Scipio Africanus

Scipio Africanus defeated Hannibal and was driven out of public life by his own city. Born in 236 BC into the Cornelii Scipiones, he fought at the Ticinus at seventeen, where he is said to have rescued his wounded father, and survived Cannae in 216 BC, where he rallied surviving officers and made them swear not to abandon Italy. His father and uncle were both killed in Spain in 211 BC. When no senior man would take the command, Scipio volunteered at about twenty-five, below the legal age and holding no magistracy, and the assembly gave it to him. He took New Carthage in 209 BC by a surprise assault across a lagoon at low tide, capturing the enemy's base, treasury and hostages in a day. He then beat Hasdrubal at Baecula and Ilipa, where he inverted his usual dispositions so that his best troops struck the enemy's weakest, and cleared Spain by 206 BC. He reformed the army's equipment and drill on Spanish models, adopting the gladius. The Senate refused him an African invasion, and he raised one from volunteers and Sicilian resources. He destroyed two armies by burning their camps at night, and drew Hannibal back from Italy. At Zama in 202 BC he neutralised Hannibal's eighty elephants by leaving lanes in his formation for them to run through, and won with cavalry that had defected to him. He was afterwards prosecuted repeatedly over accounts from the Syrian war. He withdrew to Liternum and died around 183 BC, asking not to be buried in Rome.

• Lived: 236 BCE – 183 BCE
• Nationality: Roman
• Roles: general