubal from his position at
Baecula, on the upper
Guadalquivir. Scipio was forced to make haste, as at any time he feared the armies of Mago and Gisgo would enter the field and surround his small army. Scipio's objective was, therefore, to quickly eliminate one of the armies to give him the luxury of dealing with the other two piecemeal. The battle was decided by a determined infantry charge up the center of the Carthaginian position. Roman losses are uncertain but may have been considerable in light of an effort by the infantry to scale an elevation defended by Carthaginian light infantry. Scipio then orchestrated a frontal attack by the rest of his infantry to draw out the remainder of the Carthaginian forces. However, Hasdrubal had not espied Scipio's hidden reserves of cavalry moving behind enemy lines. A cavalry charge created a double envelopment on either flank led by cavalry commander
Gaius Laelius and Scipio himself. This broke the back of Hasdrubal's army and routed his forces -- an impressive feat for the young Roman versus the veteran Carthaginian general.
Despite a Roman victory, Scipio was unable to hinder the Carthaginian march to Italy. Much historical criticism has been leveled at his inability to effectively pursue Hasdrubal, who would eventually cross the Alps only to be defeated by
Gaius Claudius Nero at the
Battle of the Metaurus.
One popular theory is that Scipio merely wanted the glory of securing Spain. An extended mountainous campaign endangered that. Others cite the Roman soldiers' appetite for plunder as preventing him from rallying in pursuit. The most probable from a strategic standpoint is simply the fact that both Gisgo's and Mago's armies, both of superior numerical strength, could at any point pursue his Roman army, resulting in Scipio being trapped between Hasdrubal's army on one side and Gisgo's and Mago's on the other. Mere days after Hasdrubal's defeat, Mago and Gisgo
were able to converge in front of the Roman positions, bringing into question what would have happened had Scipio pursued Hasdrubal.
After winning over a number of Hispanian chiefs Scipio achieved a decisive victory in
206 BC over the full Carthaginian levy at
Ilipa (now the city of
Alcalá del Río, near
Hispalis, now called
Seville), which resulted in the evacuation of Hispania by the Punic commanders.
After all this rapid success in conquering Spain, and with the idea of striking a blow at Carthage in
Africa, he paid a short visit to the
Numidian princes
Syphax and
Massinissa. Numidia was of vital importance in a Carthage whose main source of manpower was in mercenaries and allied forces, and most of these were abroad. In addition to supplying the amazing Numidian cavalry (on which see the
Battle of Cannae), Numidia operated as a buffer for vulnerable Carthage. Scipio managed to receive support from both. Unfortunately, Syphax later changed his mind and married the beautiful Carthaginian noblewoman
Sophonisba, daughter of Hasdrubal the son of Gisgo (not of the Barca family); the Numidian prince later fought with his Carthaginian in-laws against Massinissa and Scipio in Africa.
On his return to Hispania, Scipio had to quell a mutiny which had broken out among his troops. Hannibal's brother Hasdrubal had meanwhile marched for Italy, and in 206 Scipio himself, having secured the Roman occupation of Hispania by the capture of
Gades, gave up his command and returned to Rome.
African Campaign
In the following year, 205, he was unanimously elected to the
consulship at 31.
Africa was his intended destination, but his jealous enemies in the
senate allowed him to go as far as
Sicily and did not grant him an army. Nevertheless, Scipio there trained a volunteer army.
By this time Hannibal's movements were restricted to the southwestern toe of Italy, and the war was now to be transferred to Africa. Scipio was intent on this, and his great name drew to him a number of volunteers from all parts of Italy. Interestingly, among these volunteers were the shamed survivors of the fiasco at the Battle of Cannae. Due to their public shame and berratement, they were anxious to once again prove their worth as soldiers, an asset that Scipio was quick to exploit. Scipio quickly began creating Sicily as a training camp and a staging point for his conceived invasion. However, he realized that the Carthaginian, and especially Numidian superiority in cavalry would prove decisive against the largely infantry forces of the legion. Coupled to this was that a large proportion of Rome's cavalry were dubiously loyal allies, or noble
equites exempting themselves from being lowly foot soldiers. Scipio solved this pressing matter in a variety of ways, many of them quite harshly. One anecdote told how Scipio pressed into service several hundred Sicilian nobles to create a cavalry force. The Sicilians were quite opposed to this servitude to a foreign occupier (Sicily being under Roman control only since the
First Punic War), and protested vigorously. Scipio assented to their exemption from service providing they pay for a horse, equipment, and a replacement rider for the Roman Army. In this way, Scipio (albeit by less than reputable means) created a trained nucleus of cavalry for his African campaign.
