II
Y.R. 512 When the Carthaginians had met with two disasters on land at the same time, and two at sea where they had considered themselves much the superior, and were already short of money, ships, and men, they sought an armistice from Lutatius and having obtained it sent an embassy to Rome to negotiate a treaty on certain limited conditions. With their own embassy they sent Atilius Regulus, the consul, who was their prisoner, to urge his countrymen to agree to the terms. When he came into the senate-chamber, clad as a prisoner in Punic garments, and the Carthaginian ambassadors had retired, he exposed to the Senate the desperate state of Carthaginian affairs, and advised that either the war should be prosecuted vigorously, or that more satisfactory conditions of peace should be insisted on. For this reason, B.C.242 after he had returned voluntarily to Carthage, the Carthaginians put him to death by enclosing him in a standing posture in a box the planks of which were stuck full of iron spikes so that he could not possibly lie down. Nevertheless peace was made on conditions more satisfactory to the Romans.
