Nae'vius
4. M.
Naevius, tribune of the plebs, B. C. 184, entered upon his office in B. C. 185, in which year, at the instigation of Cato the censor, he accused Scipio Africanus the elder of having been bribed by Antiochus to allow that monarch to come off too leniently. Scipio's speech in his defence was extant in the time of A. Gellius, who quotes a striking passage from it; but there was some dispute whether Naevius was the accuser of Scipio; some authorities spoke of the Petilii as the parties who brought the charge. (
Liv. 38.56,
39.52;
Gel. 4.18; Aur. Vict.
de Vir. Ill. 49.)
The short quotation which Cicero (
Cic. de Orat. 2.61) makes from a speech of Scipio against Naevius must have been delivered upon another occasion, since Livy (
38.56) tells us that the speech which Scipio delivered in his defence on the occasion referred to, did not contain the name of the accuser. (Meyer,
Orator. Roman. Fragm. p. 6, &c., 2d ed.)
