Kitap 38
52
This splendid day was the last day of brightness for Scipio. He saw before him envious attacks and contests with the tribunes, and so after a somewhat lengthy adjournment had been agreed upon, he retired to Liternum, firmly resolved not to appear in his defence. His spirit was too high, his mind too great; he had all through held a position too lofty to allow him to accept the position of a defendant or submit to the humiliation of having to plead his cause. When the day arrived and his name was called, L. Scipio apologised for his absence on the ground of ill-health. The prosecuting tribunes did not accept the excuse and gave out that his refusal to appear was dictated by the same spirit of pride and arrogance in which he had left the seat of judgment and the tribunes and the Assembly. Surrounded by the very men whom he had deprived of the right and liberty of passing sentence upon him, and dragging them after him like prisoners of war, he had celebrated a triumph over the people of Rome and had made a secession on that day from the tribunes to the Capitol. "So now," they continued, "you have the due reward of your folly; the man at whose instigation and under whose leadership you deserted us, has now deserted you. So low is our courage falling day by day, that the man whom seventeen years ago we dared to send tribunes to Sicily to apprehend, whilst he had an army and a fleet at his command, that man we dare not now, though he is only a private citizen, fetch from his country-house to stand his trial." L. Scipio appealed to the tribunes of the plebs as a body, and they passed the following resolution: "If illness be pleaded as an excuse, it is our pleasure that this excuse be accepted, and our colleagues must again adjourn the day of trial." Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus was one of the tribunes. He was a political opponent of Scipio, and had forbidden his colleagues to add his name to their resolution. It was generally expected that he would give a more severe sentence, but he drew up a resolution in the following terms: "Since L. Scipio has pleaded illness as the reason for his brother's absence, I hold that to be sufficient excuse, and will not allow P. Scipio to be put on his trial before his return to Rome; even then, if he appeals to me, I will support him in any effort to avoid a trial. Scipio has by the common consent of gods and men attained such a lofty position through his own acts and the honours which the Roman people have conferred upon him, that for him to stand beneath the Rostra as a defendant, and have to listen to the insults of young men, would be a greater ignominy for the people of Rome than for him."
