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  Yet Roman courage had not utterly collapsed in the hour of defeat. Bruttius, whose wounded body showed his ill-fortune in the battle, slowly raised his head from a huge pile of hapless corpses, and dragged his mutilated limbs through the carnage with muscles that failed him from time to time. He had not wealth or noble birth or eloquence; but his sword was keen, and none of the Volscian people gained more glory than he by a heroic death. As a boy, before his beard grew, he had chosen to join the army, and his prowess had been witnessed by brave Flaminius, when with better fortune he fought the Celtic armies and crushed them. Thus Bruttius won honour and guarded the sacred bird in every battle; and this distinction was the cause of his death. He was sure to die; and, when he could not prevent the Carthaginians from taking the eagle, he tried to bury it in the ground for the time; for he saw that fate was adverse and the battle was turning into a great disaster. But a sudden wound made him throw his failing limbs over his charge; and death lay over it to hide it. But, when day returned after a dreadful night of distressful slumber, he raised himself on a spear taken from the nearest corpse; then, exerting all his strength for the effort, he dug a hole in the earth with his sword; and the ground, drenched in blood all round, parted easily. Next he bowed before the buried effigy of the luckless eagle, and smoothed the sand over it with strengthless palms. Then his last feeble breath went forth into thin air, and sent a brave heart to Tartarus.

  Near by one might see an awful frenzy of valour that deserves to claim the poet’s verse. Laevinus, a native of Privernum on the hill, who had earned the distinction of the Roman vine-staff, lay there on the top of Tyres, a Nasamonian; and both were dead. He had neither spear nor sword: Fortune had robbed him of his weapons in the hard fight; yet in the unarmed contest rage found a weapon to fight with. He had fought with savage mouth, and his teeth did the work of steel, to gratify his rage. Already the nose of Tyres was torn and the eyes marred by the cruel jaws; the ears were bitten off and the head mutilated; the forehead itself was horribly gnawed, and blood streamed from the open lips; nor was Laevinus satisfied, until the breath left those champing jaws and dark death arrested the crammed mouth.

  While hideous valour displayed such portentous deeds, the stricken mob of fugitives were harassed meanwhile by a different fate. Covered with wounds, they slunk away along pathless tracks in the dark forests, and traversed the deserted fields all night. They were terrified by every sound, by the breeze, and by the stirring of a bird on its light wings. Sleep or peace of mind was impossible. Panic-stricken, they were driven on now by fierce Mago, and now by Hannibal prancing on with relentless spear.

  Serranus bore a glorious name: he was the son of Regulus, whose fame ever increases with the passage of time, and of whom it will never be forgotten, that he kept faith with the faithless Carthaginians. Serranus was in the flower of his youth; but, alas, he had begun the war against Carthage with his father’s ill-fortune, and now, sore-wounded, he sought in sad plight to return to his unhappy mother and the home he loved. Of his comrades none was left, and there was none to dress his grievous wounds. Leaning on a broken spear, and rescued from doom by the connivance of dark night, he crept silently through bypaths towards the fields of Perusia. Worn out, he knocked at the door of a humble dwelling, whatever fate might meet him there; and Marus was not slow to rise from his bed. Long ago Marus had served under Regulus, and the ear of Fame had heard of his prowess. Now he came forth, holding up a light he had kindled at the poor hearth where he worshipped Vesta. He recognized Serranus and saw him suffering from dreadful wounds, and supporting himself on his halting feet by the broken spear — a piteous sight to behold. Rumour of the fatal disaster had already wounded his ears; and now he cried: “What horror is this I see! — I have lived too long and was born to suffer too much adversity. I saw you, greatest of generals, when, though you were a prisoner, your aspect terrified the citadel of Carthage; I witnessed your death, a scandal and a shame to the Thunderer; and even the destruction of Carthage could never expel from my heart the grief I suffered then. And now once more, where are ye, ye gods? A Regulus offers his breast to the sword, and perjured Carthage lops off the hopeful scion of that mighty house.” Next he laid the sick man on the bed, and, with the skill in medicine which he had learnt in war, now cleansed the wounds with water and now applied healing simples, binding them up and wrapping them in wool with gentle hand, and warming the stiffened limbs. The old man’s next care was to slake the sick man’s grievous thirst, and to recall his strength by a sparing meal. When all this was quickly done, sleep at last did its kindly office and diffused gentle rest through all his limbs. Before day dawned Marus, forgetful of his years, made haste to treat the fever of the wound with tried remedies, and provided a pleasant coolness with eager loyalty.

