Scipio's Promiscuity As Related By Roman Historians
The Roman historian Valerius Maximus, writing in the first century AD, alleged that Scipio Africanus had a weakness for beautiful women, and knowing this, some of his soldiers presented him with a beautiful young woman captured in New Carthage. The woman turned out to be the fiancée of an important Iberian chieftain, and Scipio chose to act as a general and not an ordinary soldier in restoring her, virtue and ransom intact, to her fiancé.
According to Valerius Maximus, Scipio had a dalliance circa 191 BC with one of his own serving girls, which his wife magnanimously overlooked. The affair, if it lasted from circa 191 BC to Scipio's death 183 BC, might have resulted in issue (not mentioned); what is mentioned is that the girl was freed by Aemilia Paulla after Scipio's death and married to one of his freedmen. This account is only found in Valerius Maximus (Memorable Deeds and Sayings 6.7.1-3. L) writing in the 1st century AD, some decades after Livy. If this is correct, clearly Scipio did not hesitate to sleep with his female slaves, like so many other Roman masters. It should be noted however that Valerius Maximus is hostile to Scipio Africanus in other matters such as his frequent visits to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, which Maximus saw as "fake religion."
Read more about this topic: Scipio Africanus
Famous quotes containing the words promiscuity, related, roman and/or historians:
“Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment.”
—Norman Mailer (b. 1923)
“Becoming responsible adults is no longer a matter of whether children hang up their pajamas or put dirty towels in the hamper, but whether they care about themselves and others—and whether they see everyday chores as related to how we treat this planet.”
—Eda Le Shan (20th century)
“The Roman world is in collapse but we do not bend our neck.”
—Jerome (c. 340–420)
“The three main medieval points of view regarding universals are designated by historians as realism, conceptualism, and nominalism. Essentially these same three doctrines reappear in twentieth-century surveys of the philosophy of mathematics under the new names logicism, intuitionism, and formalism.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)