SCIPIO, PUBLIUS CORNELIUS

died 211 BC Roman general, consul in 218 BC and later proconsul, during the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage. In 218 he sailed with an army to southern Gaul to prevent Hannibal the Carthaginian from advancing on Italy. Having arrived too late, he himself returned to Italy but boldly sent his army on to Spain under his elder brother Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus to check the Carthaginian forces still there. In northern Italy he hoped to fight delaying actions against Hannibal along the tributaries of the Po River. Being repulsed and wounded at the Ticinus, he retired to the Trebia, where he was joined by his colleague Tiberius Sempronius Longus, who insisted on fighting and was defeated (December 218). In 217 Scipio was sent as proconsul to Spain; in a battle near the Ebro River he and his brother smashed Hasdrubal's attempt to break through to Italy (215), and by 212 they had captured Saguntum (modern Sagunto). From his base they could move farther south; advancing separately, however, they both met disaster and deathPublius on the upper Baetis (Guadalquivir), Gnaeus in the hinterland of Carthago Nova (Cartagena), in 211. In spite of this final defeat, they had for seven years denied Hannibal the resources of Spain. Publius was the father of Scipio Africanus the Elder.