1, 34.—M. ATILIUS REGULUS
No more is told us of the fate of Regulus, and Mommsen says “nothing more is known with certainty.” Arnold, following Niebuhr, declared the story of his cruel death to be a fabrication. The tradition, however, of his mission home to propose peace, his subsequent return after advising against it, and his death under torture, was received undoubtingly by the Roman writers of the time of Cicero and afterwards. See Cicero, Off. 3, § 99; ad Att. 16, 11; de Sen. § 74; Paradox. 2, 16; Tusc. 5, § 14. Horace, Od. 3, 5; Livy, Ep. 18; Valerius Max. 1, 1, 14; Dio Cassius, fr. 43, 28. To Appian (8, 4) is due the additional particular of the barrel full of nails, καὶ αὐτὸν οἱ Καρχηδόνιοι καθείρξαντες ἐν γαλεάγρᾳ κέντρα πάντοθεν ἐχούσῃ διέφθειραν. Against this uniformity of tradition is to be set the silence of Polybius. But on the other hand, in this introductory part of his history, Polybius does not profess to give full particulars (see note to 1, 21); and in the case of Regulus, he has not stated what we learn from Livy (Ep. 18) and Valerius Max. 4, 4, 6, that his stay in Africa for the second year was against his own express wish, his private business requiring, as he thought, his presence in Italy.