[IN the year 263 before Christ the First Punic Warbegan; and,after it had continued eight years with varied success, the Romans sent the Consul Regulus, at the head of a large army, to carry the war into Africa. On the passage across the Mediterranean, the Carthaginian fleet, bearing not less than one hundred and fifty thousand men, was met and defeated; but in the following year, in a battle on land, the Romans were defeated with great loss, and Regulus himself, being taken prisoner, was thrown into a dungeon. Five years later, the Carthaginians were in turn defeated in Sicily, with a loss of twenty thousand men, and the capture of more than a hundred of their elephants, which they had trained to fight in the ranks.
It was then that the Carthaginians sent an embassy to Rome with proposals of peace. Regulus was taken from his dungeon to accompany the embassy, the Carthaginians trusting that, weary of his long captivity, he would urge the Senate to accept the proffered terms; but the inflexible Roman persuaded the Senate to reject the proposals and continue the war, assuring his countrymen that the resources of Carthage were nearly exhausted. Bound by his oath to return if peace were not concluded, he voluntarily went back, in spite of the prayers and entreaties of his friends, to meet the fate which awaited him. It is generally stated that after his return to Carthage he was tortured to death by the exasperated Carthaginians. Thus he spoke to the Senate: -]
Urge me no more; your prayers are vain, And even the tears ye shed:
When I can lead to Rome again The bands that once I led;When I can raise your legions slain②On swarthy Libya"s
fatal plain,
To vengeance from the dead, Then will I seek once more a home, And lift a freeman"s voice in Rome!
Accursed moment! when I woke From faintness all but death,And felt the coward conqueror"s yoke Like venomed serpent"s wreathRound every limb! -if lip and eye Betrayed no sign of agony,Inly I cursed my breath: Wherefore, of all that fought, was I The only wretch that could not die?
To darkness and to chains consigned,
The captive"s fighting doom,
I recked not; -could they chain the mind, Or plunge the soul in gloom?
And there they left me, dark and lone, Till darkness had familiar grown;Then from that living tombThey led me forth, I thought, to die; -Oh! in that thought was ecstasy!
But no! kind Heaven had yet in store For me, a conquered slave,A joy I thought to feel no more, Or feel but in the grave.
They deemed, perchance, my haughtier mood Was quelled by chains and solitude;That he who once was brave- Was I not brave? -had now becomeEstranged from honour, as from Rome.
They bade me to my country bear
The offers these have borne;
They would have trained my lips to swear Which never yet have sworn.
Silent their base commands I heard; At length I pledged a Roman"s word,Unshrinking, to return.
I go, prepared to meet the worst; But I shall gall proud Carthage first.
They sue for peace;-I bid you spurn The gilded bait they bear;I bid you still, with aspect stern, War, ceaseless war, declare.
Fools as they were, could not mine eye, Through their dissembled calmness, spyThe struggles of despair?
Else had they sent this wasted frame To bribe you to your country"s shame?
Your land-I must not call it mine; No country has the slave;His father"s name he must resign, And even his father"s grave-But this not now-beneath her liesProud Carthage and her destinies:
Her empire o"er the wave
Is yours; she knows it well, and you Shall know, and make her feel it too. -Ay, bend your brows, ye ministers Of coward hearts, on me;Ye know no longer it is hers, The empire of the sea;Ye know her fleets are far and few,Her bands a mercenary crew; And Rome, the bold and free,Shall trample on her prostrate towers. Despite your weak and wasted powers!
One path alone remains for me- My vows were heard on high;Thy triumphs, Rome, I shall not see, For I return to die.
Then tell me not of hope or life;
I have in Rome no chaste, fond wife, No smiling progeny;One word concentres for the slave, Wife, children, country, all-the grave.
- DALE
NOTES
① Punic War.-So the wars between Rome and Carthage (of which there were three) were called by the Romans. The name P?ni (whence Punic ) was given to the Carthaginians because of their Ph?nician origin. In the third Punic War, Carthage was completely destroyed, 146 B. C.
② Libya, the northern part of Africa; in Roman times the name given to the region nowknown as the Libyan Desert. After the fall of Carthage, Libya became a Roman province.