Regulus was first consul in 267 BC. He campaigned with his co-consul (
Lucius Julius Libo) against the
Sallentini, captured
Brundisium, and thence celebrated a double triumph. During the
First Punic War, he was elected suffect consul in 256 BC, in place of Quintus Caedicius, who had died in office. With his colleague,
Lucius Manlius Vulso Longus, he fought and defeated a large Carthaginian fleet off the coast of Sicily – the
Battle of Cape Ecnomus – and the two then invaded North Africa, landing at
Aspis on the eastern side of the
Cape Bon peninsula. After the
Siege of Aspis, the consuls ravaged the countryside and seized some twenty thousand war captives. Manlius was recalled to Rome and celebrated a naval triumph, while Regulus captured Tunis and entered negotiations with Carthage. While crossing the river Bagradas, his forces supposedly fought an enormous serpent. 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. 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. His command was
prorogued into 255 BC. That spring, the Carthaginians, buttressed by the arrival of Spartan mercenaries under
Xanthippus and bristling against Regulus' proposals of harsh terms, fought Regulus at the
Battle of the Bagradas River. On a plain, which gave the Carthaginians space to utilise their war elephants and cavalry, Regulus was defeated and captured; only some two thousand Romans escaped the battle and were picked up by the Roman navy before being wrecked by a storm. Regulus died of neglect or starvation in captivity, though his fate "was soon embellished by legend". == Legends of death ==