Scipio Africanus

Scipio, to sound Syphax’s intention, leaving his army, abandoning Spain, not yet secure nor well settled in his new conquest, could pass over into Africa in two small ships, to commit himself, in an enemy’s country, to the power of a barbarian king, to a faith untried and unknown, without obligation, without hostage, under the sole security of the grandeur of his own courage, his good fortune, and the promise of his high hopes.

But, withal, let my governor remember to what end his instructions are principally directed, and that he do not so much imprint in his pupil’s memory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners of Hannibal and Scipio;

And could the perfection of eloquence have added a lustre suitable to a great personage, certainly Scipio and Laelius had never resigned the honor of their comedies, with all the luxuriances and elegances of the Latin tongue, to an African slave;

Many at Rome thought, and would usually say, that the greatest of Scipio’s acts were in part due to Laelius, whose constant practice it was still to advance and support Scipio’s grandeur and renown, without any care of his own.

Many at Rome thought, and would usually say, that the greatest of Scipio’s acts were in part due to Laelius, whose constant practice it was still to advance and support Scipio’s grandeur and renown, without any care of his own.

Scipio thought it much better to go and attack his enemy’s territories in Africa than to stay at home to defend his own and to fight him in Italy, and it succeeded well with him.

May I not confidently instance in those of Hannibal and his great rival Scipio?

Scipio, being one day accused before the people of Rome of some crimes of a very high nature, instead of excusing himself or flattering his judges:

And Petilius, having been set on by Cato to demand an account of the money that had passed through his hands in the province of Antioch, Scipio being come into the senate to that purpose, produced a book from under his robe, wherein he told them was an exact account of his receipts and disbursements;

If he enter into a flattering presumption of his personal valor, let him but recollect the lives of Scipio, Epaminondas;

in chastity (of which the whole of his life gave manifest proof) we read the same of him that was said of Alexander and Scipio, that being in the flower of his age, for he was slain by the Parthians at one-and-thirty, of a great many very beautiful captives, he would not so much as look upon one.

For who could absolve that of the Censor from envy and ambition, having dared to attack the honor of Scipio, a man in goodness and all other excellent qualities infinitely beyond him or any other of his time?

the well living of Scipio has a thousand fashions, that of Diogenes but one;

Scipio Africanus, Xenophon;

and the elder Scipio, wherever he would raise himself in esteem, sets a higher value upon his affability and humanity, than on his prowess and victories, and has always this glorious saying in his mouth:

The qualities and fortunes of Lucullus, Metellus, and Scipio have ever run more in my head than those of any of my own country;

Those who have known the admirable qualities of Scipio Africanus, deny him the glory that Panaetius attributes to him, of being abstinent from gifts, as a glory not so much his as that of his age.

no more did the first Scipio.

They found fault with the great Scipio that he was a great sleeper;

And among so many admirable actions of Scipio, the grandfather, a person worthy to be reputed of a heavenly extraction, there is nothing that gives him a greater grace than to see him with Laelius, by the seashore, carelessly and childishly trifling at gathering and selecting shells, and racing to find small things to pick up, and, when the weather was bad, amusing and tickling himself in representing by writing in comedies the meanest and most popular actions of men;