REGULUSMarcus Atilius, was consul for the second time in the ninth year of the First Punic War (256 b.c.), and so was one of the commanders in the great naval expedition which shattered the Carthaginian fleet and successfully lauded an army on Carthaginian territory at Clupea. At first the invaders had such success that half the army and the other consul Manlius could be recalled to Rome, and yet leave good hope that Regulus with the insurgent Numidian subjects of the Phoenicians would finish the war in the second campaign. But Carthage, which had found an able general in the Spartan Xanthippus, used the I winter to such good account that in the spring of 255 Regulus was decidedly inferior in strength, and, hazarding a pitched battle on ground favourable to the enemy, had his army cut to pieces and was hitnself taken captive. Regulus perished in captivity, and was supposed at Rome to have been done to death: according to the common story he was sent to Rome on parole to negotiate a peace or exchange of prisoners, but on his arrival strongly urged the senate to refuse both proposals, and returning to Carthage was slain with horrid tortures. This is the story so eloquently told by Horace ( Carvi . iii. 5), and which made Regulus to the later Romans the type of heroic endurance in misfortune; but most critical historians regard it as i insufficiently attested, Polybius being silent.