Marcus Atilius Regulus (consul 267 BC)
Marcus Atilius Regulus | |
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Battle of Tunis | |
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.[1]
Life
Regulus was first consul in 267 BC. He campaigned with his co-consul (
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
Legends of death
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 Punic [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
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
The 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
- Cato the Elder
- Cincinnatus
- Horatii
- Publius Decius Mus
Notes
- ^ 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.
- 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
- 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. OCLC 959667246.
- Frank, Tenney (1926). "Two Historical Themes in Roman Literature". Classical Philology. 21 (4): 311–316. 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. 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.
