When the praetor Q. Terentius had brought the proceedings to a close, Hostilius and Furius, who had been convicted, gave the required sureties to the City quaestors. [2] Scipio, who stoutly maintained that the whole of the money he had received was in the treasury, and that he had none which belonged to the State, was ordered off to prison. [3] P. Scipio Nasica formally appealed to the tribunes in a speech full of just and true encomiums on the house of the Cornelii and particularly on his own family. [4] He pointed out that the two distinguished men, Cn. and P. Scipio, were the fathers respectively of himself, and of P. and L. Scipio, who was now being led to prison. [5] These two men had for many years fought in Spain against numerous armies of Carthaginians and Spaniards, and had not only added to the glory of Rome, but after presenting to those two nations an example of [6??] Roman moderation and good faith, had at last given their lives for the commonwealth. It would have been enough had their glory been kept untarnished for posterity, but [7??] P. Africanus had so far surpassed his father's renown that men believed him to be sprung from no human parents, but to be of divine origin. [8] As to Lucius Scipio, whose case was before them, he would pass over all that he had done as his brother's lieutenant in Spain and Africa, and would remind them that when he was consul the senate thought him worthy of being entrusted with Asia and the war with Antiochus as his province, without having recourse to the ballot. His brother, too, though he had been censor and twice consul, and graced with a triumph, went to him to serve as his lieutenant in Asia. [9] Whilst he was there, as though to prevent the greatness and splendour of the lieutenant from eclipsing the fame of the consul, it so happened that on the day when Lucius Scipio completely defeated Antiochus in the great battle of Magnesia, Publius Scipio was several days' journey away, lying ill at Elaea. [10] The army that Lucius engaged was not less than that which Hannibal commanded at the battle in Africa. Hannibal who had commanded all through the Punic war was also among the generals with Antiochus. The conduct of the war was such that no one could charge even Fortune with caprice. It is in respect of the peace that the charges are made; the peace is said to have been sold. [11] If so, the ten commissioners are also involved in the charge; it was on their advice that the peace was granted. [12] And though out of those ten men some came forward to accuse Cn. Manlius, not only did they fail to prove their charge, they were not even able to delay his triumph.
