Resumen de Escipió, a Cartago, plorava per Roma
The anecdote of Scipio’s tears before Carthage has been generally understood as a lesson of humanitas and an example ‘worthy of memory’, as Polybius wrote.
But, as Carles Miralles recalls, literature and philosophy cannot hide the fact that Scipio was the instrument of the violent Roman oligarchy. Thus, the rhetoric of humanism is an ideology that hides the true psychological motivation of the Roman general. Walter Benjamin, in controversy against the method of historicism, warned that sadness is sometimes a sign of melancholy and a way of standing next to the victors. Scipio is also somewhat melancholic: from his victorious position, he mourns for a loss that has not yet occurred.
