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Roman
general and statesman in the First Punic War. His career, greatly
embellished by legend, was seen by the Romans as a model of heroic
endurance. Regulus served as consul in 267, when he conquered the
Sallentini and captured Brundisium and obtained in consequence the
honour of a triumph.
He
became consul a second time (256) when he and his colleague Lucius
Manlius Vulso Longus defeated the Carthaginian fleet off Mount Ecnomus,
in southeast Sicily, and landed a large force in Africa. They met with
great and striking success; and after Manlius returned to Rome with
half of the army, leaving Regulus to finish the war.
Regulus
prosecuted the war with the utmost vigour. The Carthaginian generals
Hasdrubal, Bostar, and Hamilcar avoided the plains, where their cavalry
and elephants would have given them an advantage over the Roman army,
and withdrew into the mountains. There they were attacked by Regulus,
and defeated at Adys, near Carthage with great loss; 15,000 men are
said to have been killed in battle, and 5000 men with 18 elephants to
have been taken.
The
Carthaginian troops retired within the walls of the city, and Regulus
now overran the country without opposition. Numerous towns fell into
the power of the Romans, and among others Tunis, at the distance of
only twenty miles from the capital. The Carthaginians, in despair, sent
a herald to Regulus to solicit peace; but the Roman general would only
grant it on such intolerable terms that the Carthaginians resolved to
continue the war, and hold out to the last.
In
the midst of their distress and alarm, success came to them from an
unexpected quarter. Among the Greek mercenaries who had lately arrived
at Carthage was a Lacedaemonian of the name of Xanthippus. He pointed
out to the Carthaginians that their defeat was owing to the
incompetency of their generals, and not to the superiority of the Roman
arms; and he inspired such confidence in the people that he was
forthwith placed at the head of their troops. Relying on his 4000
cavalry and 100 elephants, Xanthippus boldly marched into the open
country to meet the enemy. In the battle which ensued Regulus was
totally defeated; 30,000 of his men were slain; scarcely 2000 escaped
to Clypea; and Regulus himself was taken prisoner with 500 more (B.C.
255).
Regulus
remained in captivity for the next five years, till 250, when the
Carthaginians, after their defeat by the proconsul Metellus, sent an
embassy to Rome to solicit peace, or at least an exchange of prisoners.
They allowed Regulus to accompany the ambassadors on the promise that
he would return to Rome if their proposals were declined, thinking that
he would persuade his countrymen to agree to an exchange of prisoners
in order to obtain his own liberty.
This
mission of Regulus is one of the most celebrated stories in Roman
history. The orators and poets related how Regulus at first refused to
enter the city as a slave of the Carthaginians; how afterwards he would
not give his opinion in the Senate, as he had ceased by his captivity
to be a member of that illustrious body; how, at length, when he was
allowed by the Romans to speak, he endeavoured to dissuade the Senate
from assenting to a peace, or even to an exchange of prisoners, and
when he saw them wavering, from their desire of redeeming him from
captivity, how he told them that the Carthaginians had given him a slow
poison, which would soon terminate his life; and how, finally, when the
Senate through his influence refused the offers of the Carthaginians,
he firmly resisted all the persuasions of his friends to remain in
Rome, and returned to Carthage, where a martyr's death awaited him.
Coin of a Livineius, with Head of Regulus.
On his arrival at Carthage he is said to have been put to death with the most excruciating tortures.
Regulus, after returning to Rome, is killed by being rolled down a hill in a barrel of spikes.
It
was related that he was placed in a chest covered over in the inside
with iron nails, and thus perished; and other writers stated in
addition that after his eyelids had been cut off he was first thrown
into a dark dungeon, and then suddenly exposed to the full rays of a
burning sun.
When
the news of the barbarous death of Regulus reached Rome, the Senate is
said to have given Hamilcar and Bostar, two of the noblest Carthaginian
prisoners, to the family of Regulus, who revenged themselves by putting
them to death with cruel torments. This celebrated tale, however, has
not been allowed to pass without question in modern times. Many writers
supposed that it was invented in order to excuse the cruelties
perpetrated by the family of Regulus on the Carthaginian prisoners
committed to their custody.
Regulus
was one of the favourite characters of early Roman story. Not only was
he celebrated on account of his heroism in giving the Senate advice
which secured him a martyr's death, but also on account of his
frugality and simplicity of life. Like Fabricius and Curius he lived on
his hereditary farm, which he cultivated with his own hands; and
subsequent ages loved to tell how he petitioned the Senate for his
recall from Africa when he was in the full career of victory, as his
farm was going to ruin in his absence and his family was suffering from
want. See Wolff, M. Atilii Reguli Vita (1846); and J�ger, M. Atilius
Regulus (1878).
Regulus
and the Giant Snake | There were other with the same or similar names
(Regulus, Atilius) (1) M., consul B.C. 335, carried on war against the
Sidicini. (2) M., consul 294, carried on war against the Samnites. (3)
Gaius, surnamed Serranus, consul B.C. 257, when he defeated the
Carthaginian fleet off the Liparaean Islands, and obtained possession
of the islands of Lipara and Melite. He was consul a second time in
250, with L. Manlius Vulso. The two consuls undertook the siege of
Lilybaeum; but they were foiled in their attempts to carry the place by
storm, and after losing a great number of men, were obliged to turn the
siege into a blockade. This Regulus is the first Atilius who bears the
surname Serranus. |
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