A commission of inquiry was sent over to Sicily, and it found that Scipio was at the head of a well-equipped and trained fleet and army. Scipio pressed them for permission to cross into Africa. The conservative branch of the Roman Senate, championed by
Fabius Maximus, the
Cunctator (Delayer), opposed the mission. Fabius still feared Hannibal's power, and viewed any mission to Africa as dangerous and wasteful to the war effort. The Senate also disdained Scipio's Hellenophile tastes in art, luxuries, and philosophies. Also, a certain amount of republican fear of powerful military leaders no doubt played a role, whilst the introduction (
205 BC) of the
Phrygian worship of
Cybele and the transference of the image of the goddess herself from
Pessinus to
Rome to bless the expedition may have affected public opinion. Thus, all Scipio could obtain was permission, but not support, to cross over from Sicily to Africa, if it appeared to be in the interests of Rome. In short, the Senate dispatched Scipio to Africa either to get rid of him, hoping he would subsequently remain politically insignificant, or possibly militarily fail.
At the commissioners' bidding he sailed in 204 and landed near
Utica. Carthage, meanwhile, had secured the friendship of the
Numidian Syphax, whose advance compelled Scipio to raise the siege of Utica and dig in on the shore between that place and Carthage. The following year, 204, he destroyed two combined armies of the Carthaginians and Numidians. He did so by approaching by stealth and setting fire to the Carthaginian-Numidian camp, where the combined army became panic stricken and fled only to be put down by Scipio's army. Though not a "battle," both Polybius and Livy estimate that the death toll in this single attack exceeded 40,000 Carthaginian and Numidian dead, and more captured. The praise and condemnation for this act is roughly proportional. Polybius said that it "of all the brilliant exploits performed by Scipio this seems to me the most brilliant and more adventurous." One of Hannibal's principal biographers,
Theodore Ayrault Dodge, goes so far to suggest that this attack was out of cowardice, and spares no more than a page upon the event in total, despite the fact that it secured the siege of Utica, and effectively put Syphax out of the war. The irony of Dodge's accusations of Scipio's cowardice is the attack showed traces of Hannibal's penchant for the ambuscade.
Scipio quickly dispatched his two lieutenants, Laelius and Masinissa, to pursue Syphax; a pursuit that ultimately dethroned Syphax, and ensured Prince Masinissa's corronation as King of the Numidians. Carthage, and especially Hannibal himself, had long relied upon these superb natural horsemen who would now fight for Rome and against Carthage.
With Carthage now deserted by her allies, and being surrounded by a veteran and undefeated Roman army which Dodge states was the best ever fielded, Carthage began opening the diplomatic channels of negotiation. It was here that the unthinkable occurred: Hannibal Barca returned to Carthage. Despite Scipio's moderate terms offered to Carthage, Carthage suddenly suspended negotiations and again prepared for war. It is a testament to Hannibal's leadership that suddenly the mood in Carthage changed. The army that Hannibal returned with is a subject of much debate. Apologists for Hannibal often claim that his army was mostly Italians pressed into service from Southern Italy, and that most of his elite veterans (and certainly cavalry) were spent. Scipio's advocates tend to be far more suspicious, and believe the number of veteran forces to remain significant. Hannibal did have a trained pool of soldiers who had fought personally in Italy to call upon, as well as a devastating weapon: eighty massive war elephants. Hannibal could boast a strength of 58,000 infantry and 6,000 cavalry, to which Scipio could answer with 34,000 infantry and 8,700 cavalry. The two generals met on a plain between Carthage and Utica forever immortalized as
Zama to do battle on
October 19,
202 BC. Despite mutual admiration, negotiations floundered due to Roman allegations of "Punic Faith," referring to the breach of protocols which ended the First Punic War by the Carthaginian attack on
Saguntum, as well as Scipio's increasingly extreme demand and a perceived breach in contemporary military etiquette (Hannibal's numerous ambuscades).
The Battle of Zama itself is recounted elsewhere, but it is noteworthy to cite Scipio's contribution to its outcome. Hannibal had arranged his infantry in three phalangial lines designed to overlap the Roman lines. His strategy, so oft reliant upon subtle strategems, was simple: a massive forward attack by the war elephants would create vulnerable gaps in the Roman lines, and these would be attacked from lines of infantry, and supported by cavalry. Rather than lining his Roman forces in the traditional manipular lines, which put the
velites,
principes, and
triarii in succeeding lines of 500 men groups, Scipio instead put the maniples in a chequer pattern, with his elite heavy infantry in diagonals. This was done to match the length of the Carthaginian line, but also as a strategem against the war elephants. When the Carthaginian elephants charged, they found well laid traps before the Roman position, and were greeted by Roman trumpeters which drove many amok out of confusion and fear. Roman javelins were used to good effect, and the sharp traps caused great distress among the pachyderms. Many of them were so distraught, in fact, they charged back into their own Carthaginian lines. Nevertheless, the Roman infantry was greatly rattled, and it was in this time that Massinissa's Numidian and Laelius' Roman cavalry began to charge the opposing cavalry off the field. This was done to great success, but perhaps too much vigor as both commanders pursued their routing Carthaginian counterparts. The resulting infantry clash was fierce and bloody, with neither side achieving local superiority. The battle was won when the pursuing allied cavalry rallied, and charged the rear of Hannibal's army, causing what many historians have called the "Roman Cannae."
