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After Marcus Atilius Regulus1 made inroads into North Africa as consul in 256 B.C. during the first Punic War,2 the Carthaginians were apparently ready to negotiate a settlement, but Regulus offered terms so harsh that they were refused out of hand. At this point Xanthippus, the Spartan mercenarygeneral, arrived on the Carthaginian side and soon made an impact as a shrewd and uplifting leader, not least because, in a dramatic reversal of fortunes, he captured Regulus, by then proconsul, by ambush in 255.3 Regulus' subsequent fate, embellished in the later literary-historical tradition, 4 was enshrined in the familiar version here represented by Valerius Maximus:
Sed quae ad custodiam religionis attinent, nescio an omnes M. Atilius Regulus praecesserit, qui ex victore speciosissimo insidiis Hasdrubalis et Xanthippi Lacedaemonii ducis ad miserabilem captiui fortunam deductus ac missus ad senatum populumque Romanum legatus, ut se et uno et sene complures Poenorum iuuenes pensarentur, in contrarium dato consilio Carthaginem petiit, non quid<em> ignarus ad quam crudeles quamque merito sibi infestos [dagger] deos [dagger] reuerteretur, uerum quia iis iurauerat, si captiui eorum redditi non forent, ad eos sese rediturum. potuerunt profecto di immortales efferatam mitigare saeuitiam. ceterum, quo clarior esset Atili gloria, Carthaginienses moribus suis uti passi sunt, tertio Punico bello religiosissimi spiritus tam crudeliter uexati urbis eorum interitu iusta exacturi piacula.
(1.1.14 Briscoe)
Despite claims to the contrary,5 the story of Regulus' embassy back to Rome is probably a fiction, perhaps designed to explain or obscure the actions of his wife, who allegedly responded to news of her husband's death by neglect in Carthage by torturing two Carthaginian prisoners who were in her keeping at Rome as hostages for Regulus.6 But whatever the truth of the matter, and though not all sources agree on the details of the legend, the Regulus drawn by Valerius as a model of scrupulous fidelity to his oath is broadly typical of the hero who embodies such quintessential Roman virtues as 'fides, pietas erga patriam, fortitudo, constantia and paupertas'7 in the mainstream Latin tradition from Cicero onwards. True, Polybius and Diodorus, both possibly reflecting Philinus as a common source,8 take Regulus to task for his overbearing treatment of the Carthaginians when they were ready to sue for peace; if for Polybius Regulus 'illustrates the peripeteia...