Sulla Felix

1951 ◽  
Vol 41 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. P. V. D. Balsdon
Keyword(s):  
Scipio Africanus ◽  
Second Punic War ◽  
The Family ◽  
Valerius Maximus

Livy wrote of the great Scipio at the conclusion of the second Punic war ‘primus certe hic imperator nomine victae ab se gentis est nobilitatus’. But already more than half a century earlier M'. Valerius Maximus, consul of 263 B.C., who captured Messana and was honoured with the cognomen ‘Messalla’, had received a title from a conquest in war. In the century and a half after Scipio became Africanus, many such honourable cognomina were acquired by others. In only six cases is there evidence of the cognomen descending within the family: Valerius Messalla, Scipio Africanus, Scipio Asiaticus, Metellus Creticus, Servilius Isauricus, and (with a slight difference) Pompeius Bithynicus.

Decline in the Roman Republic

2021 ◽  
pp. 7-15
Author(s):  
Edward J. Watts
Keyword(s):  
Roman Republic ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Land Reforms ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
New Class ◽  
Scipio Africanus ◽  
Second Punic War

The rhetoric of Roman decline appears in some of the earliest surviving Latin literary texts (like Plautus’s Trinummus). Cato the Elder built much of his political brand around the idea that greed, extravagance, and, later, Greek influence undermined Roman virtue. He defended the lex Oppia, a sumptuary law, and directed attacks against figures in the mode of Scipio Africanus. This sort of attack particularly resonated as economic changes and the rise of a new class of super-wealthy Romans emerged in the decades after the end of the Second Punic War. By the 130s, Tiberius Gracchus used similar attacks on the greed and extravagance of Roman and Italian elites to push for aggressive land reforms. Tiberius’s unwillingness to be bound by constitutional norms, however, represented a new sort of decline that ultimately prompted his murder by a mob led by Scipio Nasica.

The Second Punic War

2013 ◽  
pp. 687-707
Author(s):  
Dexter Hoyos
Keyword(s):  
North Africa ◽  
First World War ◽  
World War ◽  
High Quality ◽  
Scipio Africanus ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Second Punic War ◽  
Military Strength ◽  
First World

This chapter discusses the first world war of the ancient Mediterranean: the Second Punic War. It was fought on two continents from Spain and Africa to the Aegean, and was marked by the generalship of the initially victorious Hannibal and the ultimately victorious Scipio Africanus. The war shows that Punic military strength still matched Rome's. Hannibal successfully employed all the elements of an ancient army, and was not only an attractive and successful leader but a careful one. The Romans' solution to his tactics was to avoid battle entirely, instead shadowing his army as it marched and meanwhile molesting his Italian allies or Hanno's secondary force. Since Punic armies were comprised of non-Carthaginian conscripts and mercenaries, and Punic fleets seldom opposed big battles, manpower losses fell largely on Libyans, Spaniards, Gauls and others. In general, the high quality of agriculture in Punic North Africa impressed the Romans.

Scipio Africanus and Roman Politics in the Second Century B.C.

1938 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 153-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. H. McDonald
Keyword(s):  
Essential Element ◽  
Difficult Problem ◽  
Second Century ◽  
Roman History ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
The Public ◽  
Internal Politics ◽  
Scipio Africanus ◽  
Second Punic War ◽  
The Face

The fortunes of Scipio Africanus after the Second Punic War raise a difficult problem for the student of Roman history. Through his political standing and his personal gifts Scipio's influence must be considered an essential element in the public life of Rome at the decisive period of her imperialistic development; yet the glimpses in recorded history, though significant, are so fleeting that it is almost impossible to gain a complete impression. We know, of course, his Carthaginian policy and his strategy against Antiochus; but in matters relating to Gaul, Liguria and Spain, and in the internal politics of Rome, there is scarcely any evidence of his hand. Most obscure of all is the Second Macedonian War; where the questions of policy were similar to those in the Syrian War, yet Scipio had no share in them that can be directly discerned. Did he withdraw after his victory over Carthage and only re-appear to meet Syria ? Then why should his defeat of Antiochus be followed by his own dishonour, in the face of the claims of gratitude ? His fall suggests a persistent and important political activity, which could only be countered by extreme measures of opposition.

The Sorrow of Scipio in Silius Italicus' Punica

Ramus ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Dietrich
Keyword(s):  
Scipio Africanus ◽  
Second Punic War ◽  
Silius Italicus ◽  
Scholarly Attention

In thePunica, Silius Italicus narrates the events of the Second Punic War from the rise of Hannibal and his siege at Saguntum to the rise of Scipio Africanus and his triumph over Carthage. The importance of Scipio in the final books of thePunicais foreshadowed by events earlier in the poem; these early appearances of Scipio emphasise not only his future heroism and divine favour, but also his youth and immaturity. Although a development of his character can be traced through thePunica, the figure of Scipio is complex and contradictory. There are two significant episodes that bring Scipio into the forefront of the epic action—hisnekyiain Book 13 and his choice at the crossroads between Virtus and Voluptas in Book 15. These events are critical in understanding Scipio's role in thePunicaand as such have already received considerable scholarly attention. My focus will be onPunica13 and Scipio's trip to the underworld, but rather than analyse this passage in terms of Scipio's development and heroism, I would like to make a number of connections betweenPunica13 and passages in the first half of the epic, and, in doing so, suggest a somewhat different reading of Silius' presentation of Scipio that looks back to the disasters leading up to Cannae, rather than ahead to Rome's triumph at the end of the epic. I will begin, therefore, with a discussion of what bearing the structure of thePunicahas on its meaning and suggest different uses of symbols and imagery between the two halves of the poem, before turning to Scipio in the second half of the epic.

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