In the next place he had to pay the daughters of the great Scipio, the sisters of his adoptive father, the half of their portion.
Their father had agreed to give each of his daughters fifty talents,
and their mother had paid the half of this to their husbands at once on their marriage, but left the other half owing on her death.
Thus Scipio had to pay this debt to his father's sisters.
According to Roman law the part of the dowry still due had to be paid to the ladies in three years, the personal property being first handed over within ten months according to Roman usage.
But Scipio at once ordered his banker to pay each of them in ten months the whole twenty-five talents.
When the ten months had elapsed, and Tiberius Gracchus and Scipio Nasica, who were the husbands of the ladies, applied to the banker and asked him if he had received any orders from Scipio about the money, and when the banker asked them to receive the sum and made out for each of them a transfer of twenty-five talents, they said he was mistaken;
for according to law they should not at once receive the whole sum, but only a third of it.
But when he told them that these were Scipio's orders, they could not believe it, but went on to call on the young man, under the impression that he was in error.
And this was quite natural on their part; for not only would no one in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> pay fifty talents three years before it was due, but no one would pay one talent before the appointed day;
so universal and so extreme is their exactitude about money as well as their desire to profit by every moment of time.
However, when they called on Scipio and asked him what orders he had given the banker, and he told them he had ordered him to pay the whole sum to his sisters, they said he was mistaken,
since he had the legal right to use the sum for a considerable time yet.
Scipio answered that he was quite aware of that, but that while as regards strangers he insisted on the letter of the law, he behaved as far as he could in an informal and liberal way to his relatives and friends.
He therefore begged them to accept the whole sum from the banker.
Tiberius and Nasica on hearing this went away without replying, astounded at Scipio\'s magnanimity and abashed at their own meanness, although they were second to none in <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>.
Walbank Commentary