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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 425

banks: discussion of the same questions. Some points, on banking techniques,


and the question of credit mentioned above are very debatable, but worth
making as an expression of personal opinion.
The book ends with an over-all summary on general organization, the
position in the social system of bankers, and the relations between state and
private banks. Three pages are given to the economic importance of Greek
banks. Very little indeed, but understandable in view of the inequality and
ambiguity of the evidence. There are a number of very useful indexes.
This is a book containing an admirable collection of material, and making
the best use of it. It obviously cannot say the last word on the subject.
University of Sheffield R. J. HOPPER

SCIPIO AFRICANUS
H . H . SCULLARD: Sdpio Africanus: Soldier and Politician. Pp. 299;
40 plates, 13 figs. London: Thames & Hudson, 1970. Cloth, £2-50.
IN his new book, a recent addition to the series, 'Aspects of Greek and Roman
Life', Professor Scullard returns to the subject on which he first wrote some
forty years ago in Sdpio Africanus in the Second Punic War, a n d some additional
aspects of which he subsequently developed in his Roman Politics. The text of
the present book clearly owes a great deal to these earlier works (both now,
unfortunately, long out of print). Indeed, many chapters include large sections
taken verbatim from one or other of the earlier works, though shorn of much
of the purely technical discussion which is not appropriate to a more popular
work; supplementary notes take account of more recent work on the subject.
The reader's inevitable feeling, however, is that the essential character of the
book, the method of its composition, and most of the views which are pro-
pounded in the text, are already familiar and have not in essence been changed
very much since their first publication.
The main trouble with the book seems to stem largely from this double
origin. Scullard seems not to have substantially re-thought (or, even, in
many places, rewritten) what he originally wrote; yet the pattern and pur-
pose of the original works from which this book is formed were different in
scope and intention, and the old material is not always well adapted to its
new, more comprehensive, biographical form. Had this been simply a reprint
of the earlier books we could scarcely have quibbled about its form, and indeed,
would have been grateful to have those useful standard works restored to
print. But since this is presented as a new work and is dated 1970, the reader
might reasonably expect that the material had been re-worked over and
that the author had something new to say which might have been incorporated
in the text and not simply tucked away in footnotes.
We find, for instance, that the first half of the book, after the introductory
chapter, deals with Scipio as a soldier (clearly because it originated in the
appropriate chapters of Sdpio Africanus in the Second Punic War) a n d concerns
almost exclusively strategy and tactics. This is a pity. For, as is well known—
and as Scullard himself makes clear elsewhere—in the Roman Republic military
affairs and politics were inextricably interwoven and inevitably affected each
other. Even in the purely military sphere, for instance, it would have been

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426 THE CLASSICAL REVIEW
useful and interesting to explore and emphasize how cleverly Scipio used his
political skills-—his ability to work with and to manipulate other people—in
dealing with the Spaniards (for instance, in connection with his careful and
deliberate exploitation of the liberation of the hostages captured at New Car-
thage), with Massinissa and Syphax, with M. Junius Silanus (whom Scullard,
rather patronizingly, calls Scipio's 'aide-de-camp'). This artificial separation
of military and political matters in the sections on the Punic War is par-
ticularly obtrusive in Chapter v, where Scullard discusses Scipio's desire to
fight in Africa. For he restricts himself to military considerations, leaving the
broader political discussion to Chapter viii, where, effectively shorn of the
strategic considerations which were an integral part of the political argument,
it is treated fairly summarily. Now here, even more than usually at Rome,
politics and strategy were closely interrelated: personal rivalries and political
vested interests conditioned the senators' attitudes towards the strategic
problems, and vice versa. Yet Scullard's division reduces the value of both of
his discussions: the two halves, thus presented, amount to less than a satisfac-
tory whole.
In the purely military sections of the book the many very detailed tactical
and topographical discussions could have been substantially shortened with
advantage, especially since many of them (particularly those concerned with
New Carthage) have recently received comprehensive treatment by F. W.
Walbank in Volume ii of his Commentary on Polybius. The reviewer also has
doubts about the current value of detailed comparisons with military opera-
tions of the Napoleonic Wars and of the English Civil War. In 1930, when
'modern' military history was still fashionable and widely studied, readers
of books such as this were doubtless familiar with such militaristic details;
but forty years later fashions in history, as in other things, have changed,
and such comparisons often seem not only not very helpful but merely an
explanation of obscurum per obscurius.
The chapters which deal with Scipio's career after the Second Punic War
rely heavily on Roman Politics; but the omission of many of the arguments
on which Scullard's views were originally based and of the contexts in which
they were set makes his discussions seem often very speculative and incon-
clusive. In particular, the reviewer finds Scullard's speculations about Scipio's
attitude to events in the east during the Second Macedonian War and about
his relationship with Flamininus especially unsatisfactory in their new context.
It should really be made quite clear, in a book for which the author's reputation
will doubtless secure a wide readership, that there is virtually no solid evi-
dence about Scipio's attitude towards events in the east until the war with
Antiochus. I therefore see no evidence for (or need to postulate) doctrinaire
differences in policy or attitude between the 'philhellenism' of Flamininus and
Scipio in 198. In the event, both men seem to have been equally pragmatic,
Flamininus obtaining his reputation for 'philhellenism' chiefly from his
politically motivated declaration at Corinth in 196, which the Senate (and
Scipio?) ultimately approved for the same pragmatic reasons that Flamininus
had decided on it. He had presumably learned his Greek in the cities of southern
Italy and had developed a taste for Greek culture; but—and this is what
matters from the Roman point of view—this enabled him to understand and
to exploit in Rome's interest Greek traditions, inclinations, and sensibilities.
This was not doctrinaire or romantic 'philhellenism'; it was knowledge and

