Scipio Enterprises

Scipio Enterprises is the roof over three kinds of making: web applications, the music of The Con Magician, and Ashen Library, a history and philosophy podcast. This site is the public home for that work.

The namesake

Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (236–183 BC) was the Roman general who ended the Second Punic War. After Hannibal had spent years unbeaten in Italy, Scipio took the war to Spain, captured New Carthage, and drove Carthage off the peninsula. He then crossed into Africa, forced Hannibal home, and beat him at Zama in 202 BC.

He never lost a battle. Later, when Roman politics turned on him, he left public life rather than fight a trial at home. The line attributed to him — that an ungrateful country would not even have his bones — is the other half of the name: win the war, then know when to walk away.

The house takes the discipline, not the triumphs.

Cory Wolfe records as The Con Magician and hosts Ashen Library. Find him on X.