The Continence of Scipio is a 1771 history painting by the Italian artist Pompeo Batoni.

[1] It depicts a scene from the Siege of Carthage during the Second Punic War when Scipio Africanus, a general of the Roman Republic, refused to accept a ransom for an aristocratic female prisoner and released her to her fiancée.

Although best-known for his portrait paintings of Grand Tourists, the Rome-based Batoni also produced scenes from religious and classical history.

[2] The painting was commissioned by Count Shuvalov in 1768 on behalf of Catherine the Great for a sum of around 1,700 scudi.

[3] The Empress also commissioned a pendant Thetis Takes Achilles from the Centaur Chiron.