Because of the exertions of Rome and her allies against Carthage many Roman aristocrats, especially Cato, expected Scipio to raze that city to the ground after his successful campaign. However, Scipio dictated extremely moderate terms in contrast to an immoderate Roman Senate. Despite his moderation towards the Carthaginians, he was cruel towards the Roman and the Latin deserters, the Latins were beheaded and the Romans crucified. By Scipio's consent Hannibal was allowed to become the civic leader of Carthage as a byproduct of Scipio's moderation (which the Cato family did not forget).
Return to Rome
Scipio was welcomed back to Rome in triumph with the
agnomen of
Africanus. He refused the many further honours which the people would have thrust upon him such as Consul and Dictator for life. In the year 199 BC, Scipio was elected Censor and for some years afterwards he lived quietly and took no part in politics.
In
193 BC he was one of the commissioners sent to Africa to settle a dispute between Massinissa and the Carthaginians, which the commission did not achieve. This may have been because Hannibal, in the service of
Antiochus III of
Syria, might have come to Carthage to gather support for a new attack on Italy. In
190 BC, when the Romans declared war against Antiochus III, Publius offered to join his brother
Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus, if the Senate entrusted the chief command to him. The two brothers brought the war to a conclusion by a decisive victory at
Magnesia in the same year.
Retirement
Meanwhile, Scipio's political enemies, led by
Marcus Porcius Cato the Elder, had gained ground. When the
Scipiones returned to Rome, two
tribunes prosecuted (
187 BC) Lucius on the grounds of misappropriation of money received from Antiochus. As Lucius was in the act of producing his account-books, his brother wrested them from his hands, tore them in pieces, and flung them on the floor of the Senate house. This created a bad impression; Lucius was brought to trial, condemned and heavily fined.
Africanus himself was subsequently (
185 BC) accused of having been bribed by Antiochus. By reminding the people that it was the anniversary of his victory at Zama he caused an outburst of enthusiasm in his favor. The people crowded round him and followed him to the Capitol, where they offered thanks to the gods and begged them to give Rome more citizens like Africanus. Others however only put his survival solely down to the influence of his brother-in-law, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus.
He then retired to his country seat at
Liternum on the coast of
Campania. He lived there for the rest of his life, revealing his great magnanimity by attempting to prevent the ruin of the exiled Hannibal by Rome. He died at 53 in 183 B.C, demanding that his body would be buried away from his ungrateful city.
With his wife Aemilia Paulla (also called Aemilia Tertia), daughter of the consul
Lucius Aemilius Paullus who fell at Cannae and sister of another consul
Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, he had a happy and fruitful marriage.Aemilia Paulla had unusual freedom and wealth for a patrician married woman, and she was an important role model for many younger Roman woman, just as her youngest daughter Cornelia, Mother of the Gracchi, would be an important role model for many Late Republican Roman noblewomen, including allegedly, the mother of Julius Caesar. Despite his marriage, Scipio allegedly had an eye for beautiful women, or so allege later historians.
At his death, Scipio Africanus had two sons and two daughters living. Both sons rose to become praetors in 174 BC, but took no further part in public life; both died unmarried, relatively young. The elder son and heir Publius however adopted his own first cousin -- an Aemilius Paullus (b. 185 BC) as
Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus (also known as
Scipio the Younger). This adoption took place well before the
Battle of Pydna in 168 BC.
Scipio and Aemilia Paulla also had two daughters surviving. The elder Cornelia married her second cousin
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum (son of the consul of 191 BC who was himself son of Scipio's elder paternal uncle Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus). This Scipio Nasica rose to many of the dignities enjoyed by his late father-in-law, and was noted for his staunch (if ultimately futile) opposition to
Cato the Censor over the fate of Carthage from about 157 to 149 BC. They had at least one surviving son (of whom more below).
The younger daughter was more famous in history;
Cornelia Africana, young wife of the elderly Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, tribune of the plebs, praetor, then consul 177 (then censor and consul again), became the mother of 12 children of whom the only surviving sons were the two famous
Gracchi. All three surviving children of this union were ill-fated; the
Brothers Gracchi died relatively young, murdered or forced to commit suicide by more conservative relatives. The eldest child and only surviving daughter Sempronia was married to her mother's first cousin (and her own cousin by adoption) Scipio Aemilianus. The couple had no children, and Sempronia grew to hate her husband after he condoned the murder of her brother Tiberius in 132 BC. Scipio's mysterious death in 129 BC (at the relatively young age of 56) was blamed by some on his wife.
