Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio

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Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio
Denarius of Metellus Scipio with elephant-skin headgear to represent African imperium (47-46 BC)
Born
Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica

c. 95 BC
Died46 BC
Battle of Hippo Regius
Cause of deathSuicide
NationalityRoman
Occupation(s)Politician and General
OfficePraetor (63 BC)
Tribune of the Plebs (59 BC)
Curule Aedile(57 BC)
Interrex (53 BC)
Consul (52 BC)
SpouseAemilia Lepida
ChildrenMetellus Scipio
Cornelia Metella
ParentPublius Cornelius Scipio Nasica
Military career
AllegianceRoman Republic
Pompey (49–46 BC)
BranchRoman army
RankLegate
Wars

Caesar's Civil War †

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio[1] (c. 95 – 46 BC), often referred to as Metellus Scipio, was a Roman senator and military commander. During the civil war between Julius Caesar and the senatorial faction led by Pompey, he was a staunch supporter of the latter. He led troops against Caesar's forces, mainly in the battles of Pharsalus and Thapsus, where he was defeated. He later committed suicide. Ronald Syme called him "the last Scipio of any consequence in Roman history."[2]

Family connections and name

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The son of Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, praetor about 95 BC, and Licinia, Scipio was the grandson of Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, consul in 111, and Lucius Licinius Crassus, consul in 95. His great-grandfather was Scipio Nasica Serapio, the man who murdered Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC. Through his mother Cornelia, Serapio was also the grandson of Scipio Africanus. Scipio's father died not long after his praetorship,[3] and was survived by two sons and two daughters. The brother was adopted by their grandfather Crassus, but left little mark on history.[4]

Publius Scipio, as he was referred to in contemporary sources early in his life, was adopted in adulthood through the testament of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, consul in 80 BC and pontifex maximus. He retained his patrician status: "Scipio's ancestry," notes Syme, "was unmatched for splendour."[5] As Jerzy Linderski has shown at length,[6] this legal process constitutes adoption only in a loose sense; Scipio becomes a Caecilius Metellus in name[7] while inheriting the estate of Metellus Pius, but was never his "son" while the pontifex maximus was alive. He was sometimes called "Metellus Scipio", or just "Scipio", after his adoption. The official form of his name as evidenced in a decree of the senate was "Q. Caecilius Q. f. Fab. Metellus Scipio."[8]

Scipio married Aemilia Lepida, daughter of Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, consul in 77 BC, but was not without rival in seeking to marry Aemilia Lepida. The virginal Cato had also wanted to marry Aemilia but lost out:

When [Cato] thought that he was old enough to marry, and up to that time he had consorted with no woman, he engaged himself to Lepida, who had formerly been betrothed to Metellus Scipio, but was now free, since Scipio had rejected her and the betrothal had been broken. However, before the marriage Scipio changed his mind again, and by dint of every effort got the maid. Cato was greatly exasperated and inflamed by this, and attempted to go to law about it; but his friends prevented this, and so, in his rage and youthful fervour, he betook himself to iambic verse, and heaped much scornful abuse upon Scipio … .[9]

The couple had one son, a Metellus Scipio who seems to have died when he was only 18.[10] Another son may have been born around 70 BC, or a son may have been adopted. The couple's much more famous daughter was born around that time as well.[11] Scipio first married off the celebrated Cornelia Metella to Publius Crassus, the son of Marcus Licinius Crassus. After Publius's death at Carrhae, Scipio decided to succeed Caesar as the father-in-law of Pompey, and approached Pompey with an offer to marry him to Cornelia, which Pompey accepted. Pompey was at least thirty years older than Cornelia. This marriage was one of the acts by which Pompey severed his alliance to Caesar and declared himself the champion of the optimates. He and Scipio were consuls together in 52.

Political career

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Cicero names "P. Scipio" among the young nobiles on his defence team when Sextus Roscius was prosecuted in 80 BC. He is placed in the company of Marcus Messalla and Metellus Celer, both future consuls.[12]

Metellus Scipio was probably tribune of the plebs in 59 BC,[13] but his patrician status argues against his holding the office.[14] It is possible that Scipio's adoption into a plebeian gens may have qualified him for a tribunate on a technicality.[citation needed] He may have been curule aedile in 57 BC, when he presented funeral games in honour of his adopted father's death, six years earlier. He was praetor, most likely in 55 BC, during the second consulship of Pompeius and Marcus Crassus.

In 53 BC, Scipio was interrex with Marcus Valerius Messalla.[15] He became consul with Pompeius in 52 BC, the year he arranged the marriage of his newly widowed daughter to him.

