yet learnt the best mode of fighting with elephants, namely, to
leave lanes in their columns where these huge beasts might advance
harmlessly; instead of which, the ranks were thrust and trampled
down by the creatures' bulk, and they suffered a terrible defeat;
Regulus himself was seized by the horsemen, and dragged into
Carthage, where the victors feasted and rejoiced through half the
night, and testified their thanks to Moloch by offering in his
fires the bravest of their captives.

Regulus himself was not, however, one of these victims. He was
kept a close prisoner for two years, pining and sickening in his
loneliness, while in the meantime the war continued, and at last
a victory so decisive was gained by the Romans, that the people
of Carthage were discouraged, and resolved to ask terms of peace.
They thought that no one would be so readily listened to at Rome
as Regulus, and they therefore sent him there with their envoys,
having first made him swear that he would come back to his prison
if there should neither be peace nor an exchange of prisoners. They
little knew how much more a true-hearted Roman cared for his city
than for himself--for his word than for his life.

Worn and dejected, the captive warrior came to the outside of the
gates of his own city, and there paused, refusing to enter. "I
am no longer a Roman citizen," he said; "I am but the barbarians'
slave, and the Senate may not give audience to strangers within
the walls."

His wife Marcia ran out to greet him, with his two sons, but he
did not look up, and received their caresses as one beneath their
notice, as a mere slave, and he continued, in spite of all entreaty,