234 



8CIPIO .1: Ml 1. 1 ANUS 



SCO PAS 



of Polybius the historian, wlu> afterwards became 

 one of hi* inont valued dii-n.l-. In 151 he went l<> 

 Spain an military tribune under tin- consul Luriua 

 Lucnllus, and two yearn later began the third ami 

 hut Punic war, which mainly con-i-ted in tli> 

 of Carthage. Sripio mill held the siiliordinaie 

 position of itiiliniry tribune; Imt the incapacity of 

 the consuls, M Mitnilius and L. Calpuniius l'i-o. 

 (149-148), and the hrilliant manner i.- which he 

 rectified their blunder-, ilrew all eyes t him. The 

 favourite Uith of the Roman army and the Koinan 

 people, Sripio wan at length in 147, when only a 

 candidate lor the lediloHhip, elected consul )>y an 

 extraordinary decree of the Coniitia, and invested 

 with supreme command. Even the aged Calo, 

 who wan not lilieral with his praise, marked his 

 opinion of the relative worth ot tlie voung Scipio 

 and his comrades by quoting the Homeric line, 

 He only is a living man; the rent are gliding 

 shades.' 'The story of the siege of Carthage, the 

 despairing heroism of its inhabitants, the deter- 

 mined resolution, the sleepless vigilance, the ii s 



nant labours of Scipio belong to history. The city 

 was finally taken l.y storm in the spring of 146; 

 and hy the orders of the senate it was levelled to 

 the Around, and the ploughshare driven over its 

 mite. Scipio, a man of noble and relined soul, 

 steeped from his youth up in the culture of Greece, 

 obeyed the savage command witli sorrow, even 

 witfi horror. As he razed on the ruin he had 

 Wrought, the thought Mashed across hi- mind that 

 some day Koine too might perish, and the words of 

 the Iluirt rose to his lips: 'The day shall come 

 when sacred Troy shall perish, and I'riain and his 

 people shall be slain. ' 



Scjpi.i, though proluthly the most accomplished 

 Roman gentleman of his age, was rigorous in 

 hU observance of the antique Homan virtues ; 

 and when holding the otlice of censor in 142 he 

 made fruitiest, efforts to follow in the footsteps of 

 '. In 139 he was accused on the charge of 

 iiinjf*tii* hy the tribune Tiberius Claudius Asellus, 

 but was acquitted, and soon after was sent to 

 Egypt and Asia on a special embassy. Meanwhile 

 allairs had gone hailly in Spain. 'Viriutlius, the 

 l.nsitaiiiau patriot, had again and again indicted 

 the most disgraceful defeats on the Koman armies, 

 and his example had rouxed the hopes of the Celti- 

 l>ctian tril-s, who also rushed to war against the 

 common fix-. Th context continued with varying 

 success; but the interest centre- in the city of 

 Numantia, whose inhabitants displayed amazing 

 courage in the struggle with Koine. ' For long it 

 seemed as if the Niimaiitincs were invincible one 

 consul after another finding their subjugation too 

 hard a task ; but at length in KM Scipio, re elected 

 Consul, w.-nt to Spain, and after a siege oi eight 

 months forced the gaunt and famished citi/ens to 

 surrender, and utterly ih->iioyed their homes. He 

 then returned to Kome, where he took a prominent 

 part in political affairs as one of the leaders of the 

 arixtocralic party, and, though one of the more 

 moderate, his popularity with the populace greatly 

 declined. Although a brother in law of Tiberius 

 Grarchii!., vrhoM sister Sempronia he had married, 

 be dwclaimed any sympathy with his political 

 ainw ; and when he heard of the murder of his 

 kin-man MOM his favourite Homer: 'S., perish 

 all who do the like again. 1 The Latins, whose 



lands were l>cing seized by the coi issioners in 



their unwise bfJM to carry out to the full the 

 Sempronian law, ap|*>aled to Scipio f,, r protection, 

 and he nucceedeil (129) in getting the jurisdiction 

 Riixprndcd until the consuls should determine what 

 wen- domain lands and what private property. 

