Battle of Tunis, 255 BC: Xanthippus, Regulus and the End of Rome's First Invasion of Africa

In 256 BC Rome carried its war against Carthage across the sea to Africa. For a few months the invasion looked like it would end the war. Then, in the spring of 255, a Greek soldier of fortune named Xanthippus took the Carthaginian army out onto open ground near Tunis and destroyed most of the Roman army. Modern writers call the fight the Battle of Tunis, after the town Regulus held, and sometimes the Battle of the Bagradas, after the river where ancient writers put his camp. This is the story of the campaign, of each side's choices, of the battle itself and of the famous legend of Regulus that grew out of it. It belongs to our account of the Punic Wars and of Rome against Carthage.²

Why was the Battle of Tunis fought?

The First Punic War had been fought in and around Sicily since 264 BC. In 256 the consuls Marcus Atilius Regulus and Lucius Manlius Vulso decided to take it to Carthage's own territory. They beat the Carthaginian fleet off Cape Ecnomus on the south coast of Sicily, crossed to the Hermaeum promontory, today's Cape Bon, and sailed round it to the town of Aspis, which the Romans called Clupea. They took it and made it their base.³

Aspis is modern Kelibia, on the northeastern coast of the Cape Bon peninsula. Tunisia's national heritage agency describes a fortress founded by Sicilian Greeks at the end of the fourth century BC and soon taken over by Carthage, whose Greek name, meaning shield, the Romans translated as Clipea. Florus calls it a citadel or watchtower jutting out from the Carthaginian coast.⁴

From Aspis the Romans plundered the rich farmland of the peninsula, taking cattle and thousands of captives. Then orders came from the Senate: one consul was to stay in Africa and the other was to bring the fleet home. Manlius sailed for Rome with the booty and the prisoners, and Regulus stayed behind with 40 ships, 15,000 infantry and 500 cavalry.⁵

What happened at Adys and in the peace talks?

Carthage named two generals, Hasdrubal son of Hanno and Bostar, and recalled Hamilcar from Sicily with 5,000 infantry and 500 cavalry. When Regulus besieged the town of Adys, perhaps Uthina, modern Oudna, the three generals camped on a steep hill above him, where their cavalry and elephants were useless. Regulus attacked and took their camp.⁶

The routed army fled to Carthage. Regulus advanced to Tunis, close to the capital, and settled there for the winter. The Numidians had risen against Carthage at the same time, and after further successes Regulus, sure that the city was hard pressed, offered to negotiate.⁷

Polybius says Regulus wanted to finish the war before a successor arrived from Rome and took the credit. Only Cassius Dio, in a surviving fragment of his history, gives the terms: Carthage was to give up Sicily and Sardinia, free Roman prisoners without ransom and pay for its own, pay Rome's war costs and a yearly tribute, make war and peace only with Roman consent and keep a single warship. Bruno Bleckmann notes that Regulus could hardly ask less than Sicily and Sardinia after Rome's great sacrifices, and H. H. Scullard thought Rome would in any case have insisted on all of Sicily, which Carthage could not give up.⁸

Diodorus, a Greek of Sicily, makes the talks a lesson in arrogance. He says the envoy Hanno, son of Hamilcar, asked for moderation, and Regulus told the Carthaginians to accept whatever he granted as a gift, since they could resist neither on land nor at sea. Bernard Mineo notes that Diodorus presents Regulus' later capture as fair punishment for that pride. The Carthaginian council chose to fight on.⁹

How did Carthage regroup?

Carthage's defeat at Adys had a clear cause. Diodorus says its generals clung to the security of the hill instead of fighting on the plain, where they would have used every part of their army. At the same time Carthage faced an invasion by its Numidian neighbors to the south.¹⁰

But the city was far from finished. Hoyos stresses that Regulus' army could not take Carthage, that winter had made supplying it by sea hard, and that spring would let it be supplied again. Inside the walls Carthage was assembling fresh levies and mercenaries from Spain, Gaul and Greece. Diodorus adds that, in their fear, the Carthaginians revived sacrifices to the gods neglected for years.¹¹

Who was Xanthippus?

Among the new mercenaries was Xanthippus, a Spartan brought up in the Spartan training with a fair amount of experience of war. According to Polybius he told friends that Carthage had been beaten by its own generals, not by the Romans; the government heard him, and he argued that the army should march, camp and fight on level ground, where its cavalry and elephants would count.¹²

The generals handed him the army. Polybius describes him drilling it outside the walls with the proper words of command until the soldiers cheered him and demanded battle. Hoyos calls this Greek special pleading: Hamilcar was an experienced general, and Xanthippus' advice to fight on open ground was hardly revolutionary. The Italian historian Gaetano De Sanctis likewise thought his merits had been exaggerated by Greek writers.¹³

Who actually commanded is disputed. Polybius and Diodorus keep the three Carthaginian generals in nominal command; Zonaras says Xanthippus took absolute authority and Hamilcar stood aside. Cicero names Xanthippus as the leader and Hamilcar as the commander in chief. Later Roman writers turned the hired soldier into a general sent by Sparta, and Orosius even calls him king of the Spartans.¹⁴

How big were the armies at Tunis?

