A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

22. P.CorneliusScipioNasica, that is, " Scipio with the pointed nose," was the son of Cn. Scipio Calvus, who fell in Spain in B. C. 211. [No. 10.] He is first mentioned by Livy in B. C. 204 as a young man who was not yet of sufficient age to obtain the quaestorship, but was nevertheless judged by the senate to be the best citizen in the state, and was therefore sent to Ostia along with the Roman matrons to receive the statue of the Idaean Mother, which had been brought from Pessinus. In B. C. 200 he was one of the triumvirs, for the purpose of settling new colonists at Venusia; he was curule aedile in B. C. 196, praetor in 194, and in this year as well as in the following fought with great success in Further Spain, which was assigned to him as his province. But, notwithstanding these victories, and the powerful support of his cousin, the great Africanus, he was an unsuccessful candidate for the consulship for B. C. 192, and did not obtain it till the following year, when he was elected with M'. Acilius Glabrio. In his consulship, B. C. 191, he fought against the Boii, defeated them in battle, and triumphed over them on his return to Rome. He defended his cousin, L. Scipio Asiaticus, when he was accused in B. C. 187, after his conquest of Antiochus. He was one of the many distinguished men, who sued for the censorship in B. C. 184, but was defeated by M. Porcius Cato. Hence Pliny speaks of him (H. N. 7.34), as bis repulsa notatus a populo. In B. C. 183 and 182 he was engaged as one of the triumviri in settling a Latin colony at Aquileia. The last time he is mentioned is in B. C. 171, when he was one of the advocates appointed by the Spanish deputies to bring to trial the Roman governors who had oppressed them. Scipio Nasica is mentioned both by Cicero and Pomponius as a celebrated jurist, aud the latter writer adds, that a house was given to him by the s ate in the Via Sacra, in order that he might be more easily consulted (Liv. 29.14, 31.49, xxxiii, 25, 34.42, 43, 35.1, 10, 24, 36.1, 2, 37, &c., 38.58, 39.40, 55, 40.34, 43.2; Diod. Excerpta, p. 605, ed. Wess.; V. Max. 7.5.2; Cic. de Fin. 5.22, de Harusp. Resp. 13, de Orat. 2.68, 3.33; Pomponius, de Origine Juris in Dig. 1. tit. 2. s. 2.37, where he is erroneously called Caius; Zimmern, Geschichte des Römischen Privatrechts, vol. i. p. 273.)