Cornelius Scipio Salvito

Cornelius Scipio ‘Salvito’ (the agnomen Salvito was conferred on him due to his resemblance to a mime artist of the same name) was a minor member of the Cornelia gens who lived in the late Roman Republic. He was a relative of Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated Hannibal.

Salvito was, according to Plutarch and Suetonius, "a contemptible nobody", who was taken by Julius Caesar in 46 BC on his North African campaign against the remnants of Pompey's forces, led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica. Because of a long-standing belief that only a Scipio could be victorious in Africa, and because he was facing a Scipio, Caesar placed Salvito at the front of his army, either as a good luck charm to calm his nervous troops, or to demonstrate his contempt to Scipio Nasica. Caesar forced him to attack the enemy frequently and to bring on the battle.

Sources

Notes

Publius Cornelius Scipio

Publius Cornelius Scipio (died 211 BC) was a general and statesman of the Roman Republic.

A member of the Cornelia gens, Scipio served as consul in 218 BC, the first year of the Second Punic War. He sailed with his army from Pisa with the intention of confronting Hannibal in Hispania. Stopping at Massilia (today Marseille) to replenish his supplies, he was shocked to discover that Hannibal's army had moved from Hispania and was crossing the Rhône. Scipio disembarked his army and marched to confront Hannibal, who, by now, had moved on. Returning to the fleet, he entrusted the command of his army to his brother Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus and sent him off to Hispania to carry on with the originally intended mission. Scipio returned to Italy to take command of the troops fighting in Cisalpine Gaul.

On his return to Italy, he advanced at once to meet Hannibal. In a sharp cavalry engagement near the Ticinus, a tributary of the Po river, he was defeated and severely wounded. In December of the same year, he again witnessed the complete defeat of the Roman army at the Trebia, when his fellow consul Tiberius Sempronius Longus allegedly insisted on fighting against his advice. [The earliest historical source was by the Greek historian Polybius, who became an intimate of Scipio's grandson and was seemingly biased in favour of the Scipio family. The other major account was written in the following century by the Roman historian Livy, who also expressed bias in favour of certain aristocratic families.]

Publius Cornelius Scipio (consul 16 BC)

Publius Cornelius Scipio (b. 48 BC) was the son of Publius Cornelius Scipio and Scribonia. He was elder brother to Cornelia Scipio and the elder half-brother to Julia the Elder, who was the daughter of Emperor Augustus. Scipio claimed to be a descendent of Scipio Africanus and boasted himself about this.

Scipio was consul in 16 BC in the same year that his sister, Cornelia, died at the age of thirty. The poet Sextus Propertius wrote an elegy of Cornelia for her funeral, praising her family, including Scipio and Scribonia. In 2 BC, Scipio was exiled for unknown reasons although treason, adultery and incest with Julia were the official reasons. Scipio was married to an unknown women and had his only child, Cornelia Africana, who married an equestrian named Aulus Julius Frontinus and had issue.

References

List of Romans named Publius Cornelius Scipio

The name Publius Cornelius Scipio was regularly, though not always, given by the Scipio branch of the gens Cornelia to the eldest son in each generation. At first most of the Scipios who became consuls were not named Publius, probably because the eldest son rarely survived to adulthood. The first Scipio to become consul was named Lucius, the first to become censor was also Lucius. The first Publius to become consul was Scipio Africanus's father. At least eleven men bearing this name have been identified in Livy and Polybius, of whom eight men were consuls (and a ninth consular tribune at a time when there were no consuls). Of the eight men, three were censors. Of these three, two were famous generals. Two of the men, father and son, became Pontifex Maximus successively.