A Roman consul, he was the first sent against Jugurtha in the Jugurthine War.
He was the maternal great-grandson of Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus, the famous Roman general of the Second Punic War. He served as praetor in 118 BCE and consul in 111 BCE with
Lucius Calpurnius Bestia. Cicero writes that, “he neither spoke much, nor often; but he was inferior to no one in the purity of his language, and superior to all in wit and pleasantry” (Brutus 128). Diodorus reported that he was “a man renowned for both his virtue and his nobleness of birth” (Bibliotheca Historica 33). After
Jugurtha had killed his brother
Adherbal and massacred all of the adult Numidians and Roman traders at Cirta, the Senate placed Bestia in charge of Numidia and Nasica in charge of Italy.
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