arely been heard of in history.
It has made Regulus famous for all time. His advice was taken, the
treaty was refused; he, refusing to break his parole, or even to see his
family, returned to Carthage with the ambassadors, knowing that he was
going to his death. The rulers of that city, so it is said, furious
that the treaty had been rejected through his advice, resolved to
revenge themselves on him by horrible tortures. His eyelids were cut
off, and he was exposed to the full glare of the African sun. He was
then placed in a cask driven full of nails, and left there to die.

It is fortunate to be able to say that there is no historical warrant
for this story of torture, or for the companion story that the wife and
son of Regulus treated two Carthaginian prisoners in the same manner. We
have reason to believe that it is untrue, and that Regulus suffered no
worse tortures than those of shame, exile, and imprisonment.

_HANNIBAL CROSSES THE ALPS._

In the year 235 B.C. the gates of the Temple of Janus were closed, for
the first time since the reign of Numa Pompilius, the second king of
Rome, nearly five centuries before. During all that long period war had
hardly ever ceased in Rome. And these gates were soon to be thrown open
again, in consequence of the greatest war that the Roman state had ever
known, a war which was to bring it to the very brink of destruction.

The end of the first Punic War--as the war with Carthage was
called--left Rome master of the large island of Sicily, the first
province gained by that ambitious city outside of Italy. Advantage was
also taken of some home troubles in Carthage to rob that city of the
islands of Sardinia and Corsica,--a piece of open piracy which redoubled
the hatred of the Carthaginians.

Yet Rome just now was not anxious for war with her southern rival. There
was enough to do in the north, for another great invasion of Gauls was
threatened. And about this time the Capitol was struck by lightning, a
prodigy which plunged all Rome into terror. The books of the Sibyl were
hastily consulted, and were reported to say, "When the lightning shall
strike the Capitol and the Temple of Apollo, then must thou, O Roman,
beware of the Gauls." Another prophecy said that the time would come
"when the race of the Greeks and the race of the Gauls should occupy the
Forum of Rome."

But Rome had its own way of dealing with prophecies and discounting the
decrees of destiny. A man and