As was
Scipio Africanus, of whom Livy saith in effect, Ultima primis cedebant.
"Or of wisdom, my dear baron -- or of wisdom," said Louis XVIII., laughing; "the greatest captains of antiquity amused themselves by casting pebbles into the ocean -- see Plutarch's life of
Scipio Africanus."
Not long since I read his epitaph in the old Lincoln burying-ground, a little on one side, near the unmarked graves of some British grenadiers who fell in the retreat from Concord -- where he is styled "Sippio Brister" --
Scipio Africanus he had some title to be called -- "a man of color," as if he were discolored.
The poetry, especially Basinio's epic Hesperis, displays not only its author's erudition put to the service of his prince but also how Malatesta probably wanted to be portrayed as a modern Achilles/Odysseus and descendant of the famous Roman general
Scipio Africanus who had defeated Hannibal and was subject of Cicero's famous dream sequence, the Somnium Scipionis.
Liddell Hart awarded the highest possible marks to
Scipio Africanus, placing him, as a strategist and tactician, above Alexander, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, and all other military commanders, and staking out the additional claim that he was a man of the highest personal character.
FACT: Roman general
Scipio Africanus is said to have ordered the salting of the earth of Carthage after the city's defeat in 146BC.
They include the host Scipio (Publius Cornelius
Scipio Africanus Aemilianus, the general who destroyed Carthage, an opponent of the Gracchi's populist program to redistribute property, and a friend of the historian Polybius and the Stoic philosopher Panaetius), and several of Scipio's friends, including Laelius (Gaius Laelius, Scipio's former military subordinate, a former consul and another opponent of the Gracchi, who combined an interest in philosophy with a practical cast of mind), Philus (Lucius Furius Philus, another former consul with philosophical interests), Tubero (Quintus Aelius Tubero, Scipio's nephew, who was a Stoic philosopher), and Rufus (Publius Rutilius Rufus, a jurist and Stoic, who is the ostensible narrator).
The self-immolation of an entire besieged Celtiberian settlement in the face of the Roman forces of
Scipio Africanus is not a result of an Olympian decree or any other numinous agents.
The Roman general,
Scipio Africanus, counter-attacked and defeated Hannibal in the third Punic War at Zama, then paid for, and enlisted the horsemen.
Gabriel's description of the Zama campaign and battle mirror the analysis in his biography of
Scipio Africanus, which is to be expected.
Scipio Africanus - Roman general who commanded the invasion of Carthage in the second Punic War and defeated Hannibal at Zama (circa 237-183 BC)