Tom Holland

Your glory matters less to me, he told Scipio, than the welfare of our city.

If you really want to destroy Hannibal, then go to Brutium and fight him there, which is, I mean, a very stinging rebuke.

And I think it's clearly animated by a kind of personal animus, as well as anxiety about strategy.

And I think it portrays

What right from the beginning of Scipio's career has been an anxiety on the part of conservative elements in the Senate about his character.

It's not just that he's been held king, but that he is incredibly popular, both with his troops and with the mass of the Roman people.

So in Spain, in the wake of his great victories...

His soldiers had taken to hailing him as Imperator, which is a word that means general, but which in the long run will become the title that Augustus claims and which gives us our title of emperor.

So it doesn't have that connotation at this point.

But nevertheless, it's a straw in the wind.

I mean, no one has been hailed in this way before.

And so senators back in Rome are anxious about this.

And they're also anxious about the fact that he's become consul when he's only 30 and you're meant to be 40.

And essentially he's been swept to power on a great wave of popular enthusiasm.

And so there's a sort of nervousness, what will he do with this power, I think.

But Scipio, he's not having any of this.

And

He throws Fabius's criticisms back in his face.

And he says that if you block my intention to invade Africa, then I am going to turn to the people and I will get them to force this strategy through.

You know, you, Fabius, and all your conservative allies in the Senate, you will be publicly humiliated.