Summary

The tomb of the Scipio family can tell historians a lot about the Roman world in the third and second centuries BCE. The epitaphs of various family members highlight their military successes abroad and the campaigns that expanded the control of the Roman Republic across the Mediterranean and beyond. Members of this family also contributed to the development of Roman literature and literary culture which increased in this same period of military expansion. Significant wars and conquests in this period include the first invasion of Rome from an overseas enemy: the Greek Pyrrhus who sailed to Italy in 280 BCE. Between 280 BCE and 146 BCE when Roman armies famously destroyed Carthage and Corinth, there was continuous warfare between Rome and its enemies both in Italy and abroad, including the well-known Punic Wars and major conflicts with the Gauls in the north.

Rome devoted...