lasted eight years, when it was resolved to send an army to fight
the Carthaginians on their own shores. The army and fleet were
placed under the command of the two consuls, Lucius Manlius and
Marcus Attilius Regulus. On the way, there was a great sea-fight
with the Carthaginian fleet, and this was the first naval battle
that the Romans ever gained. It made the way to Africa free; but
the soldiers, who had never been so far from home before, murmured,
for they expected to meet not only human enemies, but monstrous
serpents, lions, elephants, asses with horns, and dog-headed monsters,
to have a scorching sun overhead, and a noisome marsh under their
feet. However, Regulus sternly put a stop to all murmurs, by
making it known that disaffection would be punished by death, and
the army safely landed, and set up a fortification at Clypea, and
plundered the whole country round. Orders here came from Rome that
Manlius should return thither, but that Regulus should remain to
carry on the war. This was a great grief to him. He was a very poor
man, with nothing of his own but a little farm of seven acres, and
the person whom he had employed to cultivate it had died in his
absence; a hired laborer had undertaken the care of it, but had
been unfaithful, and had run away with his tools and his cattle, so
that he was afraid that, unless he could return quickly, his wife
and children would starve. However, the Senate engaged to provide
for his family, and he remained, making expeditions into the country
round, in the course of which the Romans really did fall in with
a serpent, as monstrous as their imagination had depicted. It was
said to be 120 feet long, and dwelt upon the banks of the river
Bagrada, where it used to devour the Roman soldiers as they went
to fetch water. It had such tough scales that they were obliged to
attack it with their engines meant for battering city walls; and
only succeeded with much difficulty in destroying it.