Regum et imperatorum apophthegmata

Plutarch

Plutarch. Moralia, Vol. III. Babbitt, Frank Cole, translator. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press; London: William Heinemann Ltd., 1931 (printing).

He would not allow either slave or freedman of his to take anything or even buy anything from the spoil, when everybody was engaged in looting and plundering. [*](Cf. Moralia, 97 C, and note e on p. 187.)

He was active in the support of Gaius Laelius, the dearest of his friends, when he was a candidate for the consulship, and he inquired of Pompey [*](Quintus Pompey, consul 141 B.C.) whether he also was a candidate. (It was reputed that Pompey was the son of a flute-player.) Pompey said that he was not a candidate, and offered to take Laelius about with him and help him in his canvass, and they, believing his words and waiting for his co-operation, were completely deceived. For it was reported that Pompey was himself going about and soliciting the citizens. The others were indignant, but Scipio laughed and said, It is because of our own stupidity; for, just as if we were intending to call not upon men but upon gods, we have been wasting any amount of time in waiting for a flute-player ! [*](Cf. Cicero, De amicitia, 21 (77).)

When Appius Claudius was his rival [*](In 142 B.C.) for the censorship, and asserted that he greeted all the Romans by name, while Scipio knew hardly one of them, Scipio said, You are quite right; for I have not taken such pains to know many as to be unknown to none. [*](Cf. Plutarch’s Life of Aemilius Paulus, chap. xxxviii. (275 C).)

He bade the people, inasmuch as they happened to be waging war against the Celtiberians, to send

out both himself and his rival either as legates or tribunes of the soldiers, and take the word and judgement of the fighting men in regard to the valour of each.

After he was made censor, he deprived a young knight of his horse because, at the time when war was being waged against Carthage, this young man had given an expensive dinner for which he had ordered an honey-cake to be made in the form of the city, and, calling this Carthage, he set it before the company for them to plunder. When the young man asked the reason why he had been degraded, Scipio said, Because you plundered Carthage before I did!

Seeing Gaius Licinius coming before him, he said, I know that this man is guilty of perjury, but, since no one accuses him, I cannot myself be both accuser and judge. [*](Cf. Cicero, Oration for Cluentius, 48 (134); Valerius Maximus, iv. 1. 10.)