Scipio Africanus: A Roman Alexander?

Presenter: Stephanie Golding (Mid-candidature review seminar)

Livy’s aim was to remind his Augustan audience of the good old-fashioned values of the Republic through Scipio’s exemplum of virtus and pietas. As is to be expected, Scipio himself sought exempla from Rome’s past on which to base his own actions, but Livy also links him with the image of Alexander the Great through the serpent-siring myth. In addition, Livy writes of episodes which parallel episodes from Alexander’s life and, prior to the battle of Zama, Livy has Hannibal tell Scipio that he was a greater general than Alexander, yet curiously Livy makes no mention of Scipio in his Alexander digression in Book 9. My paper discusses Livy’s association of Scipio with the image of Alexander from which arise questions: can Scipio be seen as using Alexander as an exemplum, or, as has been argued, is Livy’s association a construction created to link Augustus with Alexander?