Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius ScipioD. R. Shackleton Bailey, Two Studies in Roman Nomenclature, Atlanta, GA: Scholars Press, p. 107. Broughton, Magistrates of the Roman Republic vol. 3, p. 41. Oxford Classical Dictionary, "Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio, Quintus". (c. 95 – 46 BC), often referred to as Metellus Scipio, was a Roman politician and military commander. Ronald Syme called him "the last Scipio of any consequence in Roman history."Ronald Syme, "Imperator Caesar: A Study in Nomenclature," Historia 7 (1958), p. 187.

He was born a member of the patrician Cornelii Scipiones family and initially named Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica after his father. After reaching adulthood, he was adopted into the plebeian Caecilii Metelli family, taking his unusually complex final name.

He was a member of the Roman Senate and held the series of increasingly powerful offices that formed the cursus honorum, culminating in the consulship of 52 BC. As an aristocratic and conservative politician, he opposed the populist policies of the First Triumvirate.

During Caesar's civil war, he supported the senatorial faction led by Pompey against Julius Caesar. He used his position as proconsul of the province of Syria to raise troops for the war, then commanded them in subsequent actions. Metellus Scipio led the centre at the Battle of Pharsalus and was overall commander at the Battle of Thapsus, both defeats. Fleeing across the sea after Thapsus, he was caught at the naval Battle of Hippo Regius. Facing imminent capture, he killed himself with a stoicism that was later commended by Seneca the Younger.

Family connections and name The son of Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, praetor about 95 BC, and Licinia, Scipio was the grandson of Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, consul in 111, and Lucius Licinius Crassus, consul in 95. His great-grandfather was Scipio Nasica Serapio, the man who murdered Tiberius Gracchus in 133 BC. Through his mother Cornelia, Serapio was also the grandson of Scipio Africanus. Scipio's father died not long after his praetorship,Cicero, Brutus 212. and was survived by two sons and two daughters. The brother was adopted by their grandfather Crassus, but left little mark on history.Ronald Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy (Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 244.

Publius Scipio, as he was referred to in contemporary sources early in his life, was adopted in adulthood through the testament of Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius, consul in 80 BC and pontifex maximus. He retained his patrician status: "Scipio's ancestry," notes Syme, "was unmatched for splendour."Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 244. As Jerzy Linderski has shown at length,Jerzy Linderski, "Q. Scipio Imperator," in Imperium sine fine: T. Robert S. Broughton and the Roman Republic (Franz Steiner, 1996), pp. 148–149. The adoption is recorded by Cassius Dio, lx. 51, where he is referred to as "Quintus Scipio"; for the passage, see Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius online. this legal process constitutes adoption only in a loose sense; Scipio becomes a Caecilius Metellus in nameCondicio nominis ferendi: a condition of accepting the inheritance was to preserve the name of Metellus Pius, who died without a male heir; Linderski, p. 148. while inheriting the estate of Metellus Pius, but was never his "son" while the pontifex maximus was alive. He was sometimes called "Metellus Scipio", or just "Scipio", after his adoption. A decree of the senate gave his official name as "Q. Caecilius Q. f. Fab. Metellus Scipio."Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 244 online. Linderski asserted that the official form of his name is unknown because the Fasti Consulares for 52 BC are lost; see "The Dramatic Date of Varro, De re rustica, Book III and the Elections in 54," Historia 34 (1985), p. 251, note 21. Linderski later amplified his view Scipio's nomenclature in the Imperium sine fine essay.

Scipio married Aemilia Lepida, daughter of Mamercus Aemilius Lepidus Livianus, consul in 77 BC, but was not without rival in seeking to marry Aemilia Lepida. The virginal Cato had also wanted to marry Aemilia but lost out:

The couple had one son, a Metellus Scipio who seems to have died when he was only 18., in Tibur. Another son may have been born around 70 BC, or a son may have been adopted. The couple's much more famous daughter was born around that time as well.Syme explores the possibilities pertaining to a little attested son in The Augustan Aristocracy, pp. 245 ff. Scipio first married off the celebrated Cornelia Metella to Publius Crassus, the son of Marcus Licinius Crassus. After Publius's death at Carrhae, Scipio decided to succeed Caesar as the father-in-law of Pompey, and approached Pompey with an offer to marry him to Cornelia, which Pompey accepted. Pompey was at least thirty years older than Cornelia. This marriage was one of the acts by which Pompey severed his alliance to Caesar and declared himself the champion of the optimates. He and Scipio were consuls together in 52.

Political career Cicero names "P. Scipio" among the young nobiles on his defence team when Sextus Roscius was prosecuted in 80 BC. He is placed in the company of Marcus Messalla and Metellus Celer, both future consuls.Cicero, Pro Roscio Amerino 77, as cited by Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 245.