  Now Serranus, raising his sorrowful eyes to heaven, cried out amid groans and tears: “O Father, if thou hast not yet condemned the realm of Quirinus, and dost not hate the Tarpeian citadel, then look down on the desperate plight of Italy and the ruin of Rome; turn at last a merciful eye upon our troubles. We lost the Alps; nor is there any limit to our sufferings since then — the Ticinus, the river Po dark with our dead, the Trebia made famous by Punic triumph, and the lamentable country of the Arnus. But why speak of all this when, behold! a far heavier weight of calamity is ours? I saw the level of Lake Trasimene raised by the multitude of the slain; I saw Flaminius fall amid the missiles. I swear by the dead, whom I worship, that I sought death then in striking down the foe — a death befitting the famous sufferings of my father; but cruel fate, which denied him a soldier’s death, denied it to me also.”

  As he still heaped complaint upon complaint, the old man strove to comfort him, saying: “In your father’s fashion, brave youth, let us bear reverses of fortune and all the troubles that beset us. Such is the law of Heaven: the wheel of our existence, as it moves on along the steep track of life, is subject to many a slip. Great enough and famous throughout the world are the title-deeds of your house; your father, that sacred figure whom no deity excels, gained his high renown by defying ill-fortune; and he discarded none of the virtues until the time when his spirit fled from the unwilling body. I had hardly outgrown the years of boyhood, when the first beard was growing on the face of Regulus. I became his comrade, and we spent all our years together, till Heaven saw fit to put out the light of the Roman people — the man in whose noble breast kindly Loyalty had fixed her seat and remained the tenant of his heart. He gave me this sword for valour — an honour second to none — and the bridle which you see now blackened by smoke, though the sheen of the silver still remains; and, when Marus had received such gifts, there was no horseman who took precedence of him. But the chief of all my distinctions was my lance. You see me pour wine in its honour; and it is worth your while to learn the reason.

  “The turbid stream of Bagrada furrows the sandy desert with sluggish course; and no river in the land of Libya can boast that it spreads its muddy waters further, or covers the wide plains with greater floods. Here, in that savage land, we were glad to encamp upon its banks; for we needed water, which is scarce in that country. Hard by stood a grove whose trees were ever motionless and sunless, with shade dark as Erebus; and from it burst thick fumes that spread a noisome stench through the air. Within it was a dreadful dwelling, a vast subterranean hollow in a winding cavern, where the dismal darkness let in no light. I shudder still to think of it. A deadly monster lived there, spawned by Earth in her wrath, whose like scarce any generation of men can see again; a serpent, a hundred ells in length, Livy described the battle of the army against the reptile, and says that its skin, 120 feet long, was sent to Rome. haunted that fatal bank and the Avernian grove. He filled his vast maw and poison-breeding belly with lions caught when they came for water, or with cattle driven to the river when the sun was hot, and with birds brought down from the sky by the foul stench and corruption of the atmosphere. On the floor lay half-eaten bones, which he had belched up in the darkness of his cave after filli
ng his maw with a hideous meal on the flocks he had laid low. And, when he was fain to bathe in the foaming waters of the running stream and cool the heat engendered by his fiery food, before he had plunged his whole body in the river, his head was already resting on the opposite bank. Unwitting of such a danger I went forth; and with me went Aquinus, a native of the Apennines, and Avens, an Umbrian. We sought to examine the grove and find out whether the place was friendly. But as we drew near, an unspoken dread came over us, and a mysterious chill paralysed our limbs. Yet we went on and prayed to the Nymphs and the deity of the unknown river, and then ventured, though anxious and full of fears, to trust our feet to the secret grove. Suddenly from the threshold and outer entrance of the cave there burst forth a hellish whirlwind and a blast fiercer than the frantic East-wind; and a storm poured forth from the vast hollow, a hurricane in which the baying of Cerberus was heard. Horror-struck we gazed at one another. A noise came from the ground, the earth was shaken, the cave fell in ruins, and the dead seemed to come forth. Huge as the snakes that armed the Giants when they stormed heaven, or as the hydra that wearied Hercules by the waters of Lerna, or as Juno’s snake that guarded the boughs with golden foliage — even so huge he rose up from the cloven earth and raised his glittering head to heaven, and first scattered his slaver into the clouds and marred the face of heaven with his open jaws. Hither and thither we fled and tried to raise a feeble shout, though breathless with terror; but in vain; for the sound of his hissing filled all the grove. Then Avens, blind with sudden fear — blameworthy was his act, but Fate had him in the toils — hid in the huge trunk of an ancient oak, hoping that the horrible monster might not see him. I can scarce believe it myself; but the serpent, clinging with its huge coils, removed the great tree bodily, tearing it from the ground, and wrenching it up from the roots. Then, as the trembling wretch called on his companions with his latest utterance, the serpent seized him and swallowed him down with a gulp of its black throat — I looked back and saw it — and buried him in its beastly maw. Unhappy Aquinus had entrusted himself to the running stream of the river, and was swimming fast away. But the serpent attacked him in midstream, carried his body to the bank, and there devoured it — a dreadful form of death!

