Testing the Legend: Horace, Silius Italicus and the Case of Marcus Atilius Regulus

After Marcus Atilius Regulus made inroads into North Africa as consul in 256 B.C. during the first Punic War, 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 mercenary-general, 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. Regulus' subsequent fate, embellished in the later literary-historical tradition, was enshrined in die 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 † deos † 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 tarn crudeliter uexati urbis eorum interitu iusta exacturi piacula.