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Entered as second-class matter. July 3, 1917, at the post office at New York, N. I., under

the act of March 3, 1879

$5.00 Per Year

Single Copy, 50 C

College of St. Elizabeth NEW YORK MILITAR

Convent Station, New Jersey

45 Minutes from New York

Catholic College for Women
Registered by Regents

Standard College Preparatory Courses

Academy of St. Elizabeth
Send for Catalogue

Saint Mary's School Mount Saint Gabriel PEEKSKILL-ON-THE-HUDSON, N. Y. Boarding School for Girls Under the charge of the Sisters of St. Mary New fireproof building beautifully situated

For catalogues address The Sister Superior

CHEVY CHASE SCHOOL Residential school for girls. Senior high school, with two years advanced work beyond. Twelve-acre campus. Address CHEVY CHASE SCHOOL, Box N. FREDERIC ERNEST FARRINGTON, Ph. D.,

Headmaster,
Washington, D. C.

The Shipley School

Faculty are specialists in preparing for Bryn Mawr and other colleges. Situation opposite Bryn Mawr gives special educational and social advantages. Supervised sports, modern gymnasium, school farm. The Principals, Alice G. Howland, Eleanor O. Brownell Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania

CHESTNUT HILL

A Preparatory School for Boys

In the Open Country, 11 Miles North of Philadelphia
Excellent Record in College Preparation
Complete Equipment with Chapel, Library, Dormi-
tories, Gymnasium, Swimming Pool, and
Building. Senior and Junior Schools.

Recreation

T. R. HYDE, M.A. (Yale), Head Master
Box S, Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania

SEVERN SCHOOL

A country boarding school for boys. Ideal location on Severn River near Annapolis. Prepares for College, West Point and Annapolis. Exceptionally thorough work given and demanded. Students taught how to study. Water sports and all athletics. Limited to fifty. Catalogue.

ROLLAND M.TEEL, Ph. B., Principal, Boone, Md.

RUTGERS PREPARATORY

SCHOOL

RUTGERS PREPARATORY SCHOOL has maintained a continuous service for 160 years preparing boys of cultured families for college life and good citizenship. The equipment is complete and modern. Limited to 100 selected boys. Affiliation with Rutgers University offers many advantages. Catalogue and views.

WILLIAM P. KELLY, HEADMASTER
NEW BRUNSWICK, N. J.

PRINCETON PREPARATORY SCHOOL

J. B. Fine, Headmaster Preparatory for all colleges. Rapid progress. Limited number of pupils and freedom from rigid class organization. Excellent equipment. Special attention to athletics and moral welfare. New gymnasium. 53rd year. For catalog, address Box D, Princeton, N. J.

ACADEMY

CORNWALL ON HUDSON, N. Y.

A famous preparatory school
with a magnificent equipment
and an ideal location.

FOR CATALOGUE WRITE TO THE PRINCIPAL

BORDENTOWN

MILITARY INSTITUTE

Thorough preparation for college or business. E cient faculty, small classes, individual attention. B taught how to study. Supervised athletics. 42nd ye Special Summer Session. Catalogue.

COL. T. D. LANDON, Principal Drawer C-38, Bordentown-on-the-Delaware, N. J

NEWTON ACADEMY, NEWTON, N. J. Am

tary country school. B

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Sweetwater, Tent

One of America's best schools. Fifty-second yea Satisfied patrons in more than forty States. Thoroug work. Permanent faculty of experienced teacher Write for catalogue.

Col. C. R. ENDSLEY, Superintendent

ST. JAMES SCHOOL
Episcopal

A select home school for BOYS of the GRADES
Ideally situated on a beautiful tract of 180 acre
MILITARY. All sports under supervision. Parents
care. Limited number. Small classes.
attention. Graduates enter all leading
schools. 25th year. For catalogue address
FREDERICK E. JENKINS, Head mast
Box S. Faribault, Minnesota

Individual seconda

Virginia Episcopal School

LYNCHBURG, VIRGINIA

prepares boys at cost for college and university Modern equipment. Healthy location in the mous tains of Virginia. Cost moderate, made possible through the generosity of founders. For catalogu apply to

REV. WILLIAM G. PENDLETON, D. D., Rector

Massie School

A College Preparatory School for Boys, in the blue grass section of Kentucky, near Lexington. Thorough instruction, new equipment. Out-of-door sports. For catalogue, address:

R. K. Massie, Jr., M. A., Headmaster.
Box 457, Versailles, Kentucky

Second Educational Section, Third Cover Page

BLACKWOOD'S MAGAZINE.

No. MCCCXXXII. OCTOBER 1926.

VOL. CCXX.

A GREATER THAN NAPOLEON.

BY CAPTAIN B. H. LIDDELL HART.