  “Thus I alone was suffered to escape from the monster so terrible and deadly. I ran as fast as grief would let me, and told all to the general. He groaned aloud, in pity for the cruel fate of his men. Then, eager as he ever was for war and battle and conflict with the foe, and burning with a passion for great achievements, he ordered his men to arm instantly, and his cavalry, well tried in many a fight, to take the field. He galloped forward himself, spurring his flying steed; and at his command there followed a body of shieldsmen, bringing the heavy catapults used in sieges and the weapon whose huge point can batter down high towers. And now, when the horses speeding over the grassy plain surrounded the fatal spot with the thunder of their hoofs, the serpent, aroused by the neighing, glided forth from his cave and hissed forth a hellish blast from his reeking jaws. Both his eyes flashed horrible fire; his erected crest towered over the tall tree-tops; and his three-forked tongue darted and flickered through the air and rose up till it licked the sky. But, when the trumpets sounded, he was startled and reared aloft his huge bulk; then, couching on his rear, he gathered the rest of his body beneath his front in circling coils. Then he began a fearsome conflict, quickly unwinding his coils and stretching his body out to its full length, till he reached in a moment the faces of men far away. All the horses snorted, in their terror of the serpent, refusing to obey the rein and breathing frequent fire from their nostrils. The monster, towering above the frightened men with swollen neck, waved his high head to right and left and, in his rage, now hoisted them on high, and now delighted in crushing them beneath his huge weight. Then he breaks their bones and gulps down the black gore; with his open jaws wet with blood, he leaves the half-eaten body and seeks a fresh foe. The soldiers fell back, and the victorious serpent attacked the squadrons from a distance with his pestilential breath. But then Regulus speedily recalled the troops to battle and encouraged them thus: ‘Shall we, the j men of Italy, retreat before a serpent, and admit that Rome is no match for the snakes of Libya? If his breath has conquered your feeble strength, and your courage has oozed away at sight of his open mouth, then I will go boldly forward and cope with the monster single-handed.’ Thus he shouted and undismayed hurled his flying spear through the air with lightning speed. The weapon rushed on and did its work: it struck the serpent fairly on the head, gaining not a little force from the fierceness of the creature’s charge, and stuck there quivering. A shout of triumph rose, and the sudden noise of it went up to Heaven. At once the earth-born monster went mad with rage: he spurned defeat and was a stranger to pain; for never before in his long life had he felt the steel. Nor would the swift charge, prompted by his pain, have failed, had not Regulus, skilled horseman that he was, eluded the onset with wheeling steed, and then, when the serpent, with a bend of its supple back, once again followed the turning horse, pulled the rein with his left hand and soon got out of reach.

