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REGULUS, MARCUS ATILIUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 48 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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REGULUS, See also:MARCUS ATILIUS , See also:Roman See also:general and See also:consul (for the second See also:time) in the ninth See also:year of the First Punic See also:War (256 B.C.). He was one of the commanders in the Punic See also:naval expedition which shattered the Carthaginian See also:fleet at Ecnomus, and landed an See also:army on Carthaginian territory (see PUNIC See also:WARS). The invaders were so successful that the other consul, L. See also:Manlius Vulso, was recalled to See also:Rome, Regulus being See also:left behind to finish the war. After a severe defeat at Adys near See also:Carthage, the Carthaginians were inclined for See also:peace, but the terms proposed by Regulus were so harsh that they resolved to continue the war. In 255, Regulus was completely defeated and taken prisoner by the Spartan Xanthippus. There is no further trustworthy See also:information about him. According to tradition, he remained in captivity until 250, when after the defeat of the Carthaginians at Panormus he was sent to Rome on See also:parole to negotiate a peace or See also:exchange of prisoners. On his arrival he strongly urged the See also:senate to refuse both proposals, and returning to Carthage was tortured to See also:death (See also:Horace, Odes, iii. 5). This See also:story made Regulus to the later See also:Romans the type of heroic endurance; but most historians regard it as insufficiently attested, See also:Polybius being silent. The See also:tale was probably invented by the See also:annalists to excuse the cruel treatment of the Carthaginian prisoners by the Romans.

See Polybius i. 25-34; See also:

Florus ii. 2; See also:Cicero, De Officiis, iii. 26; See also:Livy, Epit. 18; See also:Valerius See also:Maximus ix. 2; Sil. Ital. vi. 299-$50; See also:Appian, Punica, 4; See also:Zonaras viii. 15; see also O. See also:Jager, M. Atilius Regulus (1878).

End of Article: REGULUS, MARCUS ATILIUS

Additional information and Comments

It should be noted that Polybios wrote,by no means, a detailed account of the 1st Punic War, dealing with a 23 year long conflagration in half of one of his own books;that he says nothing of Regulus' fate after his defeat has no bearing on the veracity of the Roman legend of him.Thus, the basic truth of what both Horace and Livy attest to need not be so glibly doubted.After all, as a Roman "nobile", Regulus had a very limited choice in salvaging any "dignitas", having survived a lost battle and then being captured.How else could he behave in front of his peers?
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