Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 1.djvu/52

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24 SOLDIERS AND SAILORS they ought to have delivered up to the aerarium. At the same time they were called upon to give an account of the sums of money they had taken from An- tiochus. Lucius was ready to obey ; but his brother Africanus with indignation snatched the accounts from the hands of his brother and tore them to pieces be- fore the Senate. The tribune of the people, C. Minucius Augurinus, however, fined Lucius ; and when he was going to be thrown into prison until he should pay the heavy fine, Africanus dragged him away ; and the tribune Tib. Gracchus, though disapproving of the violence of Africanus, liberated Lucius from imprison- ment. Africanus himself was now summoned before the people by the tribune M. Naevius ; but instead of answering the charges he reminded the people that it was the anniversary of his victory at Zama, and bade them rather thank the gods for such citizens as he. After these troubles he withdrew to his villa near Liternum, and it was owing to the interposition of Tib. Gracchus that he was not compelled to obey another summons. The estates of his brother Lucius, however, were confiscated (B.C. 187), but the sum produced by their sale did not make up the amount of the fine. His friends and clients not only offered to make up the sum, but their generosity would even have made him richer than he had been before ; but he refused to ac- cept anything beyond what was absolutely necessary for his support. Africanus never returned from his voluntary exile, and he spent the last years of his life in quiet retirement at his villa. He is said to have wished to be buried on his es- tate ; but there was, as Livy says, a tradition that he died at Rome, and was buried in the tomb of his family near the Porta Capena, where statues of him, his brother Lucius, and their friend Q. Ennius, were erected. The year of his death is not quite certain ; for, according to Polybius, he died in the same year with Hannibal and Philopcemen (B.C. 183); according to others, two years ear- lier (B.C. 185). In judging of Scipio Africanus as a general, we may adopt the judgment as- cribed to Hannibal ; but as a Roman citizen he is very far from deserving such praise. His pride and haughtiness were intolerable, and the laws of the constitu- tion were set at nought whenever they opposed his own views and passions. As a statesman he scarcely did anything worth mentioning. By his wife ^Emilia, daughter of ^Emilius Paullus, he had two daughters, one of whom married P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum, the other, the celebrated Cornelia, married Tib. Sempronius Gracchus, and was the mother of the two Gracchi, the tribunes of the people.