put the Carthaginians in high spirits.  They saved the lives of the captives in order that their own citizens previously taken captive by the Romans might not be killed.  All the Roman prisoners were treated with consideration except Regulus, whom they kept in a state of utter misery; they offered him only just food enough to maintain existence and they would repeatedly lead an elephant close up to him to frighten him, so that he might have peace in neither body nor mind.  After afflicting him in this way for a good while they placed him in prison.

The manner in which the Carthaginians dealt with their allies forms a chapter of great ruthlessness in this story.  They were not supplied with sufficient wealth to pay them what they had originally promised, and dismissed them with the understanding that they would pay them their wages before very long.  To the men who escorted the allies, however, they issued orders to put them ashore on a desert island and quietly sail away.  As to Xanthippus, one story is that they drowned him, attacking him in boats after his boat had departed:  the other is that they gave him an old ship which was in no wise seaworthy but had been newly covered over with pitch outside, that it might sink quite of itself; and that he, aware of the fact, got aboard a different ship and so was saved.  Their reason for doing this was to avoid seeming to have been preserved by his ability; for they thought that once he had perished the renown of his deeds would also perish.

VIII, 14.—­The people of Rome were grieved at the turn of events and more especially because they were looking for the Carthaginians to sail against Rome itself.  For this reason they carefully guarded Italy and hastily sent to the Romans in Sicily and Libya the consuls Marcus AEmilius and Fulvius Paetinus.[21] They after sailing to Sicily and garrisoning the positions there started for Libya, but were overtaken by a storm and carried to Cossura.  They ravaged the island and put it in charge of a garrison, then sailed onward again.  Meanwhile a fierce naval battle with the Carthaginians had taken place.  The latter were struggling to eject the Romans entirely from their native land, and the Romans to save the remnants of their soldiers who had been left in hostile territory.  In the midst of a close battle the Romans in Aspis suddenly attacked the Carthaginians in ships from the rear, and by getting them between two forces overcame them.  Later the Romans also won an infantry engagement and took many prisoners, whose lives they saved because of Regulus and those captured with him.  They made several raids and then sailed to Sicily.  After encountering a storm, however, and losing many of their number, they sailed for home with the ships that remained.

[Footnote 21:  Zonaras spells Plaetinus.]