The History of Rome, Books 37 to the End with the Epitomes and Fragments of the Lost Books. Livy

monument, and on it stood his statue, which we in person lately saw cast down by a storm. At Rome likewise, on a monument of the Scipios outside the Capuan gate, are three statues, two of which are said to be those of Publius and Lucius Scipio, and the third that of the poet Quintus Ennius. Nor do these differences exist between historians only; the speeches attributed to Publius Scipio and Tiberius Gracchus, if they really are theirs, differ widely from one another. The title of Publius Scipio’s speech bears the name of Marcus Nævius, the tribune of the commons; the speech itself does not furnish the name of the prosecutor; it only calls him sometimes a knave, sometimes a trifler. Even the speech of Gracchus makes no mention of the Petillii accusing Africanus, or of the prosecution carried on against him. An entirely different story must be framed consistent with the speech of Gracchus; and those writers must be followed who affirm, that, at the time when Lucius Scipio was impeached, and convicted of having taken money from the king, Africanus was a lieutenant-general in Etruria; whence, on hearing of this misfortune, throwing up his commission, he hastened to Rome; and when he came straight from the gate to the forum, because he was told that his brother was being led into confinement, he drove away the officer from his person; and, on the tribunes attempting to detain him, laid violent hands on them, showing more affection towards his brother than regard for the laws. Of these acts, Gracchus himself complained, saying, that the tribunitian power was annulled by a private person; and at last, when he promises support to Lucius Scipio, he adds, that the precedent would be more tolerable, if both the tribunitian authority and the state appeared to be overpowered by a tribune of the commons, than if by a private citizen. But he loaded him with reproaches for this signal instance of intemperate violence, in such a manner, that while he charged him with having degenerated so far from himself, he gave to him his long-established praises for moderation, self-control, with many-fold increase, so as to make ample amends for the present reprehension. For he said, that the people were formerly severely rebuked by Scipio, because they wished to make him perpetual consul and dictator; that he hindered statues from being erected to him in the comitium, in the rostrum, in the senate-house, in the Capitol, in the chapel of Jupiter’s temple, and that he prevented, a decree being passed, that his image, in a triumphal habit, should be brought in procession out of the temple of Jupiter the supremely good and great. Such particulars as these, which even an enemy acknowledged while censuring him, even if inserted in a professed panegyric, would demonstrate an uncommon greatness of mind, in limiting his honours conformably to his position as a citizen.

      57 It is universally agreed, that the younger of Scipio’s two daughters was married to this Gracchus; for the elder was undoubtedly disposed of by her father, to Publius Cornelius Nasica. But it is not so certain, whether she was both betrothed and married after her father’s death, or whether the accounts are true, that Gracchus, when Lucius Scipio was being led to prison, and no other of the tribunes interfered to protect him, swore, that “the same enmity which he had entertained against the Scipios still subsisted; and that he did not perform any act for the sake of gaining their favour. But that, having seen Publius Africanus leading the kings and generals of enemies to prison, he would never suffer his brother to be led to the same place.” They add, that the senators, happening to sup that day in the Capitol, rose up together, and requested of Africanus, before the company departed, to betroth his daughter to Gracchus: that the contract was accordingly executed in due form, in the presence of this assembly; and that Scipio, on his return home, told his wife Æmilia that he had concluded a match for her younger daughter. That she, feeling her female pride hurt, expressing some resentment on not having been consulted in the disposal of their common child, added, that, even were he giving her to Tiberius Gracchus, her mother ought not to be kept in ignorance of his intention; to which Scipio, rejoiced at her judgment concurring so entirely with his own, replied, that she was betrothed to that very man. These circumstances respecting so great a captain, though they might vary, both in traditionary and written relation, ought to be stated.

