Publisher's Synopsis
Marcus Atilius Regulus, a leader in the First Punic War, represents one of the most famous figures of the Republican Age. He went down in history for having first led the Roman legions in Africa and having suffered, just when he seemed on the point of victoriously ending the war against Carthage, a devastating defeat there. Taken prisoner by the Carthaginians, he was sent to Rome on a diplomatic mission, bound by oath to return to Carthage if the mission was not successful. Against his own personal interest, he advised the Romans against complying with Punic requests and, true to his word, returned to Carthage only to die amidst unspeakable tortures, thus becoming an example par excellence of the respect for fides. The volume aims at reconstructing the historical reality of this character and of the process that transformed him into a paradigm of Vir Romanus.
