Marcus Atilius Regulus (fl. 267 – 255 BC) was a Roman statesman and general who was a consul of the Roman Republic in 267 BC and 256 BC. Much of his career was spent fighting the Carthaginians during the first Punic War. In 256 BC, he and Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus defeated the Carthaginians at the naval battle off Cape Ecnomus; afterwards he led the Roman expedition to Africa but was defeated at the Bagradas River in spring of 255 BC. He was captured and then probably died of natural causes, with the story of his death later being much embellished.[1]
Marcus Atilius Regulus | |
|---|---|
 1791 painting of Andries Cornelis Lens depicting the myth of Regulus' voluntary return to Carthage, now in the Hermitage Museum. | |
| Died | |
| Nationality | Roman |
| Occupation(s) | Politician and soldier |
| Office | Consul (267, 256 BC) |
| Spouse | Marcia |
| Children | Marcus Atilius Regulus |
| Relatives | Gaius Atilius Regulus (consul 257 BC) (brother) |
| Military service | |
| Battles/wars | |
Life
editRegulus was first consul in 267 BC. He campaigned with his co-consul (Lucius Julius Libo) against the Sallentini, captured Brundisium, and thence celebrated a double triumph.[2] During the first Punic War, he was elected suffect consul in 256 BC, in place of Quintus Caedicius, who had died in office.[3] With his colleague, Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus, he fought and defeated a large Carthaginian fleet off the coast of Sicily – the Battle of Cape Ecnomus – and the two then invaded North Africa, landing at Aspis on the eastern side of the Cape Bon peninsula.[4]
After the Siege of Aspis, the consuls ravaged the countryside and seized some twenty thousand war captives.[5] Manlius was recalled to Rome and celebrated a naval triumph, while Regulus captured Tunis and entered negotiations with Carthage.[6] While crossing the river Bagradas, his forces supposedly fought an enormous serpent.[7] During the siege of Adys, some 24 kilometres south of Carthage, the Carthaginians attacked over unfavourable hilly ground, triggering the Battle of Adys, which the Romans won.[5] Wintering in Tunis, Regulus engaged in negotiations with the Carthaginians but offered very harsh terms that were rejected; Scullard, in the Cambridge Ancient History, rejects the claims given in Dio that Regulus' terms were so harsh as to "amount to a complete surrender" as "scarcely reliable". Scullard believes that it is more likely that the Romans would have required Carthage to vacate Sicily; the Carthaginians, unwilling to leave the western half of the island, would have refused such a demand.[8]
His command was prorogued into 255 BC. That spring, the Carthaginians, buttressed by the arrival of Spartan mercenaries under Xanthippus and bristling against Regulus' proposals of harsh terms, fought Regulus at the Battle of the Bagradas River.[9] On a plain, which gave the Carthaginians space to utilise their war elephants and cavalry, Regulus was defeated and captured; only some two thousand Romans escaped the battle and were picked up by the Roman navy before being wrecked by a storm.[10] Regulus died of neglect or starvation in captivity, though his fate "was soon embellished by legend".[11]
Legends of death
edit
The legend that the Carthaginians sent him back to Rome under oath to return to negotiate for a prisoner exchange or peace terms only for him to oppose any such exchange or terms and consequently be returned to the Carthaginians to be tortured to death, is "almost certainly invented, perhaps to palliate his son's torturing of two Carthaginian prisoners in revenge for his death".[1][12] No evidence of his story appears in the best source on the period, Polybius.[13][14]
The first evidence of the tale emerges with fragments of Gaius Sempronius Tuditanus's history in 129 BC; in this story, after he purposefully sabotages the negotiations, the Carthaginians have him starved to death.[15] The story also appears in Cicero's De Officiis 3.99-115, where it is used as an exemplum of honour before practicality. According to Augustine of Hippo in City of God (5th century AD), using similar wording as Cicero in Pisonem, the Carthaginians "shut [Regulus] up in a narrow box, in which he was compelled to stand, and in which finely sharpened nails were fixed all round about him, so that he could not lean upon any part of it without intense pain".[16]
The myth of Regulus' capture and patriotic defiance later became a favourite tale for Roman children and patriotic story-tellers, developed and polished through the years by Roman historiographers and orators.[17]
Family
editThe Atilii Reguli were a plebeian family. This Regulus was the brother of the Gaius Atilius Regulus who was consul in 257 and 250 BC.[18] With a wife named Marcia, he had at least one son, also named Marcus, who later became consul in 227 and 217 BC before also being elected censor in 214 BC. Klaus Zmeskal, in Adfinitas, includes no linkage between this Regulus and the homonymous consul of 294 BC.[19]
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ a b Drummond 2012.
