Scipio
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Scipio. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
sip 1-o, a name of frequent occurrence in Roman history, especially in connection with the Punic Wars . CNEIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO and PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO were brothers. Both were consuls. The latter was defeated by Hannibal at the passage of the Rhone and later at the Ticinus. He won a victory over the Carthaginian fleet, gaining command of the Mediterranean. The brothers were slain in a disastrous battle in Spain in 212 or 211 B. C. PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO (234-183 B. C.), son of the preceding Scipio of the same name, is known in history as Scipio Africanus Major. He saved his father's life at the passage of the Ticinus by Hannibal, and succeeded his father in command in Spain. He reduced that province to tolerable order, and returned to Rome toward the close of Hannibal's campaign in Italy. In 207 he stood for the consulship and was placed in chief command of the armies. He "carried the war into Africa," forced Hannibal to return home, and defeated him utterly in the decisive battle of Zama. Scipio was content with the crippling of Carthage. He did not share the opinion of Cato that "Carthage must be destroyed." Scipio and Hannibal were the great military geniuses of the age, and regarded each other with the highest respect. This Scipio was the father of the celebrated Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi.
1000 Classical Characters (1900)
The name of a celebrated family at Rome, the most conspicuous of which was Publius Cornelius, afterward called Africanus. He was the son of Publius Scipio, and commanded an army against the Carthaginians. After obtaining some victories, he encountered Hannibal at the famous battle of Zama , in which he obtained a decisive victory. He died about 184 years before Christ, in his forty-eighth year. Scipio, Lucius Cornelius (surnamed Asiaticus). He accompanied his brother Africanus in his expedition in Africa. He was made consul A. U. C. 562, and sent to attack Antiochus , king of Syria, whom he completely routed. He was accused of receiving bribes of Antiochus, and was condemned to pay large fines, which reduced him to poverty. Scipio, P. Aemilianus. Called Africanus the younger. He finished the war with Carthage, the total submission of which occurred B. C. 147. The captive city was set on fire, and Scipio is said to have wept bitterly over the melancholy scene. On his return to Rome he was appointed to conclude the war against Numantia, the fall of which soon occurred, and Scipio had Numantinus added to his name. He was found dead in his bed, and was presumed to have been strangled, в. c. 128.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The narrative these accounts give is essentially the one still taught: Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus took the war to Africa and beat Hannibal at Zama in 202 BC, and his adopted grandson Scipio Aemilianus burned Carthage. Modern handbooks tidy a few details — Carthage fell in 146 BC rather than the 147 given by 1000 Classical Characters, Aemilianus is normally dated to 129 BC, and Africanus held his first consulship in 205, not 207 as Aiton's has it; the elder Publius also failed to intercept Hannibal at the Rhone rather than being defeated there. The most substantial gain since 1910 is archaeological: Adolf Schulten's excavations of Numantia and its Roman siege camps in Spain, begun in the years just before Aiton's wrote, put Aemilianus's siege on the ground for the first time, while the site of Zama itself has never been securely identified. Scholars now also treat Cato's "Carthage must be destroyed" as a phrase shaped by later tradition rather than a verbatim quotation.
Written for this edition, 2026.