Publius Cornelius Scipio (consul of 218 BC)

Origin

Scipio belonged to one of the most noble and ramified genera of Rome, which had an Etruscan origin ^{[1] [2]} , - Cornelius . Cognomen Scipio ( Scipio ) the ancient writers believed that the staff came from the word: "Cornelius, who [his] namesake - the father, deprived of sight, instead of the staff, was nicknamed Scipio and passed this name to descendants" ^[3] . The earliest bearer of this cognate was called Publius Cornelius Scipio Maluginsky ; this suggests that Cornelius Scipio was a branch of the Cornelians of the Maluga ^[4] .

Representatives of this branch of the genus received consulate in each generation. Grandfather of Publius Cornelius Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus , consul 298 BC e. ^[5] , fought at Sentin ; father, also Lucius , consul of 259 ^[6] , during the First Punic War expelled the Carthaginians from Corsica. Publius's older brother was Gnei Cornelius Scipio Calw , consul of 222 BC. e. ^[7]

Consulate

The first mention of Publius Cornelius in the sources dates back to 218 BC. e., when he became consul together with the plebeian Tiberius Sempronius Long . This was the first year of the Second Punic War . Scipio received by lot as the province of Spain, where he was to fight the governor of Carthage Hannibal ; his colleague was to land in Africa . Cornelius was granted public by two Roman legions, 14 thousand Allied infantrymen and 1,600 horsemen. ^[8] The consul loaded all these forces into 68 ships and set off along the coast of Etruria and Liguria ^[9] . As a legate he was accompanied by his elder brother Gnei Cornelius; in addition, the consul was his eldest son Publius , for whom it was the first campaign ^[10] .

Arriving in Massilia, Scipio learned that Hannibal was already moving through Gaul and was approaching the Rodan River. Publius Cornelius landed his army at the mouth of the river and went north, intending to give the enemy a battle; but Hannibal avoided meeting and went to the Alps. Then the consul returned to the ships, sent his brother to Spain with most of the troops, and he sailed back to Pisa , making a short stop on the way to Genoa ^{[11] [12]} . Here Scipio led two legions of praetors Lucius Manlius and Gaius Atilius ; with them, he intended to meet the enemy in the valley of Pada , immediately after crossing the Alps. But the consul did not have time in time: the army of Hannibal still received several days to restore strength and even subjugate some Gallic tribes ^[13] .

The meeting of the Romans and the Carthaginians took place in November 218 under Titine , the left tributary of the Pad. For two days the army stood 5 miles apart; on the third day, the commanders made reconnaissance - Hannibal with cavalry, Scipio with cavalry and lightly armed infantry. Unexpectedly for each other, they met and entered the battle . For some time the battle was on an equal footing, but the Numidians hit the rear of the Romans (perhaps from an ambush), and the consul was wounded and almost died. According to some sources, he was saved by his own son ^{[14] [15]} , according to others - by some rabble ligur ^[16] (but this version goes back to Fabius Pictor , the enemy of Corneliev ^[17] ). Part of the Roman cavalry rallied around the commander and was able to retreat to the camp in relative order, but in general the battle was clearly lost ^[18] .

Scipio retreated beyond Tizin, and then to the south coast of Pada, to Placenius . Hannibal followed him and set up camp very close to the Roman one, but Publius Cornelius now refused to accept the battle. On the very first night after the approach of the Carthaginians, the Gauls in the Roman camp (about 2,200 people) staged a massacre and went to Hannibal, taking with them the heads of the dead; therefore, the consul continued the retreat. Because of the torment caused by the wound, he stopped on the river Trebia. Here he was joined by the second consul, Tiberius Sempronius Long, who in 40 days went with his army all of Italy ^{[19] [20]} .

