SCIPIO AEMILIANUS AFRICANUS, PUBLIUS CORNELIUS, the younger (185-129 B.c.), was the younger son of L. Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror of Macedonia. He fought when a youth of 17 by his father's side at the battle of Pydna (168), which decided the fate of Macedonia and made northern Greece subject to Rome. He was adopted by P. Cornelius Scipio, the eldest son of Scipio Africanus the elder, and from him took the name Scipio. In 151, a time of defeat and disaster for the Romans in Spain, he voluntarily offered his services in that country and obtained an influence over the native tribes similar to that which the elder Scipio, his grandfather by adoption, had acquired nearly 6o years before. In the next year an appeal was made to him by the Carthaginians to act as arbiter between them and the Numidian prince Massinissa, who, backed up by a party at Rome, was incessantly encroaching on Carthaginian territory. In war was declared by Rome, and a force sent to besiege Carthage.
In the early operations of the war, which went altogether against the Romans, Scipio, though a subordinate officer, distinguished himself repeatedly, and in 147 he was elected consul, while yet under the legal age, in order that he might hold the supreme com mand. After a year of desperate fighting and splendid heroism on the part of the defenders he carried the fortress, and at the senate's bidding levelled it to the ground. On his return to Rome he celebrated a splendid triumph, having established a personal claim to the surname of Africanus. In 142, during his censorship, he endeavoured to check the growing luxury and immorality of the period. In 139 he was unsuccessfully accused of high treason by Tiberius Claudius Asellus, whom he had degraded when censor. The speeches delivered by him on that occasion (now lost) were considered brilliant. In 134 he was again consul, with the province of Spain, where a demoralized Roman army was vainly attempting the conquest of Numantia on the Durius (Douro). After devoting several months to restoring the discipline of his troops, he reduced the city by blockade. The fall of Numantia in 133 established the Roman dominion in the province of Hither Spain. For his services
Scipio received the additional surname of Numantinus.
Scipio himself, though not in sympathy with the extreme con servative party, was decidedly opposed to the schemes of the Gracchi (whose sister Sempronia was his wife). When he heard of the death of Tiberius Gracchus, he is said to have quoted the line from the Odyssey (i. 47), "So perish all who do the like again"; on his return to Rome he wrecked the working of the Gracchan agrarian legislation by getting the commissioners' judicial powers removed. This made him the chief enemy of the popular party for the time, and he died mysteriously in 129, the night bef ore he was to have spoken on the agrarian laws. The mystery of his death was never cleared up, and there were political reasons for letting the matter drop, but there is little doubt that he was assas sinated by one of the supporters of the Gracchi, probably Carbo. He was a man of culture and refinement ; he gathered round him such men as the Greek historian Polybius, the philosopher Panae tius, and the poets Lucilius and Terence. At the same time he had all the virtues of an old-fashioned Roman, according to Polybius and Cicero, the latter of whom gives an appreciation of him in his De republica, in which Scipio is the chief speaker. As a speaker he seems to have been no less distinguished than as a soldier. Though politically opposed to the Gracchi, he cannot be said to have been a foe to the interests of the people, but their revolution ary methods drove him into the arms of the Senatorial party, who were not much more to his taste themselves. He was, in fact, a moderate man, in favour of conciliation, and as such inevitably unpopular, though respected, in an age of political violence.
See Polybius xxxv. 4, xxxix.; Vell. Pat. i. 12 ; Florus ii. 15, 17, 18; Appian, Punica, 72, 98, 113-131, Hisp. 48-95, Bell. Civ. i. 19 ; Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus, 22, Tib. Gracchus, 21, C. Gracchus, 1o; Gellius iv. 20, v. 19; De orat. ii. 4o; exhaustive life by E. Person (Paris, 1877) ; monograph by Lincke (Dresden, 1898).