liberate one of the prisoners whom they had shut up in an exceedingly narrow chest with the other, who was already dead. Now, both of these learned critics say very rightly, that even if the Carthaginians had really tortured Regulus, this had merely been done in retaliation; and that moreover the accounts of his death are so very different. According to some, he was blinded; according to others, tortured to death in a chest stuck full of iron spikes; and again, according to others, he was exposed to the sun and the insects. Some writers of the middle ages, like the authors of the spurious _Acta Martyrum_, felt quite a particular pleasure in devising the most horrible and complicated tortures: this is also the case with the story of Regulus. It is altogether a forgery; and Palmerius and Beaufort have just grounds for their conclusion, that it was only invented to wash out the foul stain of the tortures of the Carthaginian prisoners. I believe that it has been borrowed from Nævius; for Diodorus does not know of it, as is evident from his fragments: he had but a very imperfect knowledge of Roman history, and only from the earlier, and almost contemporary writers, Philinus of Agrigentum, Timæus, and Fabius Pictor; the poet Nævius, he had not read. Thus it was very likely that the latest Roman historians brought that tale into circulation from Nævius. Cicero already is acquainted with the legend; it must have therefore been either in Cato’s _Origines_ or in Nævius.[6] If it originated with the later historians, it has arisen at least a hundred, or a hundred and twenty years after the time of Regulus. The Romans did not conclude the peace; in spite of their ill luck, they were resolved upon going on with the war. The Carthaginians now armed themselves with redoubled courage: they sent considerable reinforcements to Sicily, and learnt how to make a right use of their elephants; the Romans, on the other hand, became daunted, and withdrew into the mountains. The Carthaginians wished to carry on the war either by sea or by land: to do both at the same time, was more than they could manage. The Romans then built a new fleet, took Panormus (Palermo), and went again to Africa, and wasted the country between Carthage and Tripolis; hereupon they returned to Sicily, the fleet having had a wonderful escape in the small Syrtis. When bound for Italy, they were again overtaken on the passage by a storm, and hardly a vessel was saved. The southern gales, every one of them from south-east to south-west, are always in the Mediterranean the most dangerous storm-winds; and they are the more destructive, as the Italian coast is almost without any harbours, and full of breakers: the storms which blow from the north are harmless. Yet when the currents from the Adriatic and the Pontus meet, ships during a north easterly wind are irresistibly drawn into the Syrtes (from σύρειν), so that they are in them before their reckonings would lead one to suppose it.