Cayo or Gayo Atilio Régulo Serrano (in Latin, Gaius Atilius M. f.M. Regulus Serranus) was a politician and military of the Roman Republic that occupied the consulate in 257 and 250 a. C. His father and grandfather were also consuls. Public career
Regulus occupied the consulate for the first time in 257 a. C., along with patron Cneo Cornelio Blasión as colleague, during the first Punic war against Carthage. He defeated the Carthaginian fleet in the Aeolian Islands, although he also suffered considerable casualties. He managed to take possession of the islands Lípari and Mélite, which he destroyed by fire and sword. Upon his return to Rome, he received the honor of a naval triumph.
He was consul for the second time in 250 a. C., with Lucio Manlio Vulsón Longo as consular colleague. That year the Romans won a great victory with the conquest of Palermo under the command of proconsul Lucio Cecilio Metelo. Seeking the end of the war, Rome sent both consuls to Sicily with four legions and two hundred ships, with which they tried to take the city of Lilibeo, the most prized possession of Carthage in Sicily. However, they failed to take the city because of a storm and, after losing many men in the catastrophe, they were forced to turn the siege into a smaller blockade.
It was the first Atilio that took the cognomen Serrano.
This article incorporates a translation of the article «C. Atilius Regulus Serranus (4) "by William Smith of the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology edited by William Smith (1867), vol. 3, p. 644, currently in the public domain.
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