Lucius Scipio's Assault On 'orongi' (207 Bc)

[Pantagathus]

According to Livy (28.3), near the end of 207 BC, Scipio's brother took a force of about 10,000 and lingered in upper Baetia when P.C. Scipio took the rest of the force to Tarraco for winter quarters.

 

Apparently Lucius was to "attack the richest city in that part of the country"; "the natives call it Orongi. It is situated in the country of the Maessesses, one of the tribes of Southern Spain..."

 

So he attacked it, did a great job, his brother praised him for it bla, bla, bla... Then he was sent back to Rome with prisoners.

 

Problem is, nobody else mentions this. Certainly not Polybius.

 

Furthermore, nowhere esle will you ever see mention of a city by that name and there was certainly not a tribe with a name even close to that! No Strabo, no Pliny, no Ptolemy...

 

To give Livy the benefit of the doubt & judging by some clues he kinda gives, it could be an error somehow related to the Oretani tribe who lived in the area Livy could possibly have been describing and may be the town known to the Romans later as Oretum ('Orisia' of Artemidorus, 'Oria' of Strabo, 'Oretum Germanorum' of Ptolemy) however, it looks like I'm the only one willing to go that far in speculation to make any connection.

 

But the fact remains that Polybius omits this 'deed' of Lucius that Livy treats pretty thoroughly. Is it later propoganda? Did P.C. Scipio help fabricate this so his brother wouldn't come out of the campaign as a total nobody?

 

I'd like to know if anyone else has come across this and been puzzled. (Or even cared)

Edited March 15, 2006 by Pantagathus

[Primus Pilus]

Quite frankly, I'd never noticed this before... I think its because I personally rely less upon Livy after the earlier periods, but my curiousity is certainly piqued. I am going to do some re-reading shortly.

 

As I recall, Polybius makes no mention of Lucius in this context whatsoever. This is perhaps telling in itself. If his work disputed that of Livy than I suppose we could discount the latter. However, its entirely possible that Livy was privy to additional source material... or perhaps a simpler entertaining explanation for the mispronounciation could be that Livy took a word of mouth story at face value and did not necessarily double check his facts?

 

It could be propoganda that Polybius rightly ignored and Livy was none the wiser a century and a half later? I sure can't see this being too important for Livy to use in some sort of pro-Republican agenda? Maybe it would've meant more at the time than it does to probing eyes 2,000 years later?

 

I'm afraid all I have is more questions.