Abstract This article is a study of political morality using historical, philosophical, and literary sources in combination. It evaluates ‘greatness of soul’ ( magnanimitas/magnitudo animi ; μεγαλοψυχία), a moral and political concept which I argue was of central importance to the Cornelian family inheritance. Greatness of soul was present in the Roman consciousness in the second century BC, linked to the life and actions of Scipio Africanus. The concept had been Stoicised in the Hellenistic period to express the moral quality of the outstanding individual labouring on behalf of others, and it was received in this form by Africanus’ descendants. Stoic philosophers, active in Rome, advised its statesmen of the imperative to identify action with morality in making progress to virtue. However, there were different interpretations of Stoic doctrine which insisted on different roles for the man of great soul: reform for the benefit of the people (the Gracchi), conservation for the benefit of the community (Scipio Aemilianus). Magnanimitas was contested by the descendants of Scipio Africanus and their rival interpretations of greatness of soul help explain divergence in their ethical intentions and actions.
J. Jackson Barlow (Mon,) studied this question.