d in the waves for ever the memory of
his services, and their horrid ingratitude to him.(678)

"This battle," says Polybius,(679) "though not so considerable as many
others, may yet furnish very salutary instructions; which," adds that
author, "is the greatest benefit that can be reaped from the study of
history."

First, ought any man to put a great confidence in his good fortune, after
he has considered the fate of Regulus? That general, insolent with
victory, inexorable to the conquered, scarcely deigning to listen to them,
saw himself a few days after vanquished by them, and made their prisoner.
Hannibal suggested the same reflection to Scipio, when he exhorted him not
to be dazzled with the success of his arms. Regulus, said he, would have
been recorded as one of the most uncommon instances of valour and
felicity, had he, after the victory obtained in this very country, granted
our fathers the peace which they sued for. But putting no bounds to his
ambition and the insolence of success, the greater his prosperity, the
more ignominious was his fall.(680)

In the second place, the truth of the saying of Euripides is here seen in
its full extent, "That one wise head is worth a great many hands."(681) A
single man here changes the whole face of affairs. On one hand, he defeats
troops which were thought invincible; on the other, he revives the courage
of a city and an army, whom he had found in consternation and despair.

Such, as Polybius observes, is the use which ought to be made of the study
of history. For there being two ways of acquiring improvement and
instruction, first by one's own experience, and secondly by that of other
men; it is much more wise and useful to improve by other men's
miscarriages than by our own.

I return to Regulus, that I may here finish what relates to him; Polybius,
to our great disappointment, taking no further notice of that
general.(682)

(M112) After being kept some years in prison, he was sent to Rome to
propose an exchange of prisoners.(683) He had been obliged to take an
oath, that he would return in case he proved unsuccessful. He then
acquainted the senate with the subject of his voyage; and being invited by
them to give his opinion freely, he answered, that he could no longer do
it as a senator, having lost both this quality, and that of a Roman
citizen, from the time that he had fallen into the hands of his enemies;
but he did not refuse to offer his thoughts as a privat