Regulus

“ Beyond her provinces and conquer'd realms,
Where yet her conq'ring eagles never flew;
Nor shall she blush hereafter if she find
Recorded with her faithful citizens
The name of Regulus, the captive Regulus.
My countrymen! what, think you, kept in awe
The Volsci, Sabines, Æqui, and Hernici?
The arms of Rome alone? no, 'twas her virtue;
That sole surviving good, which brave men keep
Though fate and warring worlds combine against them:
This still is mine—and I'll preserve it, Romans!
The wealth of Plutus shall not bribe it from me! ”

“ The slaves came up to them, and Regulus asked if 'lil Missy wanted anything. "No, nothing at all," she answered, and walked quietly onward.
Landless, an angry pain tugging at his heart, kept beside her, for they were passing through a deep hollow in the wood where the gnarled and protruding roots of cypress and juniper made walking difficult, and where a strong hand was needed to push aside the wet and pendent masses of vine. Regulus, fifty yards behind them, began to sing a familiar broadside ballad, torturing the words out of all resemblance to English. ”

“ A conqueror of nations, enter Rome;
Now, thou hast conquer'd fortune, and thyself.
Thy laurels oft have mov'd my soul to envy,
Thy chains awaken my respect, my reverence;
Then Regulus appear'd a hero to me,
He rises now a god.
Reg. Manlius, enough.
Cease thy applause; 'tis dang'rous; praise like thine
Might tempt the most severe and cautious virtue.
Bless'd be the gods, who gild my latter days
With the bright glory of the Consul's friendship!
Man. Forbid it, Jove! said'st thou thy latter days?
May gracious heav'n to a far distant hour
Protract thy valued life! ”

“ Along the walls, as a strange decoration, hung a long dark tissue, crisp as parchment. It was the skin of the great serpent which for a whole day held back the army of Atilius Regulus, when on his expedition to Africa he was marching to the conquest of Carthage. The horrible monster, insensible to arrows, devoured many soldiers before it succumbed beneath a shower of stones, and Regulus sent the reptile's skin to Rome as a testimony of the adventure.
The envoys from Saguntum had a tedious wait before a centurion ushered them into the Senaculum. ”

“ Among the great names which have done honour to antiquity in general, and to the Roman Republic in particular, that of Marcus Attilius Regulus has, by the general consent of all ages, been considered as one of the most splendid, since he not only sacrificed his labours, his liberty, and his life for the good of his country, but by a greatness of soul, almost peculiar to himself, contrived to make his very misfortunes contribute to that glorious end. ”

“ But when the stern features of Regulus were seen, and his colossal form towering above the ambassadors who had returned with him from Rome; when the news passed from lip to lip that the dreaded warrior, so far from advising the Roman senate to consent to an exchange of prisoners, had urged them to pursue, with exterminating vengeance, Carthage and Carthaginians,--the multitude swayed to and fro like a forest beneath a tempest, and the rage and hate of that tumultuous throng vented itself in groans, and curses, and yells of vengeance. ”

“ They all loathe and detest him, yet as if they approve, as if they esteem him, they flock and swarm. To express briefly what I think, in paying court to Regulus, they immitate Regulus. He keeps himself on the other side of the Tiber in Gardens, where he has covered the widest area with huge colonades and the riverbank with his statues, as in spite of his utmost greed he is extravagent, in spite of his utmost notoriety, he is ostentatious. ”

“ Did I remain in Rome.
Man. Ah! Regulus,
Why, why so late do I begin to love thee?
Alas! why have the adverse fates decreed
I ne'er must give thee other proofs of friendship,
Than those so fatal and so full of woe?
Reg. Thou hast perform'd the duties of a friend;
Of a just, faithful, Roman, noble friend:
Yet, generous as thou art, if thou constrain me
To sink beneath a weight of obligation,
I could—yes, Manlius—I could ask still more.
Man. Explain thyself.
Reg. I think I have fulfill'd
The various duties of a citizen;
Nor have I aught beside to do for Rome. ”