Colleagues had diametrically opposed views on what to do next. Scipio advocated abandoning decisive action; according to Polybius, he insisted on the superiority of the Numidian cavalry and on the need to better prepare the soldiers for the winter. The real motive for him could be a reluctance to give Long fame in the event of a victory: Publius Cornelius himself, due to his wound, still could not lead the troops into battle. Tiberius Sempronius, for this very reason, strove for battle. Hannibal, guessing about these disagreements, tried, provoking petty and successful skirmishes for the Romans, to create Long's self-confidence. In the end, the consul plebeian, ignoring the arguments of Scipio, got involved in a large-scale battle (on the 20th of December 218) ^{[21] [22]} .

The battle of Requirement, due to the tactical miscalculations of Tiberius Sempronius and the skillfully organized ambush by Hannibal, ended in a crushing defeat for the Romans. Scipio, who was in the camp during the battle, with some of the surviving soldiers crossed the river that night on the bridges and went to Placenia, and then to Cremona ^{[23] [24]} .

Command in Spain

After the consular year of Scipio, he received the authority of a proconsul and was sent with an 8,000-strong army to Spain, where his brother Gnei Cornelius was able to gain a foothold by that time. Since that time, the Scipion brothers acted together: first against one Hasdrubal Barkid , later against three Carthaginian armies. Already in 217, the brothers launched a raid on Sagunt and captured the Spanish hostages held here, who were released home. As a result, many Iberian tribes went over to the side of Rome; it soon affected the course of hostilities ^{[25] [26] [27] [28]} .

In 216 BC e. Gasdrubal, following the order received from Carthage, moved north to repeat the path of Hannibal and join him in Italy. The news of this campaign alarmed Scipios, convinced that "Hannibal alone tortured Italy, and if Hasdrubal joins him with the Spanish army, the Roman state will come to an end" ^[29] . The Romans blocked the path of the Carthaginian army. In the battle, in which neither side apparently had a noticeable superiority in numbers, the decisive role was played by the unwillingness of the Iberian infantry, Hasdrubal to leave Spain ^{[30] [31]} . At the very beginning of the battle, the Iberians began to retreat, and soon they simply fled. Eutropius reports about 25 thousand killed by Carthage ^[32] , but judging by the description of the battle, the losses should not have been too big ^[33] .

Having gained this victory, Scipios gave Rome additional chances to recover from a large-scale defeat at Cannes . The situation in Spain remained unstable ^[34] . Proconsuls, already forced to fight with the three Carthaginian armies (Hasdrubal, Gimilkon and Magon Barkida ) faced serious supply problems; nevertheless, in 215 they defeated the enemy besieging Iliturgis , and later defeated Hasdrubal at Intibilis. Livy writes in this regard about 13 thousand killed Carthaginians ^[35] . These losses seem to historians to be overestimated, but there are no other data ^[36] . After another wintering, Publius Cornelius raided far south. Under Acre Levka, his army suffered serious losses, and later at the Victory Mountain he was surrounded by enemies; his brother’s army saved him. After a series of victories of Gnei Cornelius, Scipios together took the Sagunt ^{[37] [38] [39]} .

Subsequently, Scipios made an alliance with one of the Numidian kings Sifax and sent the centurion Quintus Statorius to him to train infantry along the Roman model (213 BC) ^{[40] [41]} . To strengthen their army, they began for the first time in Roman history to attract mercenaries: only in the winter of 213-212, about 20 thousand Celtiberians were hired. With these forces, the proconsuls decided to deliver a decisive blow to the enemy during the 212 campaign. They were confident in their victory; Publius Cornelius with two-thirds of the Roman army marched against Magon and Hasdrubal, the son of Giesgon , and Gnei Cornelius with the remaining third of the Romans and all the Celtiberians marched against Hasdrubal Barkid ^{[42] [43]} .

Events went according to the worst scenario for the Romans. Scipio Calw was abandoned by mercenaries, and Publius Cornelius was subjected to intense attacks by the Numidian cavalry. Upon learning that the Carthaginians came to the aid of the 7,500 Svessetan warriors, he undertook the last night march towards the last and began the battle , but at the decisive moment he was attacked by the same Numidians and the Carthaginian infantry. In battle, he died along with most of his army. This predetermined the defeat and death of Gnei Cornelius ^{[44] [45]} .

