I. Cains

I. Cains, a Roman general, born about 235 B. C. He commanded the fleet which captured New Carthage, in Spain, 210 B. C. He was the friend of Scipio, and commanded the left wing of his army at the battle of Baecula, 208, and afterward with a detachment of the fleet defeated Adherbal in the straits. He was sent twice to the court of Syphax. Near the close of the second Punic war he sailed with a portion of the fleet to the African coast, landed at Hippo Regius, and began to plunder the country, but soon returned to Messana, from an apprehension that the Carthaginians were cutting off his retreat. In 204, with Masinissa, he burned the Punic and Nu-midian camps and pursued Hasdrubal and Syphax, and in 203 captured the latter and his capital Cirta. He commanded the Italian cavalry at the battle of Zama, and his charge determined the victory. He was chosen praetor in 196, and consul in 190. Afterward he obtained the province of Cisalpine Gaul, which lie held for two years, and was sent on several important missions by the senate.

The date of his death is unknown.

II. Cains Sapiens

II. Cains Sapiens, a Roman statesman, son of the preceding, born about 186 B. C., died about 115. He was tribune of the people in 151, praetor in 145, and consul in 140. Before his consulship he was assigned the province of Lusitania, and conducted a successful campaign against the formidable guerilla chief Viriathus. At the beginning of his political career Laelius inclined to that party which sought to raise the masses to the condition of landed proprietors; but the excitement and violence occasioned by the measures of the elder Gracchus so alarmed him that he withdrew from the popular side, and supported the aristocracy. In 132 he aided the consuls against the partisans of Tiberius Gracchus, and in 130 he opposed the passing of the Papirian rogation. For his course in that period, his friends and faction honored him with the cognomen of Sapiens, or the Wise. In common with the younger Scipio, he had early applied himself to the language and learning of Greece, and had imbibed the doctrines of the Stoics from Diogenes of Babylon and Panaetius. He is the Laelius of Cicero's Be Amicitia, Be Senectute, and Be Republica.