al triumph.
And how great was the exultation at it! Duilius, the commander, not
content with one day's triumph, ordered, during all the rest of his
life, when he returned from supper, lighted torches to be carried, and
flutes to play, before him, as if he would triumph every day. The loss
in this battle was trifling, in comparison with the greatness of the
victory; though the other consul, Cornelius Asina, was cut off, being
invited by the enemy to a pretended conference, and put to death; an
instance of Carthaginian perfidy.

Under the dictatorship of Calatinus, the Romans expelled almost all the
garrisons of the Carthaginians from Agrigentum, Drepanum, Panormus,
Eryx, and Lilybaeum. Some alarm was experienced at the forest of
Camarina, but we were rescued by the extraordinary valor of Calpurnius
Flamma, a tribune of the soldiers, who, with a choice troop of three
hundred men, seized upon an eminence occupied by the enemy, to our
annoyance, and so kept them in play till the whole army escaped; thus,
by eminent success, equalling the fame of Thermopylae and Leonidas,
though our hero was indeed more illustrious, inasmuch as he escaped and
outlived so great an effort, notwithstanding he wrote nothing with his
blood.

In the consulship of Lucius Cornelius Scipio, when Sicily was become as
a suburban province of the Roman people, and the war was spreading
farther, they crossed over into Sardinia, and into Corsica, which lies
near it. In the latter they terrified the natives by the destruction of
the city of Olbia, in the former by that of Aleria; and so effectually
humbled the Carthaginians, both by land and sea, that nothing remained
to be conquered but Africa itself. Accordingly, under the leadership of
Marcus Atilius Regulus, the war passed over into Africa. Nor were there
wanting some on the occasion who mutinied at the mere name and dread of
the Punic sea, a tribune named Mannius increasing their alarm; but the
general, threatening him with the axe if he did not obey, produced
courage for the voyage by the terror of death. They then hastened their
course by the aid of winds and oars, and such was the terror of the
Africans at the approach of the enemy that Carthage was almost surprised
with its gates opened.

The first prize taken in the war was the city of Clypea, which juts out
from the Carthaginian shore as a fortress or watch-tower. Both this and
more than three hundred fortresses besides were destroyed. Nor had