  “But Marus did not merely look on at such a scene and take no part: my spear was the second to transfix the great body of the monster. His three-forked tongue was now licking the rump of the general’s tired horse; I threw my weapon and quickly turned on myself the serpent’s fierce assault. The men followed my example and hurled their darts together with a will, making the creature shift its rage from one foe to another; and at length he was restrained by a blow from a catapult that would level a wall. Then at last his strength was broken; for his injured spine could no longer stand up stiff for attack, and the head had no strength to rear up to the sky. We attacked more fiercely; and soon a huge missile was lodged deep in the monster’s belly, and the sight of both his eyes was destroyed by flying arrows. Now the dark pit of the gaping wound sent forth a poisonous slaver from the open jaws; and now the end of the tail was held fast to the ground by showers of darts and heavy poles; and still he threatened feebly with open mouth. At last a beam, discharged from an engine with a loud hissing sound, shattered his head; and the body lay at last relaxed far along the raised bank, and discharged into the air a dark vapour of poison that escaped from its mouth. Then a cry of sorrow burst from the river, and the sound spread through the depths; and suddenly both grove and cave sent forth a noise of wailing, and the banks replied to the trees. Alas, how great were our losses, and how dearly we paid in the end for our luckless battle! How much we suffered, and what a cup of retribution we had to drink! Our soothsayers were not silent: they warned us that we had laid profane hands on the servant of the Naiads, the sisters who dwell in the warm stream of the Bagrada, and that we should suffer for it later. — Then it was, Serranus, that your father gave me this spear as my reward and prize for dealing the second wound; this was the first weapon to draw blood from the sacred serpent.”

  The eyes and cheeks of Serranus had long been wet with tears, and now he interrupted Marus and said: “Had Regulus lived on to our time, the Trebia would never have overflowed its fatal banks with blood, nor would the waters of Lake Trasimene hide so many famous dead.”

  The older man replied: “The Carthaginians paid dearly with their blood, and he, while he yet lived, took vengeance for his death. For Africa, with her armies thinned andher treasure exhausted, was holding out her hands in supplication, when brave Therapne in an evil hour sent a leader to the Carthaginians. His aspect was mean: no beauty or noble brow was his; but with his low stature there went a tireless activity to marvel at — an activity whose effort could conquer giants. In the art of war, in combining the sword with stratagem, in enduring hardship and contriving to exist in an unfriendly country, he was not inferior to yonder Hannibal, who is now supreme for skill in war. Glad had I been if Taygeta, so cruel to us, had made an exception of Xanthippus, and not hardened him on the shady banks of the Eurotas. Then I should have seen the walls of Dido overthrown in flames; or at least I should not have
mourned the dreadful doom of Regulus — a sorrow which no death or funeral fire can ever take from me, but I shall keep it and carry it with me to Tartarus. The armies met in the field; war raged fiercely throughout the land; and every heart was full of martial ardour. Here, in the midst of his men, Regulus did memorable deeds, opening a path in the field with his sword, dashing into danger, and dealing out with his deadly arm strokes that needed not to be struck again. So, when a hurricane sweeps along a whirling mass of dark cloud with shrieking south-winds, and the pitch-dark heaven threatens earth and sea alike with destruction from above, all tillers of the soil and herdsmen on their wooded heights are terrified, and every seaman on the deep furls his sails. But the Greek general devised a trick: hiding a force behind rocky hollows, lie suddenly ceased fighting and beat a hasty retreat in pretended fear. Even so a shepherd, seeking safety for his flock, lures the wolves at night by the bleating of a tethered lamb into the pitfall masked by a slender covering of leafage. Regulus was caught and carried away by the desire of fame that fires the noble heart, and by mistaken trust in the fickle god of war. To no companions or helpers or troops did he look back but was pressing on alone in his wild desire for battle, when suddenly a cloud of Spartans issued from their ambush in the rocks and surrounded the eager warrior, while behind him rose up a great army. O fearful day for Rome, that she must mark with black on her calendar! What disgrace to Mars, that a warrior born to serve the god and the god’s city was doomed to the sad lot of a captive! Never shall I cease to mourn over it. Did Carthage behold Regulus a prisoner? Did Carthage seem to Heaven to deserve so great a triumph? What fitting punishment shall attend the Spartans for their foul manner of warfare?