38.58
When
the praetor Q. Terentius had brought the proceedings to a close, Hostilius
and Furius, who had been convicted, gave the required sureties to the City
quaestors. Scipio, who stoutly maintained that the whole of the money he
had received was in the treasury, and that he had none which belonged to the
State, was ordered off to prison. P. Scipio Nasica formally appealed to the
tribunes in a speech full of just and true encomiums on the house of the
Cornelii and particularly on his own family. He pointed out that the two
distinguished men, Cn. and P. Scipio, were the fathers respectively of
himself, and of P. and L. Scipio, who was now being led to prison. These
two men had for many years fought in Spain against numerous armies of
Carthaginians and Spaniards, and had not only added to the glory of Rome,
but after presenting to those two nations an example of Roman moderation
and good faith, had at last given their lives for the commonwealth. It would
have been enough had their glory been kept untarnished for posterity, but P.
Africanus had so far surpassed his father's renown that men believed him to
be sprung from no human parents, but to be of divine origin. As to Lucius
Scipio, whose case was before them, he would pass over all that he had done
as his brother's lieutenant in Spain and Africa, and would remind them that
when he was consul the senate thought him worthy of being entrusted with
Asia and the war with Antiochus as his province, without having recourse to
the ballot. His brother, too, though he had been censor and twice consul, and
graced with a triumph, went to him to serve as his lieutenant in Asia. Whilst
he was there, as though to prevent the greatness and splendour of the
lieutenant from eclipsing the fame of the consul, it so happened that on the
day when Lucius Scipio completely defeated Antiochus in the great battle of
Magnesia, Publius Scipio was several days' journey away, lying ill at Elaea.
The army that Lucius engaged was not less than that which Hannibal
commanded at the battle in Africa. Hannibal who had commanded all
through the Punic war was also among the generals with Antiochus. The
conduct of the war was such that no one could charge even Fortune with
caprice. It is in respect of the peace that the charges are made; the peace is
said to have been sold. If so, the ten commissioners are also involved in the
charge; it was on their advice that the peace was granted. And though out of
those ten men some came forward to accuse Cn. Manlius, not only did they
fail to prove their charge, they were not even able to delay his triumph.