PUBLIUS CORNELIUS SCIPIO was born at Rome in the 517th year from the city's foundation -235 B.C. Though a member of one of the most illustrious and ancient families, the Cornelii, no record of his early years and education, not even an anecdote, has come down to

us.

was on the losing side, he at least emerged with enviable distinction. Let the story be told in Polybius's words: “His father had placed him in command of a picked troop of horse "-in reserve on a small hill-" in order to ensure his safety; but when he caught Indeed, not until he is sight of his father in the battle, chosen, through a combination surrounded by the enemy and of circumstances and his own escorted only by two or three initiative, to command the army horsemen and dangerously in Spain at the age of twenty- wounded, he at first endeavfour, does history give us more oured to urge those with him than an occasional fleeting to go to the rescue, but when glimpse of his progress. Yet they hung back for a time owing bare and brief as these are, to the large numbers of the each is significant. The first enemy round them, he is said is at the battle of the Ticinus, with reckless daring to have Hannibal's initial encounter charged the encircling force with the Roman arms on alone. Upon the rest being Italian soil, after his famous passage of the Alps. Here the youthful Scipio, a lad of seventeen, accompanied his father, the Roman commander. If his first experience of battle

VOL. CCXX.-NO. MCCCXXXII.

now forced to attack, the enemy were terror-struck and broke up, and Publius Scipio, thus unexpectedly rescued, was the first to salute his son as his deliverer." It is said that the

consul ordered a civic crown, the Roman V.C., to be presented to his son, who refused it, saying that "the action was one that rewarded itself." The exploit does credit to the young Scipio's gallantry; but the outcome, as emphasised by Polybius, does still more credit to his psychological insight. "Having by this service won a universally acknowledged reputation for bravery, he in subsequent times refrained from exposing his person without sufficient reason, when his country reposed her hopes of success on him."

The exploit, and the popular fame it brought, launched Scipio's military career so auspiciously as to earn him rapid advancement. For less than two years later, 216 B.C., Livy's account speaks of him as one of the military tribunes-from whom the commanders of the legions were nominated, and in itself a post that made him one of the deputies or staff officers of the legion commander.

This second glimpse of Scipio comes on the morrow of Cannæ, Rome's darkest hour, and it is curious that the future general who, like Marlborough, was never to fight a battle that he did not win, should in his subordinate days have been witness of unrelieved disaster. There is no record of Scipio's share in the battle, but from Livy's account it seems clear that he was among the ten thousand survivors who escaped to the greater Roman camp across the river Aufidus, and further, one of the undaunted

four thousand who, rather than surrender with their fellows, quitted the camp after nightfall, and, eluding the Carthaginian horse, made their way to Canusium.

With the four thousand at Canusium were four military tribunes, and as Livy tells us, "by the consent of all, the supreme command was vested in Publius Scipio, then a very young man, and Appius Claudius." Once more Scipio shines amid the darkness of defeat; once more a time of general disaster is the opportunity of youth backed by character. Disruption, if not mutiny, threatens. Word is brought that men are saying that Rome is doomed, and that certain of the younger patricians, headed by Lucius Cæcilius Metellus, are proposing to leave Rome to its fate and escape overseas to seek service with some foreign king. These fresh tidings of ill-fortune dismay and almost paralyse the assembled leaders. But while the others urge that a council be called to deliberate upon the situation, Scipio acts. With only a few companions he goes straight to the lodging of Metellus, surprising the plotters in council. Drawing his sword, Scipio proclaims his purpose. "I swear that I will neither desert the cause of Rome, nor allow any other citizen of Rome to desert it. If knowingly I violate this oath, may Jupiter visit with the most horrible perdition my house, my family, and my fortune. I insist that you, Lucius Cæcilius, and the

rest of you present, take this oath; and let the man who demurs be assured that this sword is drawn against him." The upshot is that, "terrified, as though they were beholding the victorious Hannibal, they all take the oath, and surrender themselves to Scipio to be kept in custody."

This danger quelled, Scipio and Appius, hearing that Varro, the surviving consul, had reached Venusia, sent a messenger there, placing themselves under his orders.

natural insight and divine inspiration, which in later years he exploited for his country's good, though never for his personal advantage.

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Scipio's election to the ædileship is historically important, not only because it illumines his influence over men, but also for its light on the causes of his political decline, the selfimposed exile from grateful country which saw a marvellously brilliant, career close in shadow. It is Livy who shows that his election Scipio's next brief entry on was not so unopposed as Polythe stage of history is in a bius's account would suggest; different scene. His elder that the tribunes of the people brother, Lucius, was a candi- opposed his pretensions to the date for the ædileship, the first office because he had not atrung of the magisterial ladder, tained the legal age for candibut his chances of election dature. Whereupon Scipio reseemed poor. Publius con- torted that "if the citizens in ceived the idea that if he also general are desirous of appointappeared as a candidate, his ing me ædile, I am old enough own popularity with the people an appeal over the heads of might turn the scales and carry them both to election. But he was so young that he feared the proposal would only be laughed at by his family, and therefore smoothed the way by telling his mother of a dream in which he and his brother were both candidates, and both elected. This mingled appeal to her piety and maternal pride won her consent to what she still regarded as a casual joke, and she prepared for him the white toga worn by candidates on such occasions. But Publius's purpose was as sure as his calculation, and the dream was translated into fact. One result of this ruse was to gain him a reputation for super

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the tribunes which was instantly successful, but which, by its triumphant defiance of tradition and rule, was likely to add resentment to the jealousy which inevitably accompanies the precocious success of youth.

These three episodes form the prologue to the real drama of Scipio's career. On this the curtain rises in 210 B.C. While Hannibal was campaigning in Southern Italy, destroying Roman armies but getting no nearer his object-the destruction of the Roman power,the Carthaginian arms in Spain had been crowned with a victory that threatened Rome's footing on the peninsula.

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