[Sidenote: Scipio.] The man about whom the best literary life of the city centred was Scipio Africanus the younger, who lived from 185 to 129 B. C. He was the son of the distinguished Lucius Æmilius Paulus, whose victory at Pydna, in 168 B. C., had destroyed the last foreign power capable of making serious resistance to the Roman legions, and he had been adopted by the son of the elder Scipio Africanus. He was himself a distinguished soldier, for as a simple officer (_tribunus militum_) he had saved the Roman army in Africa, after which he had been made consul and commander of the army which brought the third Punic war to a close by the capture and destruction of Carthage (146 B. C.). It might have been expected that he would take an active part in the government, especially as in his time the state needed the help of her best citizens. But Scipio seems to have felt that the internal troubles, which beset the state now that all external dangers were over, were too serious to be cured. He used his influence for good wherever he was able, but made no systematic attempt to correct the abuses of the government, which led at last to the revolutionary disorders of the days of the Gracchi (133-121 B. C.). Instead of being a party leader, he occupied a position somewhat apart from the aristocratic and the popular parties, lending his influence and his eloquence to the causes that seemed to him good, and in this way preserving a reputation for independence and good judgment. His patriotism was undoubted, and his influence as great as that of any man in Rome.