Polybius gives the Carthaginian army as 12,000 infantry, 4,000 cavalry and very nearly 100 elephants. Goldsworthy thinks the foot included Hamilcar's mercenaries from Sicily, newly hired Greeks and a phalanx of Carthaginian citizen spearmen, and that the army probably at least matched Regulus' in size. De Sanctis suspected the figures were too low, perhaps reduced by the pro-Carthaginian historian Philinus, whom Polybius used; he put Regulus' army at no more than 20,000.¹⁵

Regulus had received no reinforcements, and his army had shrunk after a year of campaigning and garrison duty. Hoyos puts it under 15,000 men and calls the 30,000 of late Roman accounts fanciful. Appian, writing in the second century AD, gives Regulus 30,000 men. On one point everyone agrees: the Carthaginians had far more cavalry, and the Romans had nothing to answer the elephants.¹⁶

How was the Battle of Tunis fought?

Hoyos dates the battle to late May or June 255 and places it somewhere between Adys and the Cape Bon peninsula. The Romans, surprised to see the enemy marching and camping on the plain, camped about ten stades, a little over a mile, from them. The next day the Carthaginian generals gave Xanthippus a free hand, and both armies drew up for battle.¹⁷

Xanthippus put the elephants in a single line in front, with the Carthaginian citizen phalanx some way behind them. Mercenaries held the right of the infantry line, and the cavalry, with the most mobile mercenaries, stood on both wings. Facing the elephants, Regulus put his light troops in front and drew up the legions many maniples deep, with his few horsemen on the wings. Polybius judged the deep, short line sensible against elephants and a blunder against the far stronger cavalry.¹⁸

Scholars still argue about what many maniples deep means. Goldsworthy reports John Lazenby's view that the legions formed about six lines with the gaps closed, but prefers to read it as the usual three lines with each maniple drawn up in more ranks than normal, so that frightened men in front could not easily run.¹⁹

The Carthaginian cavalry swept the outnumbered Roman horse away at once. On the Roman left, troops sidestepping the elephants routed the mercenaries on the Carthaginian right and chased them back to their camp. In the center the elephants trampled the front ranks; the depth of the formation held for a time, but the men who forced their way past the animals ran into the fresh phalanx and were cut down.²⁰

Then the Carthaginian cavalry turned on the flanks and rear of the Roman infantry. Trapped on open ground, the Romans were trampled by elephants or shot down by horsemen whether they stood or fled. Diodorus preserves a story that Xanthippus rode up and down rallying fleeing infantry, and, when someone remarked that it was easy to urge others into danger from horseback, jumped down and went on foot. Regulus and about 500 men got away, but were soon caught.²¹

How many died at the Battle of Tunis?

Polybius says that only about 2,000 Romans were saved, the men of the left wing whose pursuit had carried them out of the main battle; they reached Aspis. Regulus and some 500 others were taken prisoner, and the rest died. The Carthaginians lost about 800 of the mercenaries who had faced the Roman left. De Sanctis notes that losses among their citizen infantry and cavalry must be added to that figure, but no source gives them.²²

The later Latin tradition adds a death toll. Eutropius gives the same 2,000 survivors and 500 prisoners and writes that 30,000 Romans were killed; Orosius says 30,000 soldiers fell in that one battle. Like the 30,000 men Appian gives Regulus, the figure goes back to the inflated army total that Hoyos and De Sanctis reject.²³

Why did Carthage win the Battle of Tunis?

The ancient writers drew moral lessons. Polybius uses Regulus as proof that one should distrust Fortune most in success, and quotes Euripides: one wise counsel conquers many hands. Diodorus praises Xanthippus' intelligence and concludes that skill overcomes brute force. Frontinus, collecting stratagems in the first century AD, says Xanthippus changed the course of the war simply by changing the ground.²⁴

Modern historians are more precise. Goldsworthy points out that the elephants did not win alone: the cavalry, which enveloped the Roman infantry, was just as important, and Regulus' small, deep army was easy to surround. Hoyos sees in Xanthippus' plan, holding the enemy center while the wings were swept away, the same idea Hannibal used at Cannae and Scipio at Zama.²⁵

Regulus made mistakes of his own. Bruno Bleckmann argues that the consul, wanting to finish the war under his own command, forced a battle on unfavorable terms without studying the new Carthaginian tactics. De Sanctis thought that the safer course was to wait in Tunis for reinforcements, and judged Regulus an ordinary Roman general who lacked the spark of genius the moment needed.²⁶

What happened after the Battle of Tunis?

