The Junior Classics, vol 7 | Page 9

loneliness,
while in the meantime the war continued, and at last a victory so
decisive was gained by the Romans, that the people of Carthage were
discouraged, and resolved to ask terms of peace. They thought that no
one would be so readily listened to at Rome as Regulus, and they

therefore sent him there with their envoys, having first made him swear
that he would come back to his prison if there should neither be peace
nor an exchange of prisoners. They little knew how much more a
true-hearted Roman cared for his city than for himself--for his word
than for his life.
Worn and dejected, the captive warrior came to the outside of the gates
of his own city, and there paused, refusing to enter. "I am no longer a
Roman citizen," he said; "I am but the barbarians' slave, and the Senate
may not give audience to strangers within the walls."
His wife Marcia ran out to greet him, with his two sons, but he did not
look up, and received their caresses as one beneath their notice, as a
mere slave, and he continued, in spite of all entreaty, to remain outside
the city, and would not even go to the little farm he had loved so well.
The Roman Senate, as he would not come in to them, came out to hold
their meeting in the Campagna.
The ambassadors spoke first, then Regulus, standing up, said, as one
repeating a task, "Conscript fathers, being a slave to the Carthaginians,
I come on the part of my masters to treat with you concerning peace,
and an exchange of prisoners." He then turned to go away with the
ambassadors, as a stranger might not be present at the deliberations of
the Senate. His old friends pressed him to stay and give his opinion as a
senator who had twice been consul; but he refused to degrade that
dignity by claiming it, slave as he was. But, at the command of his
Carthaginian masters, he remained, though not taking his seat.
Then he spoke. He told the senators to persevere in the war. He said he
had seen the distress of Carthage, and that a peace would be only to her
advantage, not to that of Rome, and therefore he strongly advised that
the war should continue. Then, as to the exchange of prisoners, the
Carthaginian generals, who were in the hands of the Romans, were in
full health and strength, whilst he himself was too much broken down
to be fit for service again, and indeed he believed that his enemies had
given him a slow poison, and that he could not live long. Thus he
insisted that no exchange of prisoners should be made.

It was wonderful, even to Romans, to hear a man thus pleading against
himself, and their chief priest came forward, and declared that, as his
oath had been wrested from him by force, he was not bound by it to
return to his captivity. But Regulus was too noble to listen to this for a
moment. "Have you resolved to dishonor me?" he said. "I am not
ignorant that death and the extremest tortures are preparing for me; but
what are these to the shame of an infamous action, or the wounds of a
guilty mind? Slave as I am to Carthage, I have still the spirit of a
Roman. I have sworn to return. It is my duty to go; let the gods take
care of the rest."
The Senate decided to follow the advice of Regulus, though they
bitterly regretted his sacrifice. His wife wept and entreated in vain that
they would detain him; they could merely repeat their permission to
him to remain; but nothing could prevail with him to break his word,
and he turned back to the chains and death he expected as calmly as if
he had been returning to his home. This was in the year B.C. 249.
"Let the gods take care of the rest," said the Roman; the gods whom
alone he knew, and through whom he ignorantly worshiped the true
God, whose Light was shining out even in this heathen's truth and
constancy. How his trust was fulfilled is not known. The Senate, after
the next victory, gave two Carthaginian generals to his wife and sons to
hold as pledges for his good treatment; but when tidings arrived that
Regulus was dead, Marcia began to treat them both with savage cruelty,
though one of them assured her that he had been careful to have her
husband well used. Horrible stories were told that Regulus had been put
out in the sun with his eyelids cut off, rolled down a hill in a barrel with
spikes, killed by being constantly kept awake, or else crucified.