Although Scipio cared for many things outside the business of war, it was as a soldier that he was admired and honoured by most of his countrymen. War was the only road to high place and distinction recognized in Rome. Scipio, like other young men of his class—he belonged to a very ancient and honourable family, that of the Cornelii—was trained as a soldier from his boyhood.
At the battle of the Ticinus the life of the consul Publius Cornelius Scipio was saved by the gallantry of a lad of eighteen, serving his first campaign. This lad was his son, named like himself Publius Cornelius Scipio. He fought again at Cannae, and was, with the son of old Fabius Cunctator, among the very few young officers who escaped alive. As he made his way from the stricken field he came upon a group of men, one or two being officers, who in despair after the frightful day felt that Rome was lost. All that was left for them was to cross the seas and try, in a new country, to carve a career for themselves. Scipio and young Fabius, their swords drawn, compelled them to give up this idea and swear that they would not desert their country. These young men did yeoman service in helping Varro to collect the remnants of his scattered army; and Scipio was clearly marked out for high command in years to come.
That it would come as soon as it actually did no one, however, could have foreseen. After the battles of Ticinus and Trebia, Scipio’s father and his uncle were sent to Spain to reconquer the lost provinces there and prevent any help coming to Hannibal. They also stirred up trouble in Africa. But their success was brief. When Hannibal’s brother Hasdrubal returned to Spain the Spaniards who had enlisted in the Roman armies deserted. Finally, four years after Cannae, Publius Scipio was defeated and killed and Cnaeus, shut in by three armies, suffered the same fate. To allow the Carthaginians to hold Spain was a serious danger; to defeat them a big task. Long did the Roman Senate deliberate over who was to be sent. There did not seem to be any one capable who could be spared. Fabius was very old; Aemilius dead; Marcellus needed against Hannibal. The younger generals thought the Spanish command carried more risk than glory.
At last Scipio came forward and offered himself. A vivid account of the impression he made on the men of his day is given by Livy.
Africanus, the Young Proconsul
At Rome, after the recovery of Capua, the Senate and people were as anxious about the situation in Spain as in Italy, and it was determined to strengthen the army there and to send a new commander. There was, however, no agreement about the best man for the post, though all felt that, as two great generals had fallen in the course of thirty days, their successor ought to be chosen with unusual care. After various names had been proposed, it was finally arranged that the people should elect a proconsul for the Spanish command, and the consuls gave notice of the day of election. It had been assumed that any who thought themselves equal to the responsibility would come forward as candidates, and when this expectation was disappointed, there was renewed mourning for the recent disasters and regret for the lost generals. Thus it happened that on the day of the election the citizens went down to the Plain despondent and without definite purpose. Turning to the assembled magistrates, they scanned the features of the leaders, who were looking helplessly from one to another, and murmured that the blow had been so great and that the position was now so hopeless that no one dared to accept the Spanish command. All at once P. Scipio, the son of Publius who had fallen in Spain, proposed himself as a candidate, though he was only twenty-four years of age, and took his stand in a conspicuous place. Every eye was fixed on him, and the shouts of applause that at once burst forth predicted good luck and success to his mission. Then the election proceeded, and P. Scipio received the votes, not only of every century, but of every individual. However, when the business was finished and impetuosity and enthusiasm had cooled, men began to ask themselves amid the general silence what they had really done, and whether favour had not carried the day against judgement. There was a strong feeling that the proconsul was too young, and some even found a bad omen in the misfortunes of his family and in the very name of Scipio, as he was leaving two households in mourning to go to provinces where he would have to fight over the tombs of his father and of his uncle.
When Scipio saw the trouble and anxiety caused by this hasty action, he invited the people to meet him, and spoke with such pride and confidence of his youth and the duty entrusted to him and the war which he was to conduct that he awakened and renewed all the former enthusiasm, and filled his hearers with a more sanguine hope than is usually suggested by trust in promises or by inference from established facts. Scipio, indeed, did not merely deserve admiration for his genuine qualities, but from his youth upwards he had been endowed with a peculiar faculty for making the most of them. When he gave counsel to the people, he founded it on a vision of the night or an inspiration seemingly divine, either because he was in some sort influenced by superstition, or because he expected that his wishes and commands would be carried out readily if they came with a kind of oracular sanction. In very early life he began to create this impression, and as soon as he was of age, he would do no business, public or private, till he had gone to the Capitol and entered the temple, generally sitting there for a time alone and apart. By this habit, which he maintained all through his life, he gave support, either of set purpose or by accident, to a belief held by some that he was of divine parentage, and he thus revived a similar and equally baseless story, once current about Alexander the Great, that he was the son of a huge serpent, which had often been seen in the house before his birth, but glided away at the approach of any one and disappeared from sight. Scipio did nothing to discredit these wonders; in fact, he indirectly confirmed them, for, if he asserted nothing, he did not deny anything.
Livy, xxvi. 18-19.
He was still very young, nevertheless he had already made people feel confidence in him. In Spain, although he began with a bad failure since he allowed Hasdrubal to cross the Pyrenees with his army and march to Italy to assist Hannibal, his Spanish campaign was ably carried out and his capture of New Carthage was a bold and brilliant exploit. When the time came to choose a general, after the Metaurus, to attack Hannibal at home, every one in Rome felt that Scipio was the man. He would finish the war. There was, indeed, no serious rival; the long struggle had worn the older generals out. Some of the old-fashioned senators distrusted Scipio. He was too cultivated; too much interested in Greek literature and too young. But he was the idol of the people, who adore success, and was nominated by acclamation.
Soon the Carthaginians were so hard pressed that they sent frantic messages to Hannibal to come to their aid. They knew that the death struggle was upon them. Hannibal came. Even his genius could not, at this stage, change the fortunes of war. He had no time to train the raw Carthaginian levies. His veterans were invincible, but they were vastly outnumbered when on the plains of Zama, five days’ march from Carthage, he met Scipio in the final battle (202). It was a victory for Rome. Hannibal, who always saw things as they were, knew that the long struggle was over. Carthage must make what terms it could. These terms were severe. The city lost all its foreign possessions, had to pay a big indemnity, and hand over all but twenty men-of-war and all elephants; no military operations even within Africa could be undertaken save by permission of Rome. The city, however, was left free. Scipio set his face firmly against those who clamoured for the utter destruction of Carthage. In the same way he protested against the demand made six years later for the banishment of Hannibal.