Little information on him survives, as he did not stand for any of the high offices or have a public career of note.
Cicero relates that he was in poor health, the particulars of which he refuses to mention, stating that "we ought not to reproduce ... their faults (of ancestors).
For remedy according to Roman custom he adopted as son and heir his first cousin Scipio Aemilianus (b.
185 BC) who was probably born Lucius Aemilius Paullus, second and younger surviving son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus by his first wife Papiria Masonis.
Cicero adds that the eldest son of Scipio Africanus had "more ample intellectual culture" than his father and that the state endured a loss in his not being able to seek high office.