Regarding Marcus Atilius Regulus

[SigniferOne]

Unsurprising in the light of Polybius' avowed purpose of historyII.56)

"A historical author should not try to thrill his readers by such exaggerated pictures, nor should he, like a tragic poet, try to imagine the probable utterances of his characters or reckon up all the consequences probably incidental to the occurrences with which he deals, but simply record what really happened and what really was said

So given Polybius' attitude, and stance, how do you square his recording of the 10 prisoners of Hannibal, his eulogy of Fabius, and other notables? Indeed Polybius' history may be seen as chock-full of Roman virtues (in which Scipio is just a tiny, tiny piece).

Again a double-standard ought to be avoided. If we praise the 'rationalistic' Polybius for 'ignoring' the Regulus story as being untrue, then we should consider the story of the 10 prisoners as of very likely veracity.

No matter how we dice it, Romans simply had a record for precisely the sort of behavior that the Regulus story described.