The first wars that the Romans engaged in beyond the bounds of Italy,
were with the Carthaginians. This race came from Tyre and Zidon; and
were descended from some of the Phoenicians, or Zidonians, who were such
dangerous foes, or more dangerous friends, to the Israelites. Carthage
had, as some say, been first founded by some of the Canaanites who fled
when Joshua conquered the Promised Land; and whether this were so or
not, the inhabitants were in all their ways the same as the Tyrians
and Zidonians, of whom so much is said in the prophecies of Isaiah
and Ezekiel. Like them, they worshipped Baal and Ashtoreth, and the
frightful Moloch, with foul and cruel rites; and, like them, they were
excellent sailors and great merchants trading with every known country,
and living in great riches and splendor at their grand city on the
southern shore of the Mediterranean. That they were a wicked and cruel
race is also certain; the Romans used to call deceit Punic faith, that
is, Phoenician faith, and though no doubt Roman writers show them up
in their worst colours, yet, after the time of Hiram, Solomon's ally at
Tyre, it is plain from Holy Scripture that their crimes were great.
The first dispute between Rome and Carthage was about their possession
in the island of Sicily; and the war thus begun had lasted eight years
when it was resolved to send an army to fight the Carthaginians on their
own shores. The army and fleet were placed under the command of the two
consuls, Lucius Manlius and Marcus Attilius Regulus. On the way, there
was a great sea fight with the Carthaginian fleet, and this was the
first naval battle that the Romans ever gained. It made the way to
Africa free; but the soldiers, who had never been so far from home
before, murmured, for they expected to meet not only human enemies, but
monstrous serpents, lions, elephants, asses with horns, and dog-headed
monsters, to have a scorching sun overhead, and a noisome marsh under
their feet. However, Regulus sternly put a stop to all murmurs, by
making it known that disaffection would be punished by death, and the
army safely landed, and set up a fortification at Clypea, and plundered
the whole country round. Orders here came from Rome that Manlius should
return thither, but that Regulus should remain to carry on the war. This
was a great grief to him. He was a very poor man, with nothing of
his own but a little farm of seven acres, and the person whom he had
employed to cultivate it had died in his absence; a hired laborer had
undertaken the care of it, but had been unfaithful, and had run away
with his tools and his cattle; so that he was afraid that, unless he
could return quickly, his wife and children would starve. However,
the Senate engaged to provide for his family, and he remained, making
expeditions into the country round, in the course of which the Romans
really did fall in with a serpent as monstrous as their imagination had
depicted. It was said to be 120 feet long, and dwelt upon the banks of
the River Bagrada, where it used to devour the Roman soldiers as they
went to fetch water. It had such tough scales that they were obliged to
attack it with their engines meant for battering city walls, and only
succeeded with much difficulty in destroying it.
The country was most beautiful, covered with fertile cornfields and full
of rich fruit trees, and all the rich Carthaginians had country houses
and gardens, which were made delicious with fountains, trees, and
flowers. The Roman soldiers, plain, hardy, fierce, and pitiless, did, it
must be feared, cruel damage among these peaceful scenes; they boasted
of having sacked 300 villages, and mercy was not yet known to them. The
Carthaginian army, though strong in horsemen and in elephants, kept
upon the hills and did nothing to save the country, and the wild desert
tribes of Numidians came rushing in to plunder what the Romans had left.
The Carthaginians sent to offer terms of peace; but Regulus, who had
become uplifted by his conquests, made such demands that the messengers
remonstrated. He answered, 'Men who are good for anything should either
conquer or submit to their betters;' and he sent them rudely away, like
a stern old Roman as he was. His merit was that he had no more mercy on
himself than on others.
The Carthaginians were driven to extremity, and made horrible offerings
to Moloch, giving the little children of the noblest families to be
dropped into the fire between the brazen hands of his statue, and grown-
up people of the noblest families rushed in of their own accord, hoping
thus to propitiate their gods, and obtain safety for their country.
Their time was not yet fully come, and a respite was granted to them.
They had sent, in their distress, to hire soldiers in Greece, and among
these came a Spartan, named Xanthippus, who at once took the command,
and led the army out to battle, with a long line of elephants ranged in
front of them, and with clouds of horsemen hovering on the wings. The
Romans had not yet learnt the best mode of fighting with elephants,
namely, to leave lanes in their columns where these huge beasts might
advance harmlessly; instead of which, the ranks were thrust and trampled
down by the creatures' bulk, and they suffered a terrible defeat;
Regulus himself was seized by the horsemen, and dragged into Carthage,
where the victors feasted and rejoiced through half the night, and
testified their thanks to Moloch by offering in his fires the bravest of
their captives.
