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Alt Art
Champion
Europe
Roman
Purple
Reroll: This Champion or an ally may reroll a defense roll result of *6* or less. If this Champion has a revealed inspiration card, instead reroll an *8* or less.
Publius Scipio Africanus was the brilliant Roman general who defeated Hannibal at Zama, ending the Second Punic War and earning himself the title "Africanus."
Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus never lost a battle. A brilliant and brutal military tactician—one of the greatest of all time—he saved the Roman Republic from its deadliest threat: Hannibal Barca. These two generals clashed across the Mediterranean in a series of campaigns that reshaped world history.
During the Second Punic War, at just 16 years old, Scipio saved his wounded father at the Battle of Ticinus by “charging the encircling force alone with reckless daring” and cutting a path through Carthaginian cavalry. This act rallied the Roman horsemen and gave Rome its first glimpse of the man who would one day defeat Hannibal.
Meanwhile, Hannibal had stunned the world by marching his army—and war elephants—across the Alps in winter, smashing Roman armies and roaming across Italy for over a decade. But Carthage never sent him the reinforcements he needed to finish Rome. Scipio, recognizing this, struck back at Carthage’s base in Spain. Capturing Carthago Nova, he routed Hannibal’s brothers, seized supplies, and secured a key harbor. More importantly, he treated prisoners and hostages with unusual humanity—famously returning a captured noblewoman to her fiancé along with her ransom. This act won him allies among Iberian tribes who had grown weary of Carthaginian cruelty.
When the Senate refused him an army to invade Africa, Scipio raised one himself from veterans of Rome’s worst defeats. Crossing into Africa, he deliberately used Hannibal’s own tactics to devastate Carthaginian territory. Carthage, desperate, recalled Hannibal from Italy. The two titans finally met at the Battle of Zama in 202 BCE.
Hannibal opened with his war elephants, but Scipio’s veterans calmly created lanes in their ranks, blasting horns and shouting until the beasts panicked and stampeded back through Carthage’s own lines. Roman cavalry, aided by Numidian allies under Masinissa, routed Hannibal’s horsemen and then struck the Carthaginian rear. Surrounded, Hannibal’s army collapsed.
Scipio spared Carthage from annihilation, but stripped it of its navy, imposed a massive tribute of 10,000 talents over 50 years, and forbade it from waging war without Rome’s consent. For his victory, he earned the title Africanus. Both feared and admired, Scipio was hailed as the savior of the Republic—merciless in war, magnanimous in peace, and a champion to his people.