      58 On the proceedings being finished by the prætor Quintius Terentius, Hostilius and Furius, being condemned, gave securities the same day to the city quæstors. Scipio, when he insisted that all the money received by him was in the treasury, and that he had not in his possession any thing whatever belonging to the public, was ordered to prison. Publius Scipio Nasica then appealed to the tribunes, and made a speech fraught with just encomiums, not only on the Cornelian family in general, but on his own branch of it in particular. “His father,” he said, “and the father of Publius Africanus and Lucius Scipio, who was now ordered to prison, were Cneius and Publius Scipio, men of the most illustrious characters; that when, through a long course of years, they had highly enhanced the reputation of the Roman name in the land of Spain, against many commanders and many armies of the Carthaginians and Spaniards, not only by their military exploits, but also by exhibiting to the nations of that country brilliant examples of Roman moderation and fidelity, both, at last, fell in the service of the Roman people. Although it ought to be sufficient to their descendants to support the glory derived from them, yet Publius Africanus so far surpassed his father’s renown, as to occasion a belief that he was not sprung from the human race, but was of divine extraction. As to Lucius Scipio, concerning whom the question then was, to pass over his exploits in Spain and in Africa, (while he was lieutenant-general to his brother,) on his being elected consul, was by the senate considered so worthy, that the province of Asia and the war with Antiochus were assigned him, without leaving it to the decision of the lots; and by his brother, that, after two consulships, the censorship, and a triumph, he attended him into Asia in quality of lieutenant-general. There, that the great and splendid character of the lieutenant might not eclipse the fame of the consul, it so happened, that, on the day when Lucius Scipio conquered Antiochus in a pitched battle at Magnesia, Publius Scipio was absent at the distance of several days’ journey, being sick at Elæa. The army of the enemy, on that occasion, was not inferior to that of Hannibal, when the battle was fought with him in Africa; and the same Hannibal, who was commander-in-chief in the Carthaginian war, was among many other generals of the king. The war indeed was so conducted, that no one could throw blame even on fortune. A ground of accusation is sought for in the peace; it is said that it was sold. The ten ambassadors, in pursuance of whose counsel the peace was concluded, are at the same time included in this charge. Some of the ten ambassadors had even stood forth as accusers of Cneius Manlius, yet their charges were so far from gaining credit that they did not produce even a delay of his triumph.

      59 “But truly, in the case of Scipio, the articles of the peace are suspected as being too favourable to Antiochus. For his entire kingdom has been left to him: although conquered, he retains possession of every thing that belonged to him before the war; and though, he had an immense quantity of gold and silver, none of it has been applied to the use of the public: all has been converted to private purposes. Now, was there not a quantity of gold and silver carried before the eyes of the public in the triumph of Lucius Scipio, so great that an equal quantity was not carried in ten of the former triumphs, even if it was amassed together? Why need I speak of the extent of the kingdom of Antiochus, or that he held all Asia, and the adjoining parts of Europe? Every body knows what a large portion of the surface of the earth that is, which stretches from Mount Taurus quite to the Ægean Sea; what a number, not only of cities, but of nations, it comprehends; and that this tract, as far as the summit of Mount Taurus, more than thirty days’ journey in length and ten in breadth, from one sea to the other—has been taken from Antiochus, who is thereby removed to the most distant corner of the world? Now if peace had been granted him without any pecuniary consideration, could more have been taken from him? Macedon was left to Philip after he was conquered; Lacedæmon to Nabis; yet the grounds of an accusation were never sought against Quinctius on that account. The reason was, that he had not Africanus for a brother, whose high renown ought to have been serviceable to Lucius Scipio; but envy of his merit had done him injury. A quantity of gold and silver was mentioned in the senate to have been conveyed to the house of Lucius Scipio, greater than could be raised from the sale of his whole property. Where, then, was all this royal treasure; where the value of so many estates received? Surely in a house, which extravagance never exhausted, this new accumulation of wealth ought to appear. But what cannot be levied out of his effects, the enemies of Lucius Scipio will exact from his person, and from his very flesh, by vexatious persecution and insult; carried to such a degree that a man of his illustrious character would be shut up in a prison, among midnight thieves and robbers, and forced to breathe his last in a dungeon and in