Regulus himself was not, however, one of these victims. He was kept a
close prisoner for two years, pining and sickening in his loneliness,
while in the meantime the war continued, and at last a victory so
decisive was gained by the Romans, that the people of Carthage were
discouraged, and resolved to ask terms of peace. They thought that
no one would be so readily listened to at Rome as Regulus, and they
therefore sent him there with their envoys, having first made him swear
that he would come back to his prison if there should neither be peace
nor an exchange of prisoners. They little knew how much more a true-
hearted Roman cared for his city than for himself--for his word than for
his life.
Worn and dejected, the captive warrior came to the outside of the gates
of his own city, and there paused, refusing to enter. 'I am no longer a
Roman citizen,' he said; 'I am but the barbarian's slave, and the Senate
may not give audience to strangers within the walls.'
His wife Marcia ran out to greet him, with his two sons, but he did not
look up, and received their caresses as one beneath their notice, as
a mere slave, and he continued, in spite of all entreaty, to remain
outside the city, and would not even go to the little farm he had loved
so well.
The Roman Senate, as he would not come in to them, came out to hold
their meeting in the Campagna.
The ambassadors spoke first, then Regulus, standing up, said, as
one repeating a task, 'Conscript fathers, being a slave to the
Carthaginians, I come on the part of my masters to treat with you
concerning peace, and an exchange of prisoners.' He then turned to go
away with the ambassadors, as a stranger might not be present at the
deliberations of the Senate. His old friends pressed him to stay and
give his opinion as a senator who had twice been consul; but he refused
to degrade that dignity by claiming it, slave as he was. But, at the
command of his Carthaginian masters, he remained, though not taking his
seat.
Then he spoke. He told the senators to persevere in the war. He said he
had seen the distress of Carthage, and that a peace would only be to her
advantage, not to that of Rome, and therefore he strongly advised that
the war should continue. Then, as to the exchange of prisoners, the
Carthaginian generals, who were in the hands of the Romans, were in full
health and strength, whilst he himself was too much broken down to be
fit for service again, and indeed he believed that his enemies had given
him a slow poison, and that he could not live long. Thus he insisted
that no exchange of prisoners should be made.
It was wonderful, even to Romans, to hear a man thus pleading against
himself, and their chief priest came forward, and declared that, as his
oath had been wrested from him by force, he was not bound to return to
his captivity. But Regulus was too noble to listen to this for a moment.
'Have you resolved to dishonor me?' he said. 'I am not ignorant that
death and the extremest tortures are preparing for me; but what are
these to the shame of an infamous action, or the wounds of a guilty
mind? Slave as I am to Carthage, I have still the spirit of a Roman. I
have sworn to return. It is my duty to go; let the gods take care of the
rest.'
The Senate decided to follow the advice of Regulus, though they bitterly
regretted his sacrifice. His wife wept and entreated in vain that they
would detain him; they could merely repeat their permission to him to
remain; but nothing could prevail with him to break his word, and he
turned back to the chains and death he expected so calmly as if he had
been returning to his home. This was in the year B.C. 249.
'Let the gods take care of the rest,' said the Roman; the gods whom
alone he knew, and through whom he ignorantly worshipped the true God,
whose Light was shining out even in this heathen's truth and constancy.
How his trust was fulfilled is not known. The Senate, after the next
victory, gave two Carthaginian generals to his wife and sons to hold as
pledges for his good treatment; but when tidings arrived that Regulus
was dead, Marcia began to treat them both with savage cruelty, though
one of them assured her that he had been careful to have her husband
well used. Horrible stories were told that Regulus had been put out in
the sun with his eyelids cut off, rolled down a hill in a barrel with
spikes, killed by being constantly kept awake, or else crucified. Marcia
seems to have set about, and perhaps believed in these horrors, and
avenged them on her unhappy captives till one had died, and the Senate
sent for her sons and severely reprimanded them. They declared it was
their mother's doing, not theirs, and thenceforth were careful of the
comfort of the remaining prisoner.
It may thus be hoped that the frightful tale of Regulus' sufferings was
but formed by report acting on the fancy of a vindictive woman, and that
Regulus was permitted to die in peace of the disease brought on far more
probably by the climate and imprisonment, than by the poison to which
he ascribed it. It is not the tortures he may have endured that make him
one of the noblest characters of history, but the resolution that would
neither let him save himself at the risk of his country's prosperity,
nor forfeit the word that he had pledged.