Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbato

Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbato, a member of the patrician family of the Cornelius Scipios during the Roman Republic, was famous for his role as a patrician military officer during a crucial period of the Third Samnite War, when Rome finally defeated the coalition of neighboring states that threatened it —Etruscans, Umbrians and Samnites, aided by the Senones Gauls—, which allowed the extension of its sovereignty and dominion over almost the entire Italian peninsula.

Family and political career

Father of Lucio Cornelio Scipio and Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Asina, and grandfather of Gnaeus Cornelius Scipio Calvo and Publius Cornelius Scipio, he was a curule aedile supposedly around the year 302 B.C. C. and was consul in the year 298 a. C., with Cneo Fulvio Maximus Centumalo. The Lucanians spoke before the senate to complain that the Samnites were ravaging their country and demanded the protection of Rome in exchange for a treaty and hostages. The Senate agreed after some deliberation and sent ambassadors to ask the Samnites to withdraw from Lucania. Finding the Samnite army, the ambassadors were informed that if they carried this demand to Samnium, they would leave with their lives; consequently, the Senate declared war on them. In the draw to decide which consul would lead which campaign, Barbato was chosen to go to Etruria and Centumalo began the Third Samnite War hostilities in Campania. Barbato carried out the war against the Etruscans, which he defeated near Volaterrae. In the following year, 297 B.C. C., he served as legate of the consul Quinto Fabio Máximo Ruliano, in the third Samnite war.

In the year 295 B.C. C. served again under the orders of the consuls Quinto Fabio Máximo Ruliano and Publio Decio Mus (consul 312 BC), with the title of propretor, in the great campaign of that year that the Romans led against the Gauls, the Etruscans and the Samnites. In 293 B.C. C. he fought again, under Lucio Papirio Cursor also as legate, in the campaign that brought the war against the Samnites to an end.

The epitaph on his tomb says nothing of his victory in Etruria, but instead tells of his conquests in Samnium and Apulia. Barthold Georg Niebuhr supposes that his conquests in Samnio and Apulia, were made in the year 297 a. C., when he was the legacy of Fabio Máximo.The sarcophagus that contains his body, today in the Vatican Museums, preserves his epitaph, an old Latin inscription in saturnine metric. The inscription reads thus:

CORNELIVS·LVCIVS·SCIPIO·BARBATVS·GNAIVOD·PATRE

PROGNATVS·FORTIS·VIR·SAPIENSQVE—QVOIVS·FORMA·VIRTVTEI·PARISVMA
FVIT—CONSOL CENSOR·AIDILIS·QVEI·FVIT·APVD·VOS—TAVRASIA·CISAVNA

SAMNIO·CEPIT—SVBIGIT·OMNE·LOVCANA·OPSIDESQVE·ABDOVCIT

«Cornelius Lucius Scipio Bearded, born of Gnaeus his father, as a strong and wise man, whose appearance guarded his many virtues, who was consul, censor and aedile among you - He conquered Taurasia, Cisauna, Samnio - subjugated all Lucania and liberated to their prisoners."

He was a patrician censor in 280 B.C. C. along with Gnaeus Domicius Calvin Maximus. His tenure was important since he is the first on which a reliable record is kept, despite the fact that the position was of great antiquity.