Some people reading this have probably never heard of Scipio before, and I envy them because they have the pleasure of discovering a first rate human being awaiting them. Go to the library and get "Scipio Africanus: A Greater than Napoleon" by B. H. Liddal Hart.
Scipio was the young Roman general who defeated Hannibal and saved Rome from Carthage in the Second Punic War. According to Hart he never lost a battle, a record that even Napoleon couldn't match. Only Marlborough and Alexander could measure up to him, but Marlborough had material advantages and Alexander fought inferior generals. Scipio had to fight other geniuses like himself.
Poor Scipio. We have a good likeness of him (above) in the form of a surviving black marble bust, but the white eyes make him look like a zombie. If you can overlook that, then check out the face which is intelligent and and kind and fully human in the best sense of the word.
Roman historians Polybius (who I mistakenly identified as Procopius in another post) and Livy fall over themselves with praise for Scipio. When he was 17 or 18 he had his first leadership role when his father, who was a general, put him in charge of a reserve unit of cavalry and solemnly ordered him not to enter the fight without explicit orders. Scipio's dad expected to win and just wanted to give his son a glimpse of real battle.
Well, the enemy turned out to be much stronger than expected and the father was surrounded by hostiles bent on killing him. Never once did the father signal for help from Scipio. He was determined to die without bringing his son into it.
Seeing the situation the young Scipio ordered the cavalry to charge, but his men wouldn't do it. The odds against them were enormous, they had contrary orders, and Scipio was young and inexperienced. Scipio again shouted the order then with sword drawn charged down the hill alone. His men looked at each other in disbelief. Not knowing what to do they followed him and amazingly the enemy misunderstood it as a major cavalry attack and scattered. His father was saved.
Another time found Scipio, still a young officer, at the battle of Cannae...one of the ancient world's biggest battles and a massive defeat of the Romans by Hannibal. Surviving officers met at a farm house and talked about what to do. They all wanted to scatter to the four winds and offer their men and services to foreign kings. All agreed to abandon Rome. Theirs was the only army that could have stopped Hannibal, and the fall of that city was now a certainty.
Into this came the young Scipio and friend who with swords drawn ordered their superiors back to Rome under pain of immediate death if they hesitated.
As the years went by Scipio took command and won battle after battle against brilliantly led Carthaginian forces. Scipio won by attacking Carthage itself, rather than the armies of that city in Italy. He won by pioneering aspects of modern strategy, and by persuading potential allies of his own heartfelt conviction that Rome was the greatest force for civilization in the ancient world...a thought in the minds of the gods.
Here (below) are a couple of YouTube videos showing Romans in battle. Not entirely relevant to this discussion, but cool all the same.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppNaeek_qCA&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzRnrV5ptgM
This post is already too long, but I can't resist mentioning another hero: Albert Einstein. What an imagination!
When he heard that the speed of light was a constant he became obsessed with understanding what made it a constant, what obstacle prevented travel at light speed, and what we could deduce about the universe from this. Reasoning backward from one bizarre but rock solid fact about light led him to deduce time relativity, energy/mass equivalence, and even other dimensions.
Is relativity true? Maybe not. The conclusions it leads to are so shocking that maybe it's easier to believe that the confirming experiments were flawed, but people who know more than I do say they were on the level, so I simply bow my head in admiration.
it sounds pretty amazing that Scipio even survived the first day on the job.
ReplyDeleteI was always up for Hannibal though...
Hey, Mr. Fitzgerald, I have a question about your "Tales of Worm Paranoia" short.Was it a Spumco production or was it made by you on your own?
I love Einstein too. Id like to read more abot Scipio
One of the things that has always stuck in my mind about Scipio Africanus is his purported epitaph. After all the years of service and then ultimate rejection at home, he retired far away from Rome, writing on his grave: "Ungrateful fatherland, you will have not even my bones." Such a strong line, it almost encapsulates why the story of Scipio is so interesting and inspiring, the fiercest of individuals.
