Noctes Atticae

Gellius, Aulus

Gellius, Aulus. The Attic Nights of Aulus Gellius. Rolfe, John C., translator. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press; William Heinemann, 1927 (printing).

An account, taken from the works of Tubero, of a serpent of unprecedented length.

TUBERO in his Histories has recorded [*](Fr. 8, Peter2.) that in the first Punic war the consul Atilius Regulus, when encamped at the Bagradas river in Africa, [*](In 256 B.C.) fought a stubborn and fierce battle with a single serpent of extraordinary size, which had its lair in that region; that in a mighty struggle with the entire army the reptile was attacked for a long time with hurling engines and catapults; and that when it was finally killed, its skin, a hundred and twenty feet long, was sent to Rome.