Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

He pretended to be amazed at the man who had sold his lands bordering on the sea as being himself stronger than the sea. For, said he, what the sea only laps, this man has easily drunk up. [*](Ibid.)

When he was a candidate for the censorship, and saw the other candidates soliciting the populace and flattering them, he himself cried out that the [*]( e C/. Plutarch’s Life of M. Cato, chap. viii. (340 d). d Ibid. )

In instructing the young men to fight boldly, he said that ofttimes talk is better than the sword and the voice better than the hand to rout and bewilder the enemy. [*](Ibid. chap. i. (336 E); cf. also Plutarch’s Life of Coriolanus, chap. viii. (216 F); Life of M. Cato, chap. x. (241 F).)

When he was waging war against the peoples living by the river Baetis, [*](In 195 B.C. in Spain.) he was put in great peril by the vast numbers of the enemy. The Celtiberians were ready and willing to come to his aid for forty thousand pounds, but the other Romans were against agreeing to pay barbarian men. Cato said they were all wrong; for if they were victorious, the payment would come not from themselves, but from the enemy; and if they were vanquished there would be no debtors and no creditors. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of M. Cato, chap. x. (341 F).)

He captured cities more in number, as he says, than the days he spent among the enemy, yet he himself took nothing from the enemy’s country beyond what he ate and drank. [*](Ibid. chap. x. (342 A).)

He distributed to each soldier a pound of silver, saying it was better that many should return from the campaign with silver than a few with gold. For the officials, he said, ought to accept no other increase in the provinces except the increase of their repute.f

He had five persons to wait upon him in the

He was urged by Scipio Africanus to lend his influence to help the banished Achaeans to return to their homes, but he made as though he cared nothing about the matter; in the Senate, however, where the subject aroused much discussion, he arose and said, We sit here as if we had nothing to do, debating about some poor old Greeks whether they shall be carried to their graves by bearers who live in our country or in Greece. [*](Ibid. chap. ix. (341 A. - Polybius, xxxv. 6).)

Postumius Albinus wrote a history in the Greek language, in which he craved the indulgence of his readers. Cato said sarcastically that he ought to be granted indulgence if he had written the book under compulsion by a decree of the Ampictyonic Council! [*](Ibid. chap. xii. (343 B); Polybius, xxxix. 12 (- xl. 6).)

The Younger Scipio, they say, in the fifty-four years of his life bought nothing, sold nothing, built nothing, and left only thirty-three pounds of silver and two of gold in a great estate. So little he left, in spite of the fact that he was master of Carthage, and was the one among the generals who had made his soldiers richest. [*](Cf. Aelian, Varia Historia, xi. 9; Polybius, xviii. 35; Pliny, Natural History, xxxiii. 50 (141).)

He observed the precept of Polybius, and tried

While he was still a young man he had such repute for bravery and sagacity that when Cato the Elder was asked about the men in the army at Carthage, of whom Scipio was one, he said,

He, and he only, has wisdom; the rest are but fluttering shadows.

When he came to Rome from a campaign, the people called him to office, [*](The consulship in 147 B.C. Cf. Velleius Paterculus, i. 12. 3.) not by way of showing favour to him, but hoping through him to capture Carthage speedily and easily.

After he had passed the outer wall, the Carthaginians stoutly defended themselves in the citadel. He perceived that the sea lying between was not very deep, and Polybius advised him to scatter in it iron balls with projecting points, or else to throw into it planks full of spikes so that the enemy might not cross and attack the Roman ramparts. [*](Cf. Zonaras, ix. 29.) But Scipio said that it was ridiculous, after they were in possession of the walls and well within the city, to endeavour to avoid fighting the enemy. [*](An account of the capture of Carthage is given by Diodorus, xxxii. 23-25, and Appian, Roman History, the Punic Wars, xix. 127-132. Cf. also Valerius Maximus, iii. 7. 2.)

He found the city full of Greek statues and votive offerings, which had come from Sicily, and so

He would not allow either slave or freedman of his to take anything or even buy anything from the spoil, when everybody was engaged in looting and plundering. [*](Cf. Moralia, 97 C, and note e on p. 187.)

He was active in the support of Gaius Laelius, the dearest of his friends, when he was a candidate for the consulship, and he inquired of Pompey [*](Quintus Pompey, consul 141 B.C.) whether he also was a candidate. (It was reputed that Pompey was the son of a flute-player.) Pompey said that he was not a candidate, and offered to take Laelius about with him and help him in his canvass, and they, believing his words and waiting for his co-operation, were completely deceived. For it was reported that Pompey was himself going about and soliciting the citizens. The others were indignant, but Scipio laughed and said, It is because of our own stupidity; for, just as if we were intending to call not upon men but upon gods, we have been wasting any amount of time in waiting for a flute-player ! [*](Cf. Cicero, De amicitia, 21 (77).)

When Appius Claudius was his rival [*](In 142 B.C.) for the censorship, and asserted that he greeted all the Romans by name, while Scipio knew hardly one of them, Scipio said, You are quite right; for I have not taken such pains to know many as to be unknown to none. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Aemilius Paulus, chap. xxxviii. (275 C).)

He bade the people, inasmuch as they happened to be waging war against the Celtiberians, to send

After he was made censor, he deprived a young knight of his horse because, at the time when war was being waged against Carthage, this young man had given an expensive dinner for which he had ordered an honey-cake to be made in the form of the city, and, calling this Carthage, he set it before the company for them to plunder. When the young man asked the reason why he had been degraded, Scipio said, Because you plundered Carthage before I did!