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Scipio Nasica and Fabius Maximus Volunteer to Outflank the Macedonians

The first man to volunteer to make the outflanking
Nasica, Fabius, and others volunteer to cross the mountains into Macedonia by Gytheum.
movement was Scipio Nasica, son-in-law of Scipio Africanus, who afterwards became the most influential man in the Senate,1 and who now undertook to lead the party. The second was Fabius Maximus, the eldest of the sons of the consul Aemilius Paulus,2 still quite a young man, who stood forward and offered to join with great enthusiasm. Aemilius was therefore delighted and assigned them a body of soldiers.3 . . .

1 P. Cornelius Scipio Nasica Corculum was afterwards Pontifex Maximus (B. C. 150). See Cic. de Sen. 3, 50.

2 Of the two eldest sons of Aemilius, the elder was adopted by Quintus Fabius Maximus, the second by P. Cornelius Scipio, son of the elder Africanus, his maternal uncle.

3 From Plutarch, Aemilius, 15, who adds that Polybius made a mistake as to the number of soldiers told off for this service, which to judge from Livy, 44, 35, Polybius probably stated at 5000. Plutarch got his correction from an extant letter of Nasica (8000 Roman infantry, with 120 horse, and 200 Thracians and Cretans).

Histories. Polybius. Evelyn S. Shuckburgh. translator. London, New York. Macmillan. 1889. Reprint Bloomington 1962.

Robert B. Strassler provided support for entering this text.

This text was converted to electronic form by professional data entry, Running heads in Walbank's reprint have been converted to chapter titles, and titles have been added, usually from the marginal notes, for chapters without them. Some pages have notes of the form "line X: A should read B," which I believe are Walbank's; they have "resp=fww". Summaries of missing sections are encoded as inline notes with "resp=ess." A very few unidentified quotations are marked in notes with "resp=aem" (the markup editor) Citations are marked using Perseus abbreviations. and has been proofread to a high level of accuracy.

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  • Cross-references in notes from this page (3):
    • Livy, The History of Rome, Book 44, 35
    • Cicero, De Senectute, 3
    • Plutarch, Aemilius Paullus, 15
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