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THE CLASSICAL REVIEW 427
experience which may have conditioned his political technique; but there seems
to be no reason for believing that it conditioned his purpose.
In Scipio's case, we know nothing of his attitude towards the east until
191 (his obtaining the consulship in 194 tells us nothing about his over-all
eastern attitude, for then he simply wanted to fight Antiochus, who he thought
was a threat to Rome, particularly when Hannibal had joined him). In 191 he
had to deal primarily not with the Balkans, but with Asia Minor, which was
more distant from Italy and therefore less strategically important for Rome. We
cannot therefore meaningfully contrast his attitude as illustrated by the terms
of the peace of Apamea in 188 (supposing that Scipio was in fact responsible
for the formulation of the terms) with Flamininus' attitude illustrated by the
terms which he caused to be imposed on Philip in 196, and conclude that
in 198 Scipio's and Flamininus' attitudes varied correspondingly. Thus I
find unconvincing Scullard's formulation of their attitudes in 198: 'While
Flamininus championed the old Hellenic idea of the autonomy of the Greek
city-state against the Hellenistic kingdoms, Scipio was more ready to attempt
to deal with the Hellenistic World as a whole and maintain its balance of
monarchies, leagues and cities.' In the absence of information about Scipio's
attitude during the Second Macedonian War (which itself may be significant
for his having taken up no noteworthy position), it seems safest to conclude
(cautiously) that Scipio—like most senators who had had no eastern ex-
perience—was simply content to feel his way towards a Roman policy by
trial and error, and to follow (or, perhaps, as princeps senatus, to lead) the
pragmatic mass of senators who were ultimately persuaded by Flamininus
to sanction his policy in 196 as the best way of protecting Roman interests.
Scullard's new book, therefore, is not a complete biography of Scipio
Africanus; it is, unfortunately, not even a completely satisfactory account of
what we know of Scipio either as a soldier or as a politician. It seems to the
reviewer that it will perhaps be found most useful by those who require a tra-
ditional type of military account of Scipio's activities in Spain and Africa;
the notes provide much useful discussion and up-to-date bibliography; and
many of the photographs are interesting. But Scipio still awaits a definitive
biography.
The Queen's University of Belfast R. M. ERRINGTON

EMPEROR AND PEOPLE


Z. YAVETZ: Plebs and Princeps. Pp. xi+170. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1969. Cloth, £1-90 net.
THE author has chosen an important subject: the relationship between princeps
and plebs in late Republican and early Imperial Rome, and in particular,
why the Julio-Claudian emperors troubled to try to endear themselves to the
urban populace of Rome. But he has many difficulties to face. Documenta-
tion is scanty. Most of the authors he is obliged to use wrote long after the
event and themselves tended to be of the upper class and ignorant, uninterested,
or prejudiced on the subject. The composition of the urban masses is as yet
very imperfectly known, and the study of the psychology of crowd behaviour
is in its infancy. Yavetz admits much of this. Of the authors he says, with

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