overcome the Carthaginians in a sea-fight, passes over into Africa:
kills a serpent of prodigious magnitude, with great loss of his own
men. [Y.R. 497. B.C. 255.] The senate, on account of his successful
conduct of the war, not appointing him a successor, he writes to them,
complaining; and, among other reasons for desiring to be recalled,
alledges, that his little farm, being all his subsistence, was going
to ruin, owing to the mismanagement of hired stewards. [Y.R. 498. B.C.
254.] A memorable instance of the instability of fortune exhibited in
the person of Regulus, who is overcome in battle, and taken prisoner
by Xanthippus, a Lacedaemonian general. [Y. R. 499. B. C. 253.] The
Roman fleet shipwrecked; which disaster entirely reverses the good
fortune which had hitherto attended their affairs. Titus Corucanius,
the first high priest chosen from among the commons. [Y. R. 500. B. C.
252.] P. Sempronius Sophus and M. Yalerius Maximus, censors, examine
into the state of the senate, and expel thirteen of the members of
that body. [Y. R. 501. B. C. 251.] They hold a lustrum, and find the
number of citizens to be two hundred and ninety-seven thousand seven
hundred and ninety-seven. [Y. R. 502. B. C. 250.] Regulus being sent
by the Carthaginians to Rome to treat for peace, and an exchange of
prisoners, binds himself by oath to return if these objects be not
attained; dissuades the senate from agreeing to the propositions: and
then, in observance of his oath, returning to Carthage, is put to
death by torture.