“ At the unexpected arrival of this venerable hero, the Romans expressed the wildest transports of joy, and would have submitted to almost any conditions to procure his enlargement; but Regulus, so far from availing himself of his influence with the Senate to obtain any personal advantages, employed it to induce them to reject proposals so evidently tending to dishonour their country, declaring his fixed resolution to return to bondage and death, rather than violate his oath. ”

“ Give back to her a thousand able-bodied men, and receive in return this one, attenuated, war-worn, fever-wasted frame,--this weed, whitened in a dungeon's darkness, pale and sapless, which no kindness of the sun, no softness of the summer breeze, can ever restore to life and vigor? It must not, shall not be! Oh, were Regulus what he was once, before captivity had unstrung his sinews and enervated his limbs, he might pause; he might think he were worth a thousand of the foe; he might say, "Make the exchange, Rome shall not lose by it!" ”

“ The fearful unsatisfied desire to soar into infinity common to every human breast, in them took no nobler form than that powerful instinct of patriotism which burned in a few heroes and patriots. Regulus, who, with eyes cast down, tore himself from his kindred, quitted Rome, and hurried to the country of his enemies;—Decius, who, devoting himself to the infernal gods, invoked their vengeance upon his head, and rushed into the arms of death, seemed rather demigods than men. ”

“ And tell me, Manlius, to what hand but his
They owe their trophies, and their ornaments.
Their foreign banners, and their boasted ensigns,
Tarentine, Punic, and Sicilian spoils?
Nay, e'en those lictors who precede thy steps,
This Consul's purple which invests thy limbs,
All, all were Regulus's, were my father's.
And yet this hero, this exalted patriot,
This man of virtue, this immortal Roman,
In base requital for his services,
Is left to linger out a life in chains,
No honours paid him but a daughter's tears.
O Rome! O Regulus! O thankless citizens! ”

“ Upon this the good woman, whose danger made her credulous, calls for her will and gives Regulus a legacy. She grew worse shortly after this; and in her last moments exclaimed against this wicked, treacherous, and worse than perjured wretch, who had sworn falsely to her by his own son's life. But imprecations of this sort are as common with Regulus as they are impious; and he continually devotes that unhappy youth to the curse of those gods whose vengeance his own frauds every day provoke. ”

“ When the ambassadors protested that it would be impossible for Carthage to accept such degrading terms, Regulus drove them from his camp, rudely saying, ‘Men who are good for anything, should either conquer or submit to their betters.’
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The Senate, with one voice, agreed that the terms offered by the Consul deserved no consideration.
It was plain that Regulus would not help them, and so the people, in their despair, turned to their gods. Lest the city of Carthage itself should fall into the hands of the enemy, they must be appeased with sacrifices. ”

“ SOMETIMES I miss Regulus in our courts. I cannot say I deplore his loss. The man, it must be owned, highly respected his profession, grew pale with study and anxiety over it, and used to write out his speeches though he could not get them by heart. There was a practice he had of painting round his right or left eye, [86] and wearing a white patch [87] over one side or the other of his forehead, according as he was to plead either for the plaintiff or defendant ”

“ With exceeding folly Regulus left the strongly fortified camp, which in Roman warfare formed one of the chief defences, and arrayed his forces in the open plain. There Carthage, driven to bay, gave him battle with her hastily collected forces. The Carthaginians, commanded by Xanthippus, a better general than Regulus, won the day, and only two thousand Romans escaped slaughter. The victory gave heart to the men of Carthage, and when news came from Sicily that Rome had been driven back and her fleets destroyed, their joy knew no bounds. ”

“ Regulus, a Roman general, defeated the Carthaginians 256 B.C., but was next year defeated and taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, who sent him to Rome with an embassy to ask for peace or an exchange of prisoners. Regulus strongly advised the Roman Senate to make no terms with the enemy. ”

“ O, Romans! O, my countrymen!
Can you resign your hero to your foe?
Say, can you give up Regulus to Carthage?
Man. Peace, Publius, peace, for see thy father comes.
Enter Hamilcar and Regulus.
Ham. Why dost thou stop? dost thou forget this temple?
I thought these walls had been well known to Regulus?
Reg. Hamilcar! I was thinking what I was
When last I saw them, and what now I am.
Ham. (to the Consul.)
Carthage by me to Rome this greeting sends,
That wearied out at length with bloody war,
If Rome inclines to peace she offers it.
Man. We will at leisure answer thee. Be seated. ”

