Publius Cornelius Scipio
Scipio Africanus Minor (Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus Numantinus), c.185-129 B.C., Roman general, destroyer of Carthage. He was the son of Aemilius Paullus, under whom he fought at Pydna. He was adopted by the eldest son of Scipio Africanus Major (see under Scipio, family). He earned a great reputation as a patron of Greek literature and of Roman writers, notably Terence and Laelius, and he was the lifelong friend of Polybius, his protégé. His friendship with Laelius has been immortalized by Cicero in De amicitia. He served in the army in Spain (151), and he visited Masinissa of Numidia. As consul (147) he went to Africa and terminated the Third Punic War with the capture and destruction of Carthage. In 142 he was censor. He was consul again (134) and went to Spain, where he ended the rebellion with the destruction of Numantia. On his return to Rome he openly rejoiced at the murder of his adoptive cousin and own brother-in-law, Tiberius Gracchus (Scipio's wife, Sempronia, was sister of the Gracchi), and led the conservatives in attempting to destroy the Gracchan reforms. This culminated in a measure introduced by Scipio to deprive the Gracchan land commission of its powers and thus vitiate the agrarian law. A great public quarrel arose, and Scipio was found dead in his bed. No inquiry was made, and it was generally said that he was murdered by his wife, his mother-in-law, or some other of the Gracchan party. Cicero praises Scipio in the Dream of Scipio, a splendid passage in his De republica.
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Scip·io
, Publius Cornelius (Known as "Scipio the Younger.") 185?-129 B.C.Roman general and politician who commanded the final destruction of Carthage (146) in the Third Punic War.
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Publius Cornelius Scipio
This article is about the Roman consul of 218 BC. For other men with this name, see Publius Cornelius Scipio (prosopography).
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Publius Cornelius Scipio (died 211 BC) was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic.
A member of the Cornelia gens, Scipio served as consul in 218 BC, the first year of the Second Punic War, and sailed with an army from Pisa to Massilia (today Marseille), with the intention of arresting Hannibal's advance on Italy. Failing to meet his enemy he returned to Cisalpine Gaul by sea, and sent his army on to Hispania under the command of his brother Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus with instructions to hold the Carthaginian forces there in check.
On his return to Italy, he advanced at once to meet Hannibal. In a sharp cavalry engagement near the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po river, he was defeated and severely wounded. In December of the same year he again witnessed the complete defeat of the Roman army at the Trebia, when his fellow consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus insisted on fighting against his advice.
Despite the military defeats, he still retained the confidence of the Roman people: his term of command was extended and the following year found him in Hispania with his brother Calvus, winning victories over the Carthaginians and strengthening Rome's position in the Iberian peninsula. He continued the Iberian campaigns until 211, when he was killed in the defeat of his army on the upper Baetis river by the Carthaginians and Indibilis and Mandonius's tribemen. That same year Calvus and his army were destroyed at Ilorci near Carthago Nova. The details of these campaigns are not completely known, but it seems that the ultimate defeat and death of the two Scipiones was due to the desertion of the Celtiberians, who were bribed by Hasdrubal Barca,[citation needed] Hannibal's brother.
The son of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, he was the father of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (the elder), and of Lucius Cornelius Scipio Asiaticus.
A later Publius Cornelius Scipio, son of Scipio Africanus the elder and Aemilia Paulla, and grandson of the consul of 218 BC, was the adoptive father of Scipio Aemilianus Africanus. This latter Scipio served as praetor in 174 BC.
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This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
| Preceded by Lucius Aemilius Paulus and Marcus Livius Salinator |
Consul of the Roman Republic with Tiberius Sempronius Longus 218 BC |
Succeeded by Gnaeus Servilius Geminus and Gaius Flaminius and Marcus Atilius Regulus (Suffect) |
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