User:Wikibiohistory/Sandbox1/Draft of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus

Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus (d. 211 BC), consul in 222 BC was a Roman general and statesman

Background and ancestry
His father was Lucius Cornelius Scipio (Lucius Cornelius L.f. Scipio), son of the patrician censor of 280, Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus. His younger brother was Publius Cornelius Scipio, father of the most famous Scipio - Scipio Africanus. Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus served as consul in 222 BC, his co-consul being Marcus Claudius Marcellus, in the first of his five consulships. Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio was nicknamed Calvus (the bald) to distinguish him from his uncle, another Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio nicknamed Asina (or donkey), who had been twice consul during the First Punic War.

Political career
Calvus's early political career is not known, but he probably pursued the normal cursem honorum (course of honor, or political ladder) by serving in the army as a military tribune, then being adlected into the Senate around age 30, then serving as a quaestor, a curule aedile, and a praetor. Livy does not give any of these details, which are inferred from the normal political careers of other prominent Romans such as Marcellus and Fabius Maximus [See Plutarch's Lives]. Calvus was elected consul in 222 BC along with Marcus Claudius Marcellus in the first of his several consulships. Both consuls went to war, but only Marcellus was granted a triumph as well as the spolia opimia (only the third and last Roman to win this) for killing the Gaulish king himself. In his triumphal procession, Marcellus attempted to give his colleague full credit for his share of the victory, which credit he had been denied by the Senate for reasons unknown. [Source: Livy]

Scipio Calvus in the Second Punic War
In 218 BC, Calvus's younger brother Publius Cornelius Scipio was elected consul, in the same year that war broke out between Rome and Carthage. Both Scipios were chosen to lead armies; Publius, as consul, leading the army intending to confront Hannibal in Spain or Gaul, and the elder Gnaeus commanding the fleet. When Publius Scipio failed to intercept Hannibal before the latter famously crossed the Alps, the consul chose to send on the larger part of his army under his brother's command to Spain, and himself attempted to cut Hannibal off at the Alpine foothills. (For fuller details, see Battle of Ticinus, and Second Punic War).

After the younger Scipio was badly wounded at the Battle of Ticinus and his consulship came to an end, the brothers were confirmed as proconsuls in Spain. Publius Scipio then joined his elder brother in Spain, where the two brothers initially achieved success, partly owing to the Carthaginians having alienated the local Celtiberian tribes.

Scipio Calvus in Iberia 218-211 BC
Scipio Calvus fought in the Second Punic War in Iberia (Hispania), starting with a victory in the Battle of Cissa in 218 BC.

until he was killed in the Battle of the Upper Baetis in 211 BC shortly after the similar death of his younger brother. Both Scipios were capable commanders, both were consuls, and both were killed in Spain after their armies had separated.

Descendants
His only known surviving son was Publius Cornelius Scipio Nasica, consul in 191 BC, who was the first Scipio Nasica (nicknamed Nasica for his pointed nose). Scipi Nasica founded the Nasica branch of the Scipiades that survived until at least 46 BC (the death of Metellus Scipio.

One unverified source [CITE] claims that Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvus had two sons and two daughters, and that both daughters were married before he left for Spain. .

Scipio Nasica's son, another Scipio Nasica (nicknamed Corculum, with his full name being Publius Cornelius P.f. G.n. Scipio Nasica Corculum), married his second cousin Cornelia Africana Major, the eldest daughter of Scipio Africanus and thus united the two lines. Their descendants in the male line continued until at least 46 BC, in the person of Metellus Scipio (adopted into the Caecilii Metelli family).

See also: Scipio-Paullus-Gracchus family tree