Volume 46, Number 3 · February 18, 1999
Another Scipio
By Robert Craft, Reply by Bernard Knox
In response to Horace, Our Contemporary
(June 11, 1998)
To the Editors:
Reading Bernard Knox's otherwise fine piece on Horace ["Horace, Our Contemporary," NYR, June 11, 1998], I stumbled over the statement that "Scipio Africanus… destroyed Rome's most dangerous enemy, Carthage, in 146 BC." Scipio Africanus, who died in 183 BC, defeated the Carthaginians at the battle of Zama in 202 BC.
Some readers would also contest Knox's description of Venusia as a "small southern Italian town." When Horace was born there in 65 BC, it had already been the capital of the largest Roman colony since 290 BC, for which reason Mommsen researched and wrote part of his History of Rome there.
Robert Craft
Gulf Stream, Florida
