<p rend="Plain Text">Scipio's forebodings at the fall of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> (146)</p>
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On the position of this excerpt from de sent. see 20. 1–11 n. There are three versions of the famous incident when Scipio wept and quoted Homer over the flames of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a>: App. Lib. 132 (much of this is printed by Bttner-Wobst as ch. 22 below), Diod. xxxii. 24, and the present passage. According to Appian, Scipio wept and then, meditating on the fall of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> and recalling that of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Ilium&groupId=645&placeId=1183">Ilium</a>, and of the empires of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Assyria&groupId=375&placeId=707">Assyria</a>, <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Media&groupId=742&placeId=1354">Media</a>, <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Persia&groupId=871&placeId=1571">Persia</a>, and <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Macedonia&groupId=723&placeId=428">Macedonia</a>, quoted the Homeric lines; asked by P. what he meant, he replied expressing his
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fears for <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a>. According to Diodorus, Scipio wept and, upon P.'s asking why, replied that he was reflecting on the fickleness of fortune and feared lest the same fate might one day befall Romeand he cited the Homeric lines. The first five lines in the text of P. are almost illegible, but may have contained some reference to Homer; there is however no positive evidence of that. It would be difficult to insert the whole quotation here, but not perhaps impossible, given the condition of the text.
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<p rend="Plain Text">Astin, 282–3, argues that the apparent absence of the quotation from M shows that the excerptor did not need it to introduce the incident, and so supports Diodorus' version in preference to Appian's. On the other hand, the couplet must have been in P. since both Diodorus and Appian quote it, and it is difficult to imagine it standing after the comment on Scipio contained in 21. 2–3. Hence if the couplet, or some abbreviated reference to it, was not included in the first lines of 21, the scribe of M must have omitted it; for if it came after Scipio's words to P. (21. 1), he certainly cut it out. In fact the tears, not the Homeric quotation, are the important thing, and it is more likely that P. asked Scipio why he wept than that he asked him to explain the significance of his Homeric quotation (which was surely self-explanatory). We can therefore accept the view that Diodorus' account represents what stood in P. better than Appian's. See, besides Astin, 282–3, Schwartz, RE, 'Diodoros (37)', col. 689.</p>
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Appian, Lib. 132, implies that the incident occurred at the climax of the fighting, after the death of Hasdrubal's family and the Italian deserters in the flames of the temple of Eshmoun. In M there is, however, a gap between 20 and 21, and the conversation could have taken place later. Astin, 283–4, has argued that the incident happened some days later, when <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> was ceremonially destroyed (App. Lib. 135; Cic. de lege agr. ii. 51, 'de consilii sententia consecrauit'; Oros. iv. 23. 6). Scipio's reference (§ 1) to <w lang="el-GR">τοῦτο τὸ παράγγελμα</w> he takes as evidence that the destruction was the result of his orders; and the fact that 20 and 21 are distinct in M shows 'that there was no especially close link and that in the original something intervened'. Diod. xxxii. 24 is ambiguous on this question; the words <w lang="el-GR">τῆς Καρχηδόνος ἐμπρησθείσης καὶ τῆς φλογὸς ἅπασαν τὴν πόλιν καταπληκτικῶς λυμαινομένης</w> might refer to the final destruction. Nevertheless, they more naturally suggest the events described in Appian (see 20. 1–11 n.), when on Scipio's orders the area between the market place and the Byrsa was set alight, and the fire spread widely (App. Lib. 129, <w lang="el-GR">τοῦ . . . πυρὸς ἐπιφλέγοντος πάντα καὶ καταφέροντος)</w>; and it seems natural to refer <w lang="el-GR">τὸ παράγγελμα</w> (§ 1) to this order. As regards the separation of excerpts 20 and 21, that tells us nothing of the amount of uncopied text that lay between; there are many places
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in the Constantinian excerpts where passages follow each other quite closely. Since, then, there is no evidence requiring the incident to be associated with the formal consecratio of the site of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a>, the order in Appian should be followed, and the conversation placed shortly after the fall of the temple of Eshmoun (which of course signified the end of all resistance).
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<p rend="Plain Text">The significance of the incident has been much debated. That Scipio's tears expressed remorse or the fear of retribution (Mommsen) or a pessimistic acknowledgement that his inevitable act would eventually unleash ruin and decay at home (Gelzer) seems unlikely. Nor can one easily believe, with Scullard, that the incident marked a profound psychological crisis in Scipio's thought, leading to his determination at all costs to ward off such a fate from <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Rome&groupId=935&placeId=1669">Rome</a> by maintaining the mixed constitution. It is more likely that the flames consuming the great city of <a class="linkToPlace" target="_blank" href="/place?placename=Carthage&groupId=441&placeId=820">Carthage</a> impressed Scipio as a melancholy illustration of the mutability of human fortune, and that his tears impressed P. as evidence that at the height of his success this great man should have revealed such moderation and restraint. In fact, as Astin, 286, observes, Scipio's emotions must necessarily have been mixed, and it is merely P.'s emphasis that has singled out this particular aspect for comment.</p>
<p rend="Plain Text">For discussion see Mommsen, RG, ii. 37; Bilz, 34; Gsell, iii. 406; Gelzer, Kl. Schr. ii. 67–68; Aymard, Mlanges de la socit toulousaine d'tudes classiques, 2 (Toulouse, 1946), 101 f.; Brink and Walbank, CQ, 1954, 104 f.; Scullard, JRS, 1960, 61; Walbank, GRBS, 1964, 252–3; A. Momigliano, Alien Wisdom (Cambridge, 1975), 22–23; and especially Astin, 282–7 (and, for the evidence, 251–2, nos. 9a, 9b, 9c).</p>
38.21.1 - 38.21.1
<p rend="Plain Text">The first five lines are only very partially decipherable. Boissevain attempts a restoration which includes the words <w lang="el-GR">παρὰ [τῷ ποιητῇ]</w>; but this is quite hypothetical (see above, 21. 1–3 n.).</p>
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<emph rend="bold"><w lang="el-GR">καλὸν μέν</w>:</emph>
'a glorious moment' (Paton). No account need be taken of the argument in Wunderer, ii. 37–38, that the words mean 'an apt quotation' and are a reply to someone, perhaps P. himself, who has just quoted the Homeric couplet; for both Appian and Diodorus agree in attributing the quotation to Scipio himself.
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<emph rend="bold"><w lang="el-GR">τοῦτο τὸ παράγγελμα</w>:</emph>
'this order'; the reference is probably to Scipio's order to set fire to the streets, prior to the fall of the Byrsa (see 21. 1–3 n.).
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Specifics
38.21.3 - 38.21.3
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<emph rend="bold"><w lang="el-GR">μεγάλου καὶ τελείου καὶ . . . ἀξίου μνήμης</w>:</emph>
'a great and perfect man, in short one worthy to be remembered'; cf. xxxi. 28. 13 for a similar implication that P. is writing after Scipio's death (cf. Walbank, Polybius, 19). On the importance of moderation in moments of success see the passages quoted in Vol. I, p. 19; add Livy, xlii. 62. 4 (Polybian): after Callicinus (171) Perseus' council advises
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him that 'modum imponere secundis rebus nec nimis credere serenitati praesentis fortunae, prudentis hominis et merito felicis esse' (the excerpt of P., xxvii. 8. 1, follows immediately on that context).
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Walbank Commentary