Scipio Africanus: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 13:08, 30 October 2006

Revision as of 14:34, 30 October 2006

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The Roman Senate sent a commission of inquiry to Sicily and found that Scipio was at the head of a well-equipped and trained fleet and army. Scipio pressed the Senate for permission to cross into Africa. The conservative branch of the Roman Senate, championed by [[Fabius Maximus]], the ''Cunctator'' (Delayer), opposed the mission. Fabius still feared Hannibal's power, and viewed any mission to Africa as dangerous and wasteful to the war effort. Scipio was also harmed by some senators' disdain of his Hellenophile tastes in art, luxuries, and philosophies. The introduction ([[205 BC]]) of the [[Phrygia]]n worship of [[Cybele]] and the transference of the image of the goddess herself from [[Pessinus]] to [[Rome]] to bless the expedition may have affected public opinion against Scipio as well. All Scipio could obtain was permission to cross over from Sicily to Africa if it appeared to be in the interests of Rome, but not financial or military support.

At the commissioners' bidding, Scipio sailed in [[204 BC]] and landed near [[Utica]]. Carthage, meanwhile, had secured the friendship of the [[Numidians|Numidian]] Syphax, whose advance compelled Scipio to abandon the siege of Utica and dig in on the shore between there and Carthage. The following year he destroyed the combined armies of the Carthaginians and Numidians by approaching by stealth and setting fire to the Carthaginian-Numidian camp, where the combined army became panic stricken and fled only to be destroyed by Scipio's army. Though not a "battle," both Polybius and Livy estimate that the death toll in this single attack exceeded 40,000 Carthaginian and Numidian dead, and more captured.

Historians are roughly equal in their praise and condemnation for this act. Polybius said, "of all the brilliant exploits performed by Scipio this seems to me the most brilliant and more adventurous." On the other hand, one of Hannibal's principal biographers, [[Theodore Ayrault Dodge]], goes so far to suggest that this attack was out of cowardice and spares no more than a page upon the event in total, despite the fact that it secured the siege of Utica and effectively put Syphax out of the war. The irony of Dodge's accusations of Scipio's cowardice is the attack showed traces of Hannibal's penchant for ambush.