ReplyDeleteOisin: I made it at Cartoon Network. The Spumco look was deliberate. I was trying to combine my own style with John K's and Rod Scribner's. John was very helpful...he even bought me a computer to write the story on.
ReplyDeleteGlad you liked Scipio! I should have done Einstein another day so I'd have more room to explain exactly why I like Scipio so much.
Justin: Rome really was ungrateful. It's amazing that Fabius tried to undermine Scipio in the Senate. I assume he was the same Fabius that fought the unorthodx guerilla campaign that saved Rome in the First Punic War. Fabius himself was a victim of public ingratitude. You'd think he would have sympathized with Scipio.
Of course Hannibal had problems with his own Senate. No matter how successful you are there's always a loud faction that thinks you're a bum. It reminds me of the way some people treat John K.
HOLY CRAP! That guy survived the first day?! MAN, WHAT LUCK, especially considering he never lost a battle. And Enistien is a genius as ever.
ReplyDeleteI love that book! I read it in the 9th grade and thought it was amazing. Reading about some of his battles in Spain, I loved how he invented the whole "column of fighters rotates in" thing. Ah, I wish I could describe it better. It made the "stand in opposing, symmetrical blocks and shoot until everyone on one side is dead" of much later conflicts seem even stranger to me. I also liked how he advocated reasonable treatment of the Carthaginians after the war.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mr. Fitzgerald!
ReplyDeleteNot to mention those Gams!
ReplyDeleteOne of the confusing things for me about Roman history (I'm only an amateur fan) is when names are handed down through multiple generations, as with the Scipio name. If it is the same Fabius, how sad, but how seemingly typical of politics in general.
ReplyDeleteCertainly our image of these historical greats gets filtered through something of a romantic lens, but this is not necessarily a bad thing in terms of the inspirational function it provides, to have some faith in our sense of self. History can clarify some things as much as others are muddied.
You should totally do a post on Plutarch's "The Lives". I know you don't post much about your personal/professional lives but it would be really cool to see you write more about past stuff worked on. I think you could produce an amazing cartoonish historical graphic novel. Just based on the freehand sketches you've posted and "worm paranoia" etc. you possess crazy skills 99% of younger professional cartoonists would kill for.
ReplyDeleteI know you're humble and everything but you should really think of working on some comics and whatnot and submitting them to reddit.com/r/comics.
I'm going to let you in on the little asked but freely given secret Eddie. Backwards thinking is easy, it's dealing with the way things are once you've started that's hard.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to make progress in economics, start thinking backwards from quantum mechanics.
If you want to make social progress, keep this in mind: Life must evolve to continually changing circumstances. Humans are continually evolving very slowly, and if we continue evolving long enough, we'll evolve into something which is not human. Compare with the United States Constitution. That's how I came up with the idea of a free speech forum. Speak freely more often and in public rather than just approaching people you would in the course of mere routine.
So many simple things so commonly ignored. Progress as I see it is about finding the rare truth that goes somewhere useful while all the others you'd rather ignore haunt you for the rest of your life but never make the front page news.
I suppose that although Scipio was a warrior in a literal sense, Einstein was one in a figurative sense. Yesterday I was standing with my friend Phil at the "Warrior's Gate" entrance of Central Park, wondering why it was called that. Interesting you posting about warriors.
ReplyDeleteScipio's kind of a tragic Ayn Rand hero. Cato is his plebian, conservative nemesis in the Senate who's threatened by the dominance of this exceptional individual over the collective i.e., Rome. Scipio is a foreshadowing of the Caesars & the death of the Republic. The patricians are threatened by his immense wealth. They feel his use of cleverness & stratagem is ignoble, un-Roman & unsportsmanlike.
ReplyDeleteYet, he declines being acclaimed consul-for-life, turns away from the whole ignoble business of republican politics & goes into retirement.
Anon: Many thanks! I didn't know Reddit,com had a comics section til you mentioned it!
ReplyDelete