men of the left wing made their escape in the rear of the Carthaginians to Clupea. Regulus retreated with five hundred Romans to a hill, and was obliged to surrender. Xanthippus was now the universal hero: they wished him to stay at Carthage; but he was wise enough to return home with the rich presents which he received, lest he should become an eyesore to an envious and heartless people, as the Carthaginians were. Polybius tells us that there was also another account, even that the Carthaginians had given him a bad ship, that he might perish on the passage; and that according to some, he had really become a victim, and according to others, he had saved himself by getting into another vessel. The Romans sent out the fleet, which had been still preserved, to take up the garrison of the besieged town of Clupea; the Carthaginians went against them, and were defeated. The number of ships which, according to Polybius, were captured on this occasion, is very likely to have been changed from 114 to 14. The Romans now evacuated Africa, taking with them the garrison of Clupea; and they sailed back for Syracuse, to make their passage through the straits of Messina to Rome. As it was the time of the summer-solstice, the pilots warned them against the possibility of a storm, as the Sirocco at that season of the year sometimes increases into the most dreadful hurricane, and the coast in those parts is destitute of harbours. But the commanders scorned them, most likely because they were foreigners; and thus a terrible shipwreck between Agrigentum and Pachynus utterly destroyed nearly three hundred vessels out of three hundred and sixty, which was the most dreadful disaster that had occurred until then (497). Not long afterwards, Seleucus Callinicus also suffered a similar shipwreck. The Carthaginians might now believe that the Romans would grant a peace on fair terms. For this reason, it is said, they sent Regulus to Rome with offers of peace: if he could not get them accepted, he was to obtain at least an exchange of prisoners; yet Regulus advised against both of these things, returned to Carthage, and was there put to death by torture. The first who, with great independence of spirit, proved the groundlessness of this story, was the excellent French philologist Paulmier de Grentemesnil (Palmerius). He lived in the times of the brothers Henry and Adrian Valesius (Valois); he was particularly well read in Polybius, and he pointed out, how incomprehensible it was, that Polybius, although he told the achievements of Regulus at such length, should not have mentioned a word of this story. The further arguments have been put forth by Beaufort. From a fragment of Diodorus, it appears that the Roman senate gave as a pledge for Regulus, into the hands of his wife and family, two Carthaginian prisoners of rank; and that these were most frightfully tortured, so that the tribunes of the people called together the senate, and compelled the monsters to