Scipio Aemilianus

Born in 185 BC into Roman aristocracy, Scipio Aemilianus carved his reputation in two distant sieges. The first was Carthage, where he commanded the final assault that leveled Rome's ancient rival after a three-year struggle. The second was Numantia in Spain, another brutal endgame that closed a long war. Between campaigns he kept company with writers and thinkers—Polybius, the Greek historian, orbited his household—and back in Rome he stood against his brother-in-law Tiberius Gracchus's land reforms, a rift that ran along the fault line splitting the Republic. He died in 129 BC, the night bef…