Ancient Rome: The Lives of Great Men

by Mary Agnes Hamilton

Scipio was a man of action; an excellent soldier and general. Even old Cato, who hated the Scipios, had to admire Aemilianus. Speaking of him he quoted a famous line of Homer: ‘He is a real man: the rest are shadows.’ In a very profound sense this was true. The mind of Scipio Aemilianus saw below the surface of things to the reality. He could act, but like all really first-rate men of action—Napoleon, Hannibal, Caesar—he was a thinker. Round his table there gathered the most interesting men in Rome. They talked of all the questions that have puzzled and perplexed men’s minds since men began to think at all. Closest of his friends was Polybius, the great Greek historian who wrote the history of the wars with Carthage. He lived in his house and accompanied him in his wars in Spain and Africa. Polybius stood by Scipio’s side as he watched Carthage burning to the ground (146). Orders had come from Rome that the city was to be utterly destroyed; a ploughshare was to be drawn across the site and a solemn curse laid on any one who should ever rebuild there. ‘It is a wonderful sight,’ said Aemilianus as they watched walls toppling and buildings collapsing in the flames which rose up, a huge cloud of ruddy smoke darkening and thickening the noonday sky of Africa, ‘but I shudder to think that some one may some day give the same order—for Rome.’

The following sketch of his character by Polybius shows some of his distinguishing traits:

Scipio Aemilianus as a Sportsman

After the war was decided, Paulus, in the belief that hunting was the best training and recreation that a young man could have, put the king’s huntsmen at the orders of Scipio, and gave him full authority over everything connected with the chase. Scipio readily accepted the charge and, regarding it almost as a royal office, continued to occupy himself with it as long as the army remained in Macedonia after the battle. His youth and natural disposition qualified him for this pursuit, like a high-bred hound, and his devotion to hunting became permanent, being continued when he came to Rome and found Polybius as enthusiastic as himself. Consequently, all the time that other young men spent in the law-courts and with morning calls, waiting about in the Forum and trying thus to make a favourable impression on the people, was passed by Scipio in hunting; and as he was constantly performing brilliant and notable exploits, he distinguished himself more than all the rest. For they could not win credit except by injuring others; such are the conditions of legal action; but Scipio, without doing any harm to any one, gained a popular reputation for courage, matching words with deeds. Therefore he soon excelled his contemporaries more than any Roman of whom we have record, though he followed a path to fame which, in view of Roman character and prejudice, was the very opposite of that chosen by his rivals.

Polybius, xxxvi. 15. 5-12.

From Carthage came another friend of Scipio’s—the poet Terence. Born in that city about the time of Hannibal’s death, the lad had come to Rome as a slave. His rare parts attracted the notice of his owner, who finally set him free. Terence was introduced to Scipio by another friend of his. This was Caecilius, the playwriter. His plays are unfortunately all lost, so that we have no means of judging what they were like. One day when Caecilius was at supper he was told that the managers of the games had sent a young man to read him a play which he had submitted to them, and of which they thought well. Caecilius called him in and bade him sit down on a stool on the other side of the table from that at which he and his friends were reclining on sofas, and begin to read to him. The young man had only read a few lines when the elder poet stopped him. The work was so good, he said, that he ought to sit at the author’s feet, not he at his; he called Terence up to the table. Afterwards Caecilius took the young man to see Scipio Aemilianus; and he soon became one of the intimate circle which Scipio had gathered round him. Scipio and Caecilius helped him with advice, and they all worked together at Scipio’s favourite task of improving and purifying the Latin language. A line in one of Terence’s plays expresses the point of view which Scipio Aemilianus and his friends tried to take. ‘I am human: nothing human is alien to me.’ These plays are among the earliest works of pure literature in Latin, and they show in every line the influence of Greece. The Greek spirit was one of questioning; and its influence on Roman thought was profound.

TRAGIC AND COMIC MASKS

Scipio Aemilianus questioned but looked on. He saw much in the present state of Rome to disturb and displease him; he dreaded what might come in the future, as the few grew richer and the many poorer; but he did not take any action. His was the mind of the philosopher; like his friends Polybius and Terence he wanted to understand. He did not believe that things could be changed. What was to happen would happen; to perturb and perplex oneself was useless and might be dangerous. The people who got excited and believed that great improvements could be brought about easily seemed to him stupid and dangerous. It was easy to breed disorder; to spoil the things that had made Rome great; very hard to make alterations. The men who really served the Republic were not the politicians clamouring in the market-place, orating in the Assembly, or the idle dirty mobs who listened to them and were ready to shout for this to-day and the other thing to-morrow. Them Scipio scorned. The real workers and builders he thought were the silent soldiers fighting and working in all the dreariness and discomfort of camps in foreign countries. In Scipio there was a good deal of the temper of that Lucius Junius Brutus who in the earliest days of the Republic had condemned his own sons to death for treason to the State. He judged his own friends and relations more, not less, severely than other people. Thus when Tiberius Gracchus, the kinsman and brother-in-law of Scipio (his own wife was Sempronia, the sister of Gracchus) brought in his Land Bill and came, over it, into conflict with the Senate, Scipio was against him. When disorders and rioting in the streets of Rome grew out of the struggle over the Land Bill and Tiberius was murdered, Scipio made a speech in the Senate in which he said that Tiberius had deserved his death. He quoted a line of Homer: ‘So perish all who do the like again.’ When the people shouted him down in their anger he turned on them with cold contempt—fear of any kind was not in Scipio—and said, ‘Be silent, ye to whom Italy is only a step-mother.’ Speeches like that did not make him popular. Scipio was so much respected that men always listened when he spoke. There was something lofty and splendid about him and no soldier of his day could compare with him. But he stood aloof. Outside his own circle of close friends he was little known and less understood.