The country was most beautiful, covered with fertile corn-fields
and full of rich fruit-trees, and all the rich Carthaginians had
country-houses and gardens, which were made delicious with fountains,
trees, land flowers. The Roman soldiers, plain, hardy, fierce, and
pitiless, did, it must be feared, cruel damage among these peaceful
scenes; they boasted of having sacked 300 villages, and mercy
was not yet known to them. The Carthaginian army, though strong
in horsemen and in elephants, kept upon the hills and did nothing
to save the country, and the wild desert tribes of Numidians came
rushing in to plunder what the Romans had left. The Carthaginians
sent to offer terms of peace; but Regulus, who had become uplifted
by his conquests, made such demands that the messengers remonstrated.
He answered, "Men who are good for anything should either conquer
or submit to their betters;" and he sent them rudely away, like a
stern old Roman as he was.

His merit was that he had no more mercy on himself than on others.

The Carthaginians were driven to extremity, and made horrible
offerings to Moloch, giving the little children of the noblest
families to be dropped into the fire between the brazen hands of
his statue, and grown-up people of the noblest families rushed in
of their own accord, hoping thus to propitiate their gods, and obtain
safety for their country. Their time was not yet fully come, and
a respite was granted to them. They had sent, in their distress,
to hire soldiers in Greece, and among these came a Spartan, named
Xanthippus, who at once took the command, and led the army out to
battle, with a long line of elephants ranged in front of them, and
with clouds of horsemen hovering on the wings, The Romans had not