Africanus to passionate anger. He refused to
defend him; the character of a Scipio was its own defence. In the
presence of the Senate he tore up the account books which Cato had
called for. When Lucius was, nevertheless, condemned Scipio rescued him
by force. Thereupon he himself was charged with treason by two tribunes.
Even then his haughty spirit did not bend. Instead of pleading his cause
he reminded the people that it was the anniversary of the day on which
he had defeated Hannibal at Zama. Let them follow him to the Temple of
Jupiter and pray for more citizens like himself. The crowd obeyed. No
more was heard of the trial.

Scipio's pride, however, was deeply injured. He had been the idol of
Rome in his youth. That he and his brother should be accused before the
Roman people was to him an unbearable sign of ingratitude and baseness
of mind. He left Rome, shaking its dust from his feet, and retired to
the country. There a few years later he died at the age of fifty-three.
In his will he ordered that his ashes should not be taken to Rome.

In the same year (183) Hannibal also died. To the last the Romans feared
him; Hannibal took poison when he heard that Nicomedes of Bithynia, at
whose Court he was, had been ordered to hand him over to Rome.

Scipio Aemilianus

The young man left to carry on the great name of Scipio was the son of
Aemilius Paulus and nephew by marriage of Africanus, whose son adopted
him into the Cornelian family.

Scipio Aemilianus, to give him the name by which he was always known
after this adoption, saw, even more clearly than Africanus had done,
both that Rome was changing and what was good and what was bad in the
change. He shared in both good and bad. No one saw more clearly than he
the baseness of the destruction of Carthage and the cruelty of the sack
of Numantia; yet it was he who, as general, had to carry them out. He
saw the dangers of the growing contrast between the increasing wealth of
the few rich, as treasures poured from all parts of the world into their
coffers, and the wretchedness of the poor in Rome; he saw the cruelty,
indifference to human life, and love of pleasure that filled men's minds
after a series of successful wars; he saw the old simplicity of life and
high devotion to country disappearing and a new selfishness and personal
ambition growing up.

Scipio was a man of action; an excellent soldier and general. Even old
Cato, who hated the Scipios, had to admire