It was
then that by an ignominious defeat, such as the Romans had never before
experienced, their most valiant commander fell alive into the enemy's
hands. But he was a man able to endure so great a calamity; as he was
neither humbled by his imprisonment at Carthage nor by the deputation
which he headed to Rome; for he advised what was contrary to the
injunctions of the enemy, and recommended that no peace should be made,
and no exchange of prisoners admitted. Even by his voluntary return to
his enemies, and by his last sufferings, whether in prison or on the
cross, the dignity of the man was not at all obscured. But being
rendered, by all these occurrences, even more worthy of admiration, what
can be said of him but that, when conquered, he was superior to his
conquerors, and that, though Carthage had not submitted, he triumphed
over Fortune herself?
The Roman people were now much keener and more ardent to revenge the
fate of Regulus than to obtain victory. Under the consul Metellus,
therefore, when the Carthaginians were growing insolent, and when the
war had returned into Sicily, they gave the enemy such a defeat at
Panormus that they thought no more of that island.
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