Although considered a hero by the Roman people, primarily for his victories against Carthage, Scipio had many opponents, especially Cato the Elder, who hated him deeply.

In 187 BC, he was tried in a show trial alongside his brother for bribes they supposedly received from the Seleucid king Antiochus III during the Roman–Seleucid War.

[6] The Second Punic war started in early 218 BC when the Roman ultimatum to Carthage demanding that Hannibal withdraw from Saguntum in Spain was rejected.

[20] Modern scholars dismiss the Livian narrative of senatorial indecision and have instead suggested that the senate chose Scipio but forced a popular vote to legitimise an irregular command.

He then took the three hundred Spanish hostages into his custody, giving them gifts, guaranteeing their safety and that of their families, and promising them freedom if their respective communities would ally with Rome.

[30] After a quickly-suppressed revolt by Spanish tribes when false rumours of Scipio's death from illness spread, he crossed into Africa to solicit the support of Syphax and thence into western Hispania to meet Massinissa for the same purpose.

[33] Some time c. 206 BC, Scipio also founded the town of Italica (located about 9 km northwest of Seville), which later became the birthplace of the emperors, Trajan, Hadrian, and Theodosius I.

[36][37] He returned to Rome late in the year; according to Livy he was denied a triumph,[38] on the grounds that he was privatus – that is, sine magistratu – and had never been elected to a magistracy with imperium.

[42] When he entered into office, he demanded that the senate assign him the province of Africa and threatened to take the matter to the popular assemblies if it refused to do so.

Despite fierce opposition from the princeps senatus, Quintus Fabius Maximus Verrucosus, the senate bowed to his pressure and he received Sicily with permission to cross into Africa if he wished.

[45] The senate, regardless, assigned Scipio no additional soldiers, leading him to recruit an army of volunteers;[46] Livy reports that from his clients and supporters in Italy, he mustered some 30 warships and 7,000 men.

[50] His imperium was prorogued into 205 BC and in that year, he crossed with his men into Africa and besieged Utica before withdrawing and pretending in the winter to negotiate with the Carthaginians.

[32] The armies then fought in the Battle of the Great Plains some time early in the new year (his imperium was prorogued until the war's completion) and after capturing Syphax of Numidia, restored Massinissa to the kingdom.

[52] The Carthaginians reacted to the defeat by recalling their generals Hannibal and Mago from Italy and launching their fleet against Scipio's to cut off their supply lines.

[32] Another set of peace negotiations occurred, with the Carthaginians eventually agreeing to abandon all territorial claims in the Mediterranean and beyond, limit her rights to expand in Africa, recognize Massinissa's kingdom, give up all but twenty of her ships, and pay a war indemnity.

During his second consulship, he wanted to succeed Titus Quinctius Flamininus in Greece and advocated for a stronger Roman presence in the Aegean to guard against Antiochus III, but was unsuccessful.

[67] Scipio let his co-consul, Tiberius Sempronius Longus, take the leading role in the fighting and returned to Rome to hold the consular elections.

[73] Antiochus' initial push into Greece was met with little enthusiasm by the locals, who were well-treated in a peaceful and largely open interstate system in the aftermath of the Roman proclamation of Greek freedom.

The peace terms presented at Sardis were largely the Roman demands prior to the battle: Antiochus would cede all territory outside the Taurus line (eventually determined to be from Cape Sarpedon in Cilicia through to the river Tanais),[77] pay a war indemnity of 15,000 talents to Rome with a separate 400 talents to Eumenes, all exiles and enemies of Rome would be handed over (including Hannibal) along with twenty hostages (including Antiochus' youngest son).

[79] Lucius' attempt to secure from the senate a prorogation to oversee the settlement of Asia also was rejected; no exception would be made to the general post-Hannibalic war rule against promagistrates.

[87] One story, given by Valerius Antias, indicates that one of the tribunes at the urging of Cato the Elder brought charges against Scipio Africanus alleging bribery and theft.

At this notice, he then leads an impromptu procession to sacrifice at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus amid thunderous applause, leaving the prosecutors embarrassed.

His younger daughter's last surviving child Sempronia, wife and then widow of Scipio Aemilianus – his adoptive grandson[99] – was alive as late as 102 BC.

Polybius made a case that Scipio's successes resulted from good planning, rational thinking and intelligence, which he said was a higher sign of the gods' favour than prophetic dreams.

Scipio was delighted with the turn which the speaker had with true Carthaginian adroitness given to his answer, and the unexpected flattery it conveyed, because Hannibal had set him apart from the ordinary run of military captains as an incomparable commander.

Scipio supported land distribution for his veterans in a tradition harking back to the earliest days of the Republic, yet his actions were seen as somewhat radical by conservatives.

For his self-restraint in putting the good of the republic ahead of his own gain, Scipio was praised by Livy for showing uncommon greatness of mind—an example conspicuously not emulated by Marius, Sulla or Caesar.

Scipio figures prominently in Livy's "Ab urbe condita libri" and is named as an example of a warrior at the end of Book III of Lucretius' De rerum natura.

Publius Cornelius Scipio was the title character of a number of Italian operas composed during the baroque period of music, including settings by George Frideric Handel, Leonardo Vinci, and Carlo Francesco Pollarolo.

In 1971 Luigi Magni scripted and directed the movie Scipione, detto anche l'Africano (Scipio, aka "the African"), starring Marcello Mastroianni, Vittorio Gassman, Silvana Mangano and Woody Strode, in which the historical events are portrayed in a light and satirical mode, with some intentional references to the political events of the time in which the movie was made.