- ^ Broughton 1951, p. 200.
- ^ Broughton 1951, p. 208.
- ^ Scullard 1989, pp. 554–55.
- ^ a b Scullard 1989, p. 555.
- ^ Broughton 1951, pp. 208–9.
- ^ Klebs 1896, col. 2087, citing, Val. Max. 1.8ext.19; Plin. HN 8.37; Zon. 8.13.
- ^ Scullard 1989, p. 556.
- ^ Scullard 1989, p. 556; Broughton 1951, pp. 209–10.
- ^ Scullard 1989, pp. 556–57.
- ^ Drummond 2012; Scullard 1989, p. 556.
- ^ Scullard 1989, p. 556. "The legend may have been designed to obscure the fact that his widow tortured two Punic prisoners entrusted to her in Rome".
- ^ Drummond 2012, adding, on the possibility of the legend's appearance in Gnaeus Naevius's Bellum Punicum, that such an appearance is unproven.
- ^ See also Bleckmann, Bruno (1 June 1998). "Regulus bei Naevius: Zu frg. 50 und 51 Blänsdorf". Philologus (in German). 142 (1): 61–70. doi:10.1524/phil.1998.142.1.61. ISSN 2196-7008. S2CID 164730948.
- ^ Frank 1926, p. 311.
- ^ Augustine of Hippo (1871). City of God. Translated by Dods, Marcus. Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark. p. 23. See note 1 thereat: "Augustine here uses the words of Cicero ('vigilando peremerunt'), who refers to Regulus, in Pisonem, c. 19".
- ^ Frank 1926, p. 311; Klebs 1896, col. 2092.
- ^ Scullard 1989, p. 554, noting, "M. Atilius Regulus (probably a brother of the consul of 257)".
- ^ Zmeskal 2009, p. 39.
References
edit- Broughton, Thomas Robert Shannon (1951). The magistrates of the Roman republic. Vol. 1. New York: American Philological Association.
- Drummond, Andrew (2012). "Atilius Regulus, Marcus". In Hornblower, Simon; et al. (eds.). The Oxford classical dictionary (4th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.013.930. ISBN 978-0-19-954556-8. OCLC 959667246.
- Frank, Tenney (1926). "Two Historical Themes in Roman Literature". Classical Philology. 21 (4): 311–316. doi:10.1086/360824. ISSN 0009-837X. JSTOR 263676. S2CID 161639862. Cited by Broughton 1951, p. 210.
- Klebs, Elimar (1896). . Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft (in German). Vol. II, 2. Stuttgart: Butcher. cols. 2086–92 – via Wikisource.
- Lazenby, JF (1996). The First Punic War: a military history. Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-2673-6. OCLC 34371250.
- Scullard, HH (1989). "Carthage and Rome". In Walbank, FW; et al. (eds.). The rise of Rome to 220 BC. Cambridge Ancient History. Vol. 7 Pt. 2 (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 486–572. ISBN 0-521-23446-8.
- Zmeskal, Klaus (2009). Adfinitas (in German). Vol. 1. Passau: Verlag Karl Stutz. ISBN 978-3-88849-304-1.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Regulus, Marcus Atilius". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 48.