Indisputably aristocratic and conservative, Metellus Scipio had been at least a symbolic counterweight to the power of the so-called triumvirate before the death of Crassus in 53 BC. "Opportune deaths," notes Syme, "had enhanced his value, none remaining now of the Metellan consuls."[16]

He is known to have been a member of the College of Pontiffs by 57 BC, and was probably nominated upon the death of his adoptive father in 63, and subsequently elected.[17]

Role in civil war

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Denarius issued by Metellus Scipio as Imperator in North Africa, 47–46 BC, depicting Jupiter and on the reverse an elephant

In January of 49 BC, Scipio persuaded the senate to issue the ultimatum to Caesar that made war inevitable.[18] That same year, Scipio became proconsul of the province of Syria.[19] In Syria and Asia, where he took up winter quarters, he used often oppressive means to gather ships, troops, and money:[20]

He put a per capita tax on slaves and children; he taxed columns, doors, grain, soldiers, weaponry, oarsmen, and machinery; if a name could be found for a thing, that was seen as sufficient for making money from it.[21]

Scipio put to death Alexander of Judaea,[22] and was acclaimed Imperator for claimed victories in the Amanus Mountains[23] — as noted disparagingly by Caesar.[24]

In 48 BC, Scipio brought his forces from Asia to Greece, where he manoeuvred against Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus and Lucius Cassius until the arrival of Pompeius. At the Battle of Pharsalus, he commanded the centre. After the optimates' defeat by Caesar, Metellus fled to Africa. With the support of his former rival-in-romance Cato, he wrested the chief command of Pompeius' forces from the loyal Publius Attius Varus, probably in early 47. In 46, he held command at the Battle of Thapsus, "without skill or success,"[16] and was defeated along with Cato.[25] After the defeat, he tried to escape to the Iberian Peninsula to continue the fight, but was cornered by the fleet of Publius Sittius. He committed suicide by stabbing himself, so he would not fall into the hands of his enemies.

Dignity in death

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Facing death, Metellus Scipio achieved an uncharacteristic dignity, famously departing from his soldiers with a nonchalant "Imperator se bene habet" ("Your general's just fine").[26] These last words elicited strong praise from the Stoic moral philosopher Seneca:

Take, for example, Scipio, the father-in-law of Gnaeus Pompeius: he was driven back upon the African coast by a head-wind and saw his ship in the power of the enemy. He therefore pierced his body with a sword; and when they asked where the commander was, he replied: 'All is well with the commander.' These words brought him up to the level of his ancestors and suffered not the glory which fate gave to the Scipios in Africa to lose its continuity. It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death. 'All is well with the commander!' Ought a general to die otherwise, especially one of Cato's generals?[27]

Assessment

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Classical scholar John H. Collins summed up the character and reputation of Metellus Scipio:

From all that can be learned of this Scipio, he was as personally despicable and as politically reactionary as they come: a defender of C. Verres (In Ver. II. 4. 79–81), a debauchee of singular repulsiveness (Valerius Maximus, 9.1.8[28]), an incompetent and bull-headed commander (Plutarch, Cato Min. 58), an undisciplined tyrant in the possession of authority (Bell. Afr. 44–46), an extortioner of the provinces (BC 3.31–33), a proscription-thirsty bankrupt (Att. 9.11[29]), a worthy great grandson des hochmütigen, plebejerfeindlichen Junkers[30] (Münzer, RE 4.1502) who had led the lynching of Tiberius Gracchus, and a most unworthy father of the gentle Cornelia. Only in the Imperator se bene habet with which he met death is there any trace of the nobler character of his great forebears[31] (Seneca Rhet., Suas. 7.8[32]).[33]

See also

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Selected bibliography

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  • Linderski, Jerzy. "Q. Scipio Imperator." In Imperium sine fine: T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic. Franz Steiner, 1996, pp. 144–185. Limited preview online.
  • Syme, Ronald. "The Last Scipiones." In The Augustan Aristocracy. Oxford University Press, 1989, pp. 244–245 online.