Metellus Scipio was probably tribune of the plebs in 59 BC,Dates and offices from T.R.S. Broughton, The Magistrates of the Roman Republic, vol. II, pp. 171, 172 (note 4), 189, 201, 207 (note 1), 215, 229, 260–261, 275, 288, 297, 540; vol. III (1986), pp. 41–42 (where Broughton recants his earlier identification of Scipio as a tribune, and discusses at some length the scholarly debate on evidence pertaining to whether he was tribune and when he was aedile). Primary sources on Metellus's magistracies include Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, ii. 1, and In Vatinium 16; and Valerius Maximus ix. 1. § 8. Additional evidence for his interregnum, , dated Ides of June; see also Cicero, Epistulae ad Familiares, vii. 11, and Münzer, Hermes, vol. 71 (1936) 222 ff. (1936). but this office was usually forbidden to those with patrician status.Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 244, note 6, citing D.R. Shackleton Bailey, Two Studies in Roman Nomenclature (1976), p. 98 ff. (see also for discussion of Metellus Scipio's names). Tribunate rejected and patrician status affirmed most emphatically by Linderski, "Q. Scipio Imperator," p. 149 ff. online. Scipio was an interrex; patrician rank was a prerequisite for the office. It is possible that Scipio's adoption into a plebeian gens may have qualified him for a tribunate on a technicality. He may have been aedile in 57 BC though this is not certain; one of the responsibilities of the aediles was organising games and he is known to have presented funeral games that year, in honour of his adopted father (who had died six years earlier).

He was praetor, most likely in 55 BC during the second consulship of Pompey and Marcus Crassus. In 53 BC, Scipio was briefly interrex with Marcus Valerius Messalla. Because only a patrician could be interrex, the holding of this office is incompatible with him having been a plebeian tribune. He became consul with Pompeius in 52 BC, the year he arranged the marriage of his newly widowed daughter to him.

Indisputably aristocratic and conservative, Metellus Scipio had been at least a symbolic counterweight to the power of the so-called triumvirate before the death of Crassus in 53 BC. "Opportune deaths," notes Syme, "had enhanced his value, none remaining now of the Metellan consuls."Syme, The Augustan Aristocracy, p. 245.

He is known to have been a member of the College of Pontiffs by 57 BC, and was probably nominated upon the death of his adoptive father in 63, and subsequently elected.Lily Ross Taylor, "Caesar's Colleagues in the Pontifical College," American Journal of Philology, vol. 63 (1942) 385–412, especially pp. 398, 412.

Role in civil war

In January of 49 BC, Scipio persuaded the Roman Senate to issue the ultimatum to Caesar that made war inevitable.Caesar, De Bello Civili, i. 5; William W. Batstone and Cynthia Damon, Caesar's Civil War, Oxford University Press, (2006), p. 109 online. That same year, Scipio became proconsul of the province of Syria.Caesar, De Bello Civili, i. 6, see also i. 4, iii. 31, 33; Cicero, Epistulae ad Atticum, ix. 11, see also viii. 15 and ix. 1; Plutarch, "The Life of Pompeius", 62. In Syria and Asia, where he took up winter quarters, he used often oppressive means to gather ships, troops, and money:Caesar, De Bello Civili, iii. 31–33.

Scipio put to death Alexander of Judaea,Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews xiv. 123–125, The Wars of the Jews i. 183–185, 195; see also Cassius Dio, xli. 18. and was acclaimed Imperator for claimed victories in the Amanus MountainsSee Broughton, Magistrates, pp. 260–261 for references in addition to Caesar. — as noted disparagingly by Caesar.Caesar, De Bello Civili, iii. 31: "It was during this time that Scipio sustained some losses around Mount Amanus and called himself imperator, after which achievement he demanded large sums of money from the states and rulers [in the area]" (his temporibus Scipio detrimentis quibusdam circa montem Amanum acceptis imperatorem se appellaverat. Quo facto civitatibus tyrannisque magnas imperaverat pecunias). John H. Collins calls this remark "the only genuine joke in the Commentaries." "Caesar and the Corruption of Power", in Historia, No. 4 (1955), p. 457, note 64.

In 48 BC, Scipio brought his forces from Asia to Greece, where he manoeuvred against Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus and Lucius Cassius until the arrival of Pompeius. At the Battle of Pharsalus, he commanded the centre. After the optimates' defeat by Caesar, Metellus fled to Africa. With the support of his former rival-in-romance Cato, he wrested the chief command of Pompeius' forces from the loyal Publius Attius Varus, probably in early 47. In 46, he held command at the Battle of Thapsus, "without skill or success," and was defeated along with Cato.See Broughton, Magistrates, pp. 275, 288, and 297, for numerous citations of primary sources.

Death After the defeat, he tried to escape to the Iberian Peninsula to continue the fight, but was cornered by the fleet of Publius Sittius. To avoid capture by his enemies, he killed himself by stabbing with his sword.

Facing death, Metellus Scipio achieved an uncharacteristic dignity, famously departing from his soldiers with a nonchalant "Imperator se bene habet" ("Your general's just fine").A translation that draws on Scipio's usual superbia over the sprezzatura supposedly demonstrated here might be "The Imperator conducts himself well." These last words elicited strong praise from the Stoic moral philosopher Seneca the Younger:

Assessment Classical scholar John H. Collins summed up the character and reputation of Metellus Scipio:

Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio

Bron en licentie