Cornelius Scipio Salvito

Cornelius Scipio ‘Salvito’ (the agnomen Salvito was conferred on him due to his resemblance to a mime artist of the same name)[1] was a minor member of the gens Cornelia who lived in the late Roman Republic.[2] He was perhaps a descendant of Scipio Africanus, the Roman general who defeated Hannibal, through his second son Lucius Cornelius Scipio.[3][4]

Salvito was, according to Plutarch and Suetonius, "a contemptible nobody",[5] who was taken by Julius Caesar in 46 BC on his North African campaign against the remnants of Pompey's forces, led by Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius Scipio Nasica. Because of a long-standing belief that only a Scipio could be victorious in Africa, and because he was facing a Scipio, Caesar placed Salvito at the front of his army, either as a good luck charm to calm his nervous troops, or to demonstrate his contempt to Scipio Nasica.[6] Caesar forced him to attack the enemy frequently and to bring on the battle.

Sources

Notes
  1. Pliny, Natural History VII, 12:30:2
  2. Stefan G. Chrissanthos (30 October 2008). Warfare in the Ancient World: From the Bronze Age to the Fall of Rome: From the Bronze Age to the Fall of Rome. ABC-CLIO. pp. 199ff. ISBN 978-0-313-04192-1.
  3. Plutarch, Life of Caesar 52:5
  4. Henri Etcheto, Les Scipions. Famille et pouvoir à Rome à l’époque républicaine, Bordeaux, Ausonius Éditions, 2012, pp. 190, 191.
  5. Plutarch, 52:5; Suetonius, Life of Julius Caesar, 59:1
  6. Cassius Dio, Roman History, 42:58:1; Plutarch, 52:5


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