Publius Cornelius was married to a representative of the noble plebeian clan Pomponiev , who built his family tree to the second king of Rome, Numa Pompilius . Two of his representatives, Manius and Mark , were consuls in 233 and 231 BC. e. respectively; Scipio's wife could be their sister or daughter of one of them ^[46] . In this marriage two sons were born - Publius and Lucius . Polybius calls the eldest son Lucius ^[47] , but this is refuted by data from other sources ^{[48] [49]} and onomastics ^[50] .

Publius Cornelius Jr. was born in 236 ^[51] or 235 ^[52] BC. e. Ancient authors tell one story about the relationship between father and son Scipios:

The one who performed many glorious deeds with his own hand,
Whose feats still live, to whom all nations marvel,
That father in one coat himself withdrew from a girlfriend.

- Aulus Gellius. Attic nights. VII, 8, 5. ^[53]

Fighting in Spain for six years, Gnei Cornelius was never able to win a complete victory over the enemy. In many ways, this predetermined the protracted nature of the entire Second Punic War ^[54] . Later Publius Cornelius Scipio Jr., drawing on the experience of his father and uncle, developed a new tactic - short and effective raids to the south from the left bank of the Iberus, during which the soldiers of local tribes played a not very important role. This tactic provided Rome with victory ^[55] .

Publius Cornelius acts in the novel by Alexander Nemirovsky "Elephants of Hannibal."

Sources

1. Appian of Alexandria. Roman history. - M .: Ladomir, 2002 .-- 288 p. - ISBN 5-89329-676-1 .
2. Valery Maxim . Memorable deeds and sayings. - SPb. : Publishing House of St. Petersburg State University, 2007. - 308 p. - ISBN 978-5-288-04267-6 .
3. Aulus Gellius . Attic nights. Books 1-10. - SPb. : Publishing Center "Humanitarian Academy", 2007. - 480 p. - ISBN 978-5-93762-027-9 .
4. Eutropium. Breviary of Roman history. - SPb. , 2001 .-- 305 s. - ISBN 5-89329-345-2 .
5. Titus Livy. The history of Rome from the foundation of the city. - M. , 1994. - T. 2. - 528 p. - ISBN 5-02-008995-8 .
6. Macrobium Saturnalia. - M .: Krug, 2013 .-- 810 p. - ISBN 978-5-7396-0257-2 .
7. Pavel Oroziy. The story against the Gentiles. - SPb. : Publisher Oleg Abyshko, 2004. - 544 p. - ISBN 5-7435-0214-5 .
8. Pliny the Elder. Natural history (neopr.) . Date of treatment August 19, 2016.
9. Polybius. General history. - M. , 1994. - T. 1. - 768 p. - ISBN 5-02-028227-8 .

Literature

1. Bobrovnikova T. Scipio African. - M .: Young Guard, 2009 .-- 384 p. - ISBN 978-5-235-03238-5 .
2. Korablev I. Hannibal. - M .: Nauka, 1981. - 360 p.
3. Lancel S. Hannibal. - M .: Young Guard, 2002 .-- 368 p. - ISBN 5-235-02483-4 .
4. Rodionov E. Punic wars. - SPb. : St. Petersburg State University, 2005 .-- 626 p. - ISBN 5-288-03650-0 .
5. Trukhina N. Politics and Politics of the "Golden Age" of the Roman Republic. - M .: Publishing House of Moscow State University, 1986. - 184 p.
6. Broughton T. Magistrates of the Roman Republic. - New York, 1951. - Vol. I. - P. 600.
7. Haywood R. Studies on Scipio Africanus. - Baltimore, 1933.
8. Münzer F. Cornelii Scipiones // RE. - 1900. - Bd. VII. - Kol. 1426-1427.

• Publius Cornelius Scipio (consul of 218 BC) (Russian) . - biography on the site ancientrome.ru .