Short answers, pulled from the story.
Scipio Aemilianus (185-129 BC) was a Roman general and statesman who oversaw the final destruction of Carthage in 146 BC and ended the Numantine War in Spain by 133 BC. He was elected consul twice, each time below or in violation of the legal age requirement, and received the agnomens Africanus and Numantinus for his two greatest victories.
Scipio destroyed Carthage on the mandate of the Roman Senate following the Third Punic War (149-146 BC). Rome had declared war after construing Carthage's military defense against Numidian encroachments as a treaty violation. After taking the city, Scipio ordered it evacuated, burned, razed, and plowed over; about 50,000 survivors, roughly one-tenth of the population, were taken prisoner.
Scipio besieged Numantia by building a circuit of fortifications nine kilometers long, with walls three meters high and two and a half meters wide, cutting off all supply routes and starving the city into surrender. He also received reinforcements from Jugurtha of Numidia, including twelve elephants. Some defenders killed themselves; the rest were sold into slavery and the city was destroyed.
The Scipionic circle was a group of between fifteen and twenty-seven philosophers, poets, and politicians who gathered around Scipio Aemilianus. Its members included the Greek historian Polybius, the Stoic philosopher Panaetius, and Roman writers such as the satirist Lucilius and the comedy writer Terence. Velleius Paterculus wrote that Scipio kept Polybius and Panaetius with him constantly, both at home and on campaign.
Tiberius Gracchus was Scipio Aemilianus's brother-in-law and also a political adversary. Scipio opposed the Gracchian land redistribution program, and on learning of Tiberius's murder, quoted a verse from Homer's Odyssey expressing that such a death was deserved. He was fighting in Hispania when Tiberius was killed, and Plutarch suggested his presence in Rome might have prevented the assassination.
Scipio Aemilianus died at home in his bed around 129 BC under circumstances that ancient sources found suspicious. Ancient writers including Appian and Plutarch recorded rumors of murder by suffocation, with suspicion falling on Fulvius Flaccus, Gaius Papirius Carbo, and even members of Scipio's own household. Modern historians have found no strong evidence for anything other than natural causes, and no investigation was carried out at the time because the Roman people blocked it.