Few People Know Who Scipio Is, Even Though He Saved All Of Rome
Ancient Roman general and statesman Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236 BC – 183 BC) was a formidable warrior. He is best known for his conquest of Carthage’s territories in Iberia during the Second Punic War (218 – 201 BC). He closed the war strong, and defeated Hannibal on his home turf at the Battle of Zama in 202 BC to end the conflict with a Roman victory. Scipio’s first mention in the historic record dates to 218 BC, when he led a cavalry charge that saved his father, one of that year’s consuls, from encirclement by Carthaginians. He survived a Roman disaster at Cannae two years later, when Hannibal nearly wiped out a Roman army 87,000 strong.
Scipio was among the few Roman officers who kept their wits about them, and cut their way to safety with 10,000 men. Those survivors formed the nucleus of a reconstituted Roman army. In 211 BC, Scipio’s father and uncle were defeated and killed by Hannibal’s brother in Hispania. In elections for a new proconsul to lead an army to avenge that defeat, Scipio was the only Roman who sought the position, which others eschewed as a death sentence. Only 25 at the time, Scipio was underage to be elected a magistrate, so a special law was enacted to give him command. In a surprise attack in 209 BC, he captured New Carthage (modern Cartagena), the Carthaginian seat of power in Hispania.