References

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  1. ^ D. R. Shackleton Bailey, Two Studies in Roman Nomenclature, Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, p. 107. Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic vol. 3, p. 41. Oxford Classical Dictionary, "Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, Quintus".
  2. ^ Ronald Syme, "Imperator Caesar: A Study in Nomenclature," Historia 7 (1958), p. 187.
  3. ^ Cicero, Brutus 212.
  4. ^ Ronald Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 244.
  5. ^ Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 244.
  6. ^ Jerzy Linderski, "Q. Scipio Imperator," in Imperium sine fine: T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic (Franz Steiner, 1996), pp. 148–149. The adoption is recorded by Cassius Dio, lx. 51, where he is referred to as "Quintus Scipio"; for the passage, see Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius online.
  7. ^ Condicio nominis ferendi: a condition of accepting the inheritance was to preserve the name of Metellus Pius, who died without a male heir; Linderski, p. 148.
  8. ^ Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 244 online. Linderski asserted that the official form of his name is unknown because the Fasti Consulares for 52 BC are lost; see "The Dramatic Date of Varro, De re rustica, Book III and the Elections in 54," Historia 34 (1985), p. 251, note 21. Linderski later amplified his view Scipio's nomenclature in the Imperium sine fine essay.
  9. ^ Plutarch, "The Life of Cato", 7.
  10. ^ CIL XIV, 3483, in Tibur.
  11. ^ Syme explores the possibilities pertaining to a little attested son in The Augustan Aristocracy, pp. 245 ff.
  12. ^ Cicero, Pro Roscio Amerino 77, as cited by Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 245.
  13. ^ Dates and offices from T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, pp. 171, 172 (note 4), 189, 201, 207 (note 1), 215, 229, 260–261, 275, 288, 297, 540; vol. III (1986), pp. 41–42 (where Broughton recants his earlier identification of Scipio as a tribune, and discusses at some length the scholarly debate on evidence pertaining to whether he was tribune and when he was aedile). Primary sources on Metellus's magistracies include Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, ii. 1, and In Vatinium 16; and Valerius Maximus ix. 1. § 8. Additional evidence for his interregnum, CIL II, 2663c, dated Ides of June; see also Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, vii. 11, and Münzer, Hermes, vol. 71 (1936) 222 ff. (1936).
  14. ^ Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 244, note 6, citing D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Two Studies in Roman Nomenclature (1976), p. 98 ff. (see also for discussion of Metellus Scipio's names). Tribunate rejected and patrician status affirmed most emphatically by Linderski, "Q. Scipio Imperator," p. 149 ff. online. Scipio was an interrex; patrician rank was a prerequisite for the office.
  15. ^ Since only a patrician could be interrex, the holding of this office casts further doubt on whether he was ever plebeian tribune.
  16. ^ a b Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 245.
  17. ^ Lily Ross Taylor, "Caesar's Colleagues in the Pontifical College," American Journal of Philology, vol. 63 (1942) 385–412, especially pp. 398, 412.
  18. ^ Caesar, De Bello Civili, i. 5; William W. Batstone and Cynthia Damon, Caesar's Civil War, Oxford University Press, (2006), p. 109 online.
  19. ^ Caesar, De Bello Civili, i. 6, see also i. 4, iii. 31, 33; Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, ix. 11, see also viii. 15 and ix. 1; Plutarch, "The Life of Pompeius", 62.
  20. ^ Caesar, De Bello Civili, iii. 31–33.
  21. ^ Caesar, De Bello Civili, iii. 32: In capita singula servorum ac liberorum tributum imponebatur; columnaria, ostiaria, frumentum, milites, arma, remiges, tormenta, vecturae imperabantur; cuius modo rei nomen reperiri poterat, hoc satis esse ad cogendas pecunias videbatur.
  22. ^ Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews xiv. 123–125, The Wars of the Jews i. 183–185, 195; see also Cassius Dio, xli. 18.
  23. ^ See Broughton, Magistrates, pp. 260–261 for references in addition to Caesar.
  24. ^ Caesar, De Bello Civili, iii. 31: "It was during this time that Scipio sustained some losses around Mount Amanus and called himself imperator, after which achievement he demanded large sums of money from the states and rulers [in the area]" (his temporibus Scipio detrimentis quibusdam circa montem Amanum acceptis imperatorem se appellaverat. Quo facto civitatibus tyrannisque magnas imperaverat pecunias). John H. Collins calls this remark "the only genuine joke in the Commentaries." "Caesar and the Corruption of Power", in Historia, No. 4 (1955), p. 457, note 64.
  25. ^ See Broughton, Magistrates, pp. 275, 288, and 297, for numerous citations of primary sources.
  26. ^ A translation that draws on Scipio's usual superbia over the sprezzatura supposedly demonstrated here might be "The Imperator conducts himself well."
  27. ^ Lucius Annaeus Seneca, ep. 24.9
  28. ^ Valerius Maximus 9.1.8: "Just as notorious was that party arranged for Metellus Scipio when he was consul and for the people's tribunes — by Gemellus, their tribunicial errand boy. He was a free man by birth, but twisted by his business to play the servant's role. Society gave a collective blush: he established a whorehouse in his own house, and pimped out Mucia and Flavia, each of them notable for her father and husband, along with the aristocratic boy Saturninus. Bodies in shameless submission, ready to come for a game of drunken sex! A banquet not for honoring consul and tribunes, but indicting them!" Latin text available at The Latin Library online.
  29. ^ Cicero, Ad Atticum 9.11: "For under those circumstances what sort of criminality will Scipio — or Faustus or Libo — fail to take advantage of, when their creditors are closing in on them? And if they win, what actions would they take against citizens?"
  30. ^ German, "of an arrogant aristocrat, enemy to the plebs"; i.e., Metellus Scipio was true to his lineage, given that his grandfather P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica spearheaded the death of the plebeian champion Tiberius Gracchus.
  31. ^ See also the remarks of Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 245 online.
  32. ^ This is Collins' citation; but see above for quotation from the younger Seneca.
  33. ^ John H. Collins, "Caesar and the Corruption of Power," Historia 4 (1955), p. 457, note 64.
Political offices
Preceded by Roman consul
52 BC
With: Pompey 		Succeeded by
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