 Hut bin art ion caused the most furious indignation 

 among the party of reform, and shortly after 

 Scipio WM found dead in his bed, doubtless mur- 



dered by some unscrupulous member of the 

 (racchan party. Scipio was neither a rigid aris- 

 tocrat nor a flatterer of the people. Interior in 

 splendour of genius to his adoptive grandfather, he 

 surpassed him in purity of character, in simplicity 

 of patriotism, and in liberality of culture, 'The 

 history of Kome,' says Mommseii, ' presents various 

 men of greater genius than Scipio .'Kmiliauus, but 

 none equalling him in moral purity, in the utter 

 absence of political selfishness, in generous love of 

 his country, and none, perhaps, to whom destiny 

 has assigned a more tragic part ... It was hi- 

 lot to fight for his country on many a battlefield 

 and to return home uninjured, that he might perish 

 there by the hand of an assassin ; but in his .piicl 

 chamber he no less died for Home than if he had 

 fallen beneath the walls of Carthage.' 



SHre Facias, a writ for enforcing judgments, 

 decisions about patents, &c., or for annulling them : 

 often contracted, like Ji.fa., into sct.fn. See WRIT. 



SHrims. a genus of plants of the order Cyper- 

 acese (q.v.). The plants of this genus are called 

 Club-rushes, and the Common Bulrush ( N. Im-iixtris) 

 of our ponds and sluggish streams is a familiar 

 example. The rhizomes of ,S. <lnliins are eaten by 

 the natives of the south of India ; as are the tubers 

 of S. tnlieroifHs by the Chinese, who cultivate the 

 plant in tanks and ponds. The specie- of this 

 genus, about 300, are universally diffused, although 

 found chiefly in temperate climates. They date 

 from the Lower Miocene period. 



Scirrhns (Gr., 'hard'), a term applied to a 

 kind of Cancer (q.v.). 



Scissors. See CUTLERY. 



Scit amim-a*. See ZINGIBERACEJE. 



Sclcrostoma. a genus of iiematode worms 

 (see THREAD- WOBMS), one of which, S. dinxlninl?, 

 is a parasite of the human intestine, and another, 

 S. syngamus or Sytigamtis trachealis, is the cause of 

 Gapes (q.v.) in fowls. 



Srlrrot iuin i- a hard, multicellular tuber-like 

 body formed towards the end of the vegetative 

 season by the close union of the ordinary mycelial 

 filaments of Fungi (q.v.). It represents the dor- 

 mant or resting sta^e of the fungus, but is not 



<' nun to all fungi. At the beginning of the 



period of growth it sends out filaments or groups 

 of lilamenU which carry on the active life-history 

 of the individual, and soon the store of nourish- 

 ment is absorl>cd from the sclerotium by these fila- 

 ments. The Ergot of Kye (q.v.) is the sclerotium 

 of the fungus Clarifejui jinrjiiirrti. 



Srolopendrium. See HAKT'S-TONGUK. 

 Scoinborlda'. See MACKEKKL. 



Scone (pronounced Scoon), in Perthshire, on 

 the Tay's left Iwnk, 2 miles N. of Perth, was the 

 capital of Pictavia as early as 710, and the corona- 

 tion place of the Scottish kings from 1153 till 1488, 

 as afterwards in 1051 of Charles II. (see SCOTLAND, 

 p. 231)). Fordun vividly descril>es the semi-Celtic 

 coronation of Alexander III. (1249), who was the 

 last to IH> seated on the ' Stone of Destiny,' carried 

 off in 1290 by Edward I. An Augustinian abbey, 

 founded by Alexander I. in 1115, was totally d.- 

 molished by a rabble in 1559 ; and the subsequent 

 Palace of the Vi-counN Stormont, in which the 

 Old Pretender lived for three weeks in 1716, and 

 which was also visited hv Prince Charles Edward, 

 has given place to a modern castellated mansion, 

 the seat of their descendant, the Karl of Mansfield. 

 Quwn Victoria stayed here in 1842. See Urqnhart's 

 History nf Scone (l'884). 



Sropas. an ancient Greek sculptor, founder, 

 along with Praxiteles (q.v.), of the later Attil 

 school, was a native of the island of Paros, and 