The survivors held out in Aspis. Rome sent a relief fleet under the consuls of 255, Servius Fulvius Paetinus Nobilior and Marcus Aemilius Paullus, which raided the island of Cossura, beat a Carthaginian fleet off Cape Hermaeum and took off the garrison. Eutropius gives the fleet 300 ships and Polybius 350, a figure H. H. Scullard thought too high. On the way home, ignoring the advice of their pilots, the consuls sailed along the south coast of Sicily and were caught by a storm off Camarina; Eutropius says only 80 ships were saved.²⁷

The defeat ended Rome's first invasion of Africa. Diodorus says the Romans, who had been reputed the best infantry in the world, no longer dared to offer battle at the first chance, and Goldsworthy notes that for the next few years Roman armies in Sicily would not contest the open ground for fear of the elephants. For the rest of the war the Romans sent only raids against the African coast, never another invasion force.²⁸

What happened to Xanthippus?

Polybius says Xanthippus sailed home soon after the battle, wisely, because brilliant success in a foreign city breeds jealousy, and promises another account of his departure that does not survive. Zonaras tells two such stories: the Carthaginians either chased his ship and sank it, or gave him a leaky old vessel and he saved himself by boarding another. The Byzantine scholar Tzetzes, citing Diodorus, has him drowned in the Adriatic.²⁹

Modern scholars doubt the murder. Hoyos calls it a Roman fantasy of Punic perfidy and thinks Xanthippus went to work for the king of Egypt. Treccani allows that he may be the same Xanthippus to whom Ptolemy III of Egypt gave command of the lands beyond the Euphrates in 245 BC.³⁰

What happened to Regulus: history or legend?

Roman tradition gave Regulus a heroic end. The summary of Livy's lost book 18 says the Carthaginians sent him to Rome to negotiate peace or an exchange of prisoners, bound by an oath to return; he advised the Senate against both, went back, and was put to death. Florus has him die in prison or on the cross, his dignity untouched.³¹

The details grew with the telling. Aulus Gellius quotes two older historians: Tubero says the Carthaginians shut Regulus in darkness, then forced him to stare at the blazing sun with his eyelids sewn open, while Tuditanus says he was killed by being kept from sleep, and that the Senate then handed the noblest Carthaginian prisoners to Regulus' children, who tortured them to death. Cicero, too, says Regulus went back knowing that the most refined tortures awaited him, because he held an oath must be kept, and that he was killed by being kept awake.³²

A different story survives in Diodorus. Two eminent Carthaginian captives, Bodostor and Hamilcar, were given to Regulus' family as a guarantee for his good treatment. When Regulus died in captivity, his wife blamed neglect and had them shut up and starved until one died, and the tribunes and the Senate stepped in to save the other. Klebs judged this an old and genuine tradition.³³

Polybius, who draws a long moral from Regulus' fall, says nothing of an embassy or a martyr's death. Already in 1896 Elimar Klebs wrote in the great German classical encyclopedia that scholars agreed the torture story was a fable and that most rejected the embassy too. De Sanctis accepted the wife's revenge as credible but not the torture. Goldsworthy notes that some scholars see the torture legend as invented to excuse the family's cruelty, but thinks it safer to reject the whole tradition.³⁴

Gareth Williams describes Regulus' fate as embellished in the later literary tradition, and Treccani calls the torture story very doubtful. Yet the legend made Regulus a model of Roman good faith: Horace's ode 3.5 shows him pushing away his wife and little sons and hurrying back into exile, knowing what the torturer was preparing.³⁵

Artists kept the story alive. Benjamin West painted The Departure of Regulus in 1769 for George III, one of a set of history paintings for the King's private sitting room at Buckingham Palace, paired with his Oath of Hannibal. J. M. W. Turner's Regulus, painted in 1828 and reworked in 1837, is in Tate's collection in London.³⁶

Where was the Battle of Tunis fought?

No one knows exactly. Polybius says only that it was fought on level ground, and De Sanctis wrote that nothing is known of the site. Hoyos suggests that Regulus left the hilly country around Tunis, then a small town on the shore of its lake about 18 kilometers from Carthage, to look for open ground somewhere between Adys and Cape Bon.³⁷

The other name comes from the Bagradas, the river beside which, according to Zonaras and Orosius, Regulus pitched camp during the campaign. There, the story went, his soldiers fought a monstrous serpent that had been killing men as they drew water, and killed it with catapults; its skin, 120 feet long, was sent to Rome. The summary of Livy also mentions the serpent of portentous size.³⁸

The battle should not be confused with Regulus' victory at Adys in 256 BC, with Hamilcar Barca's victory over the rebel mercenaries near the Bagradas after 241 BC, or with the defeat of Caesar's officer Curio by King Juba in 49 BC, which Caesar places by the same river. For the rest of the war see Hamilcar Barca and the Battle of the Aegates Islands.³⁹