Gaius Atilius Regulus (consul 225 BC)
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Gaius Atilius Regulus (killed 225 BC at Telamon in battle) was one of the two Roman consuls who fought a Celtic invasion of Italy in 225–224 BC; he was killed in battle and beheaded. Atilius came from a prominent family of consuls for four generations; the family originally hailed from southern Italy.
Atilius was a younger son of the Roman hero Marcus Atilius Regulus, the consul captured during the First Punic War. His elder brother, Marcus Atilius Regulus, was Roman consul for the year 227 BC, together with Publius Valerius Flaccus, and consul suffectus for 217 replacing Gaius Flaminius and later censor. An uncle of the same name was also twice consul during the First Punic War.[1]
Atilius' father Marcus died by 255 in the failed invasion of Africa. Another version, debated subsequently by historians moves his death to 250 after an act of great self-sacrifice (some modern historians believe Roman accounts of his self-sacrifice and barbaric death to be invention and propaganda). His mother Marcia allegedly tortured two Punic prisoners to death in revenge. According to Livy, he had at least two surviving sons and one surviving daughter when he returned to Carthage.
Military career
Atilius was elected consul in 225 as the plebeian consul with the patrician Lucius Aemilius Papus, and was sent to quell a revolt in Sardinia which he quickly accomplished. He then returned to the Italian mainland to fight the Gauls, and fell in the Battle of Telamon.
