Scipio Aemilianus was the second son of Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, the commander of the Romans' victorious campaign in the Third Macedonian War, and his first wife, Papiria Masonis.

Plutarch also wrote that "The whole army learned of the distress and anguish of their general, and springing up from their suppers, ran about with torches, many to the tent of Aemilius, and many in front of the ramparts, searching among the numerous dead bodies.

Well, then, when it was already late and he was almost despaired of, he came in from the pursuit with two or three comrades, covered with the blood of the enemies he had slain ..."[2] Scipio Aemilianus was seventeen at the time.

He asked the Senate to be sent to Hispania either as a military tribune or a legate, due to the urgency of the situation, even though it would have been safer to go to Macedon, where he had been invited to settle domestic disputes.

[10] When the Carthaginians mounted another surprise night-time attack on a fort protecting the Roman transport ships, it was Aemilianus who led out his men and drove off the assault party using a clever stratagem.

Complying with the mandate of the Senate, he ordered the city evacuated, burnt it, razed it to the ground and plowed it over, ending the Third Punic War.

Scipio concentrated on restoring discipline by forbidding luxuries the troops had become accustomed to, through regular tough exercises (all-day marches, building camps and fortifications and then demolishing them, digging ditches and then filling them up, and the like) and by enforcing regulations strictly.

He returned to the Numantine territory and was joined by Jugurtha, the son of the king of Numidia, with archers, slingers, and twelve elephants.

He built two towers by the River Durius (Douro) to which he moored large timbers with ropes which were full of knives and spear heads and were constantly kept in motion by the current.

[7] Scipio helped his relative Tiberius Gracchus who in 137 BC had served in the Numantine War as a quaestor (treasurer) under the consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus.

Plutarch wrote that "the relatives and friends of the soldiers, who formed a large part of the people" blamed this on Mancinus and insisted "that it was due to Tiberius that the lives of so many citizens had been saved".

[21] Whatever the case, he was in disagreement with the militant actions of the movement led by Gracchus when he was a plebeian tribune, which pressed for a law to redistribute land to the poor.

Plutarch wrote that "this disagreement certainly resulted in no mischief past remedy" and thought that if Scipio had been in Rome during the political activity of Gracchus, the latter would not have been murdered[22] - he was fighting the war in Hispania.

Plutarch wrote "[while] at Numantia, when he learned of the death of Tiberius, he recited in a loud voice the verse of Homer: [from the Odyssey I.47] "So perish also all others who on such wickedness venture.

Appian related that Fulvius Flaccus, Papirius Carbo and Tiberius’ younger brother, Gaius Sempronius Gracchus, chaired a commission to implement the Gracchian law.

When the people heard these allegations they were in a state of alarm until Scipio died at home in his bed; according to Appian, without a wound.

[25] Modern historians believe "there is no strong evidence or credible argument to support any alternative hypothesis [from death by natural causes]".

He added that "[s]ome say that slaves under torture testified that unknown persons were introduced through the rear of the house by night who suffocated him, and that those who knew about it hesitated to tell because the people were angry with him still and rejoiced at his death.

And yet Scipio's dead body lay exposed for all to see, and all who beheld it formed therefrom some suspicion and conjecture of what had happened to it.

"[29] In another book Plutarch wrote "no cause of such an unexpected death could be assigned, only some marks of blows upon his body seemed to intimate that he had suffered violence."

The heaviest suspicions fell on Fulvius Flaccus who "that very day had reflected upon Scipio in a public address to the people".

However, "this great outrage, committed too upon the person of the greatest and most considerable man in Rome, was never either punished or inquired into thoroughly, for the populace opposed and hindered any judicial investigation, for fear that Gaius should be implicated in the charge if proceedings were carried on".

[31] Velleius Paterculus wrote that Scipio was "a cultivated patron and admirer of liberal studies and of every form of learning, and kept constantly with him, at home and in the field, two men of eminent genius, Polybius and Panaetius.

[36] He is also a central character in Book VI of Cicero's De re publica, a passage known as the Somnium Scipionis or "Dream of Scipio".

Besides Roman satirists and comedy writers such as Lucilius and Terence, there were Greek intellectuals, such as the scholar and historian Polybius and the Stoic philosopher Panaetius.

Gellius wrote that when he was censor, Scipio made a speech "urging the people to follow the customs of their forefathers".

"[38] Gellius wrote that after he was censor, Scipio was accused before the people by Tiberius Claudius Asellus, a plebeian tribune, whom he had stripped of his knighthood during his censorship.

[39] The satirist Lucilius wrote a verse about the episode: "Thus base Asellus did great Scipio taunt: Unlucky was his censorship and bad.

After being wrapped in thought for long, and realizing that all cities, nations, and authorities must, like men, meet their doom; that this happened to Ilium, once a prosperous city, to the empires of Assyria, Media, and Persia, the greatest of their time, and to Macedonia itself, the brilliance of which was so recent, either deliberately or the verses escaping him, he said: And when Polybius speaking with freedom to him, for he was his teacher, asked him what he meant by the words, they say that without any attempt at concealment he named his own country, for which he feared when he reflected on the fate of all things human.