Scipio and Wellington both held for many years commands of high
importance, but distant from the main theatres of warfare. The same
country was the scene of the principal military career of each. It was
in Spain that Scipio, like Wellington, successively encountered and
overthrew nearly all the subordinate generals of the enemy before being
opposed to the chief champion and conqueror himself. Both Scipio and
Wellington restored their countrymen's confidence in arms when shaken by
a series of reverses, and each of them closed a long and perilous war by
a complete and overwhelming defeat of the chosen leader and the chosen
veterans of the foe.
Nor is the parallel between them limited to their military characters
and exploits. Scipio, like Wellington, became an important leader of the
aristocratic party among his countrymen, and was exposed to the
unmeasured invectives of the violent section of his political
antagonists. When, early in the last reign, an infuriated mob assaulted
the Duke of Wellington in the streets of the English capital on the
anniversary of Waterloo, England was even more disgraced by that outrage
than Rome was by the factious accusations which demagogues brought
against Scipio, but which he proudly repelled on the day of trial by
reminding the assembled people that it was the anniversary of the battle
of Zama.
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