“ Rusticus had desired me to act as counsel for Arionilla, Titnon's wife: Regulus was engaged against me. In one part of the case I was strongly insisting upon a particular judgment given by Metius Modestus, an excellent man, at that time in banishment by Domitian's order. Now then for Regulus. "Pray," says he, "what is your opinion of Modestus?" You see what a risk I should have run had I answered that I had a high opinion of him, how I should have disgraced myself on the other hand if I had replied that I had a bad opinion of him. ”

“ Examples ne'er can justify the coward:
The brave man never seeks a vindication,
Save from his own just bosom and the gods;
From principle, not precedent, he acts:
As that arraigns him, or as that acquits,
He stands or falls; condemn'd or justified.
Lic. Rome is no more if Regulus departs.
Reg. Let Rome remember Regulus must die!
Nor would the moment of my death be distant,
If nature's work had been reserv'd for nature:
What Carthage means to do, she would have done
As speedily, perhaps, at least as surely.
My wearied life has almost reach'd its goal ”

“ The Carthaginians had utterly lost courage, and they could not withdraw their army from Sicily without giving up that island altogether: they therefore sent an embassy to Regulus, and sued for peace. Regulus’ fame has been very much exaggerated by apophthegmatical histories; he is undeservedly represented as a martyr: in the heyday of his good fortune, he showed himself ruthless, intoxicated with victory, and ungenerous. ”

“ Regulus, on the contrary, had formerly conquered the Carthaginians, and in command of the army of Rome had won for the Roman republic a victory which no citizen could bewail, and which the enemy himself was constrained to admire; yet afterwards, when he in his turn was defeated by them, he preferred to be their captive rather than to put himself beyond their reach by suicide. Patient under the domination of the Carthaginians, and constant in his love of the Romans, he neither deprived the one of his conquered body, nor the other of his unconquered spirit. ”

“ The vanquished Carthaginians then sued to the Romans for peace, which Regulus refusing to grant, except upon the hardest conditions, the Africans sought aid from the Lacedaemonians, and, under a leader named Xantippus, who had been sent them by the Lacedaemonians, Regulus, the Roman general, was overthrown with a desperate slaughter; for two thousand men only escaped of all the Roman army; five hundred, with their commander Regulus, were taken prisoners, thirty thousand slain, and Regulus himself thrown into prison. ”

“ Nor had the Romans to contend only with men, but with monsters also; for a serpent of vast size, born, as it were, to avenge Africa, harassed their camp on the Bagrada. But Regulus, who overcame all obstacles, having spread the terror of his name far and wide, having killed or taken prisoners a great number of the enemy's force, and their captains themselves, and having despatched his fleet, laden with much spoil and stored with materials for a triumph, to Rome, proceeded to besiege Carthage itself, the origin of the war, and took his position close to the gates of it. ”

“ Regulus, one of the consuls who led the army of invasion, sent word to Rome that he had sealed up the gates of Carthage with terror. Finally, however, Regulus suffered a crushing defeat, and was made prisoner. A fleet which was sent to bear away the remnants of the shattered army was wrecked in a terrific storm off the coast of Sicily, and the shores of the island were strewn with the wreckage of between two and three hundred ships and with the bodies of one hundred thousand men. ”

“ It is also told that when the tale of what Regulus had suffered reached Rome, two noble Carthaginian prisoners were given to his widow and her sons, that they might avenge on these the cruelty done to Regulus. ”

“ Regulus consented, and embarked for Rome, after having bound himself by a solemn oath to return to his chains if the negociation did not succeed. The Carthaginian ship arrived safe in Italy; but when Regulus came to the gates of the city, he refused to enter them. " My misfortunes," said he, " have made me a slave to the Carthaginians; I am no longer a Roman citizen." The senate always gave audience to foreigners without the gates. ”