Scipio's only descendants living through the Late Republican Period are via his elder daughter Cornelia and her husband Scipio Nasica, and via Gaius Sempronius Gracchus's granddaughter Fulvia (a wife of
Mark Antony).
The son-in-law became consul (abdicating or resigning), then censor, then Princeps Senatus and died as Pontifex Maximus. The second Scipio Nasica's son and descendants all became increasingly conservative, in start contrast to the father and the grandfathers.
Scipio Africanus's eldest grandson
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica Serapio became consul in 138, murdered his own cousin
Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus (163-132 BC) in 132. Scipio Nasica Serapio was sent to Asia Minor by the Senate to escape the wrath of the Gracchi supporters, and died mysteriously there.
His son, the fourth Scipio Nasica, was even more conservative, and rose to be consul in 112 BC. This Scipio Nasica's sons became praetors only shortly before the Marsic or Social War (starting 91 BC). However, a grandson (adopted into the plebian-noble Caecilii Metelli) became the
Metellus Scipio who allied himself with
Pompey the Great and
Cato the Younger, and who went into opposition against Julius Caesar. Metellus Scipio was the last Scipio to distinguish himself militarily or politically.
None of Scipio's descendants, apart from Scipio Aemilianus (his wife's nephew who became his adoptive grandson), came close to matching his political career or his military successes.
It is not clear how the consul
Scipio Salvito (a former husband of
Scribonia, second wife of Octavian aka
Augustus Caesar, and mother of his only legitimate child Julia) is related to Scipio Africanus.
He was a man of great intellectual culture and could speak and read
Greek, and wrote his own memoirs in Greek. He also enjoyed the reputation of being a graceful
orator.
There was a belief that he was a special favourite of heaven and held actual communication with the gods. It is quite possible that he himself honestly shared this belief; to his political opponents he was often harsh and arrogant, but towards others singularly gracious and sympathetic. According to
Gellmus, his life was written by
Oppius and
Hyginus, and also, it was said, by
Plutarch. He often visited the temple of Jupiter and made offerings there.
He appears in Cicero's
De Republica and
De Amicitia, and in
Silius Italicus's
PunicaMilitary
Scipio is considered by many to be one of Rome's greatest generals; he never lost a battle. Skillful alike in strategy and in tactics, he had also the faculty of inspiring his soldiers with confidence. According to the story, Hannibal, who regarded
Alexander as the first and
Pyrrhus as the second among military commanders, confessed that had he beaten Scipio he should have put himself before either of them - though this particular story was probably fabricated by
Livy at a later date.
Music
The exploits of Scipio inspired
George Frideric Handel to write the opera
Scipio, the march from which remains the regimental slow
march of the British
Grenadier Guards.
Renaissance literature and art
'The Continence [i.e. moderation] of Scipio' was a stock motif in
exemplary literature and art [
1], as was the 'Dream of Scipio', portraying his
allegorical choice between Virtue and Luxury [
2].
The Continence of Scipio, depicting his clemency and sexual restraint after the fall of Carthago Nova, was an even more popular subject. Versions of the subject were painted by many artists from the Renaissance through to the 19th century, including
Andrea Mantegna and
Nicholas Poussin.
Film
Shortly before
Italy's invasion of
Ethiopia,
Benito Mussolini commissioned an epic film depicting the exploits of Scipio. Scipione l'africano, written by Carmine Gallone, won the Mussolini Cup for the greatest Italian film at the
1937 Venice Film Festival.
Literature
* Ross Leckie, Carthage trilogy, source of the 2006 film (1996, Hannibal: A Novel, ISBN 0895264439 ; 1999, Scipio, a Novel, ISBN 034911238X ; Carthage, 2000, ISBN 0862419441)
P·CORNELIVS·P·F·L·N·SCIPIO·AFRICANVS in English is "Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, son of Publius, grandson of Lucius"*
Scipio-Paullus-Gracchus family tree*
Akinde, Michael O., Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus. [
3]
*
Undefeated Military Commanders*
H. H. Scullard,
Scipio Africanus: Soldier and Politician, Thames and Hudson, London, 1970. ISBN 0500400121For the military achievements of Scipio see:
*
B.H. Liddell Hart,
A Greater Than Napoleon, Scipio Africanus, first published 1926, London
*
Theodore Ayrault Dodge, Hannibal, Da Capo Press; Reissue edition, 2004. ISBN 03068136
