I'm reading Polybius again (I'd forgotten just how gripping he is) specifically the first Roman landing on the shores of Africa in about 261 BC in the 1st Punic War. The Romans laid siege to and captured many Carthaginian towns and won significant victories first at sea in the battle of Ecnomus and then besting the Carthaginian troops on land. The consul Gaius Atilius Regulus now had the advantage and the chances are he might have taken Carthage itself. The problem as he saw it was that it would have taken too long. New consuls were about to be elected, one or both would be in Africa before he could take the city, he would lose his command and the glory of any victory would belong to them rather than him. Thus he decided that a speedy end to the war through negotiations would mean that he could claim the credit for subduing Carthage with a treaty that among other harsh conditions included her abandoning Sardinia and Sicily and handing over her navy. Things would not turn out as he hoped but the point is that the attack on Carthage was deferred because of politics.
This seems to me a terrible flaw in Roman governance. How many other bad decisions had been made simply because a consul acted hastily because a new consul was about to take office? Did the Romans recognize the inherent danger in this? Were any precautions ever taken to prevent consuls from acting foolishly in the last weeks of their consulate simply because of their own vanity? Did any Roman or Greek writers ever discuss this potential problem?
Polybius? Gripping?
In 256, when Regulus held his second consulship (you've got your dates muddled), massive, overseas war was a concept new to the Romans. In 256 the Romans had no overseas provinces, and the system of promagistrates with imperium of the first century had not yet taken shape. The first proconsulship by tradition was in 326, but they were uncommon until the Second Punic War, during which the proconsulship was granted to a private citizen for the first time in 211. The need for magistrates holding imperium for more than one year had never before presented itself. Indeed, in the rare cases in which multi-year action had to take place (as at Veii) usually it was perfectly reasonable for several consuls to take over the work as years went on--if Regulus was so impatient as Polybius describes this is a failing more on his part than on the regular cycle of consuls. Moreover, Polybius describes Regulus as being impatient and unwilling to hand over success to his consular successor, thus beginning a series of botched negotiations and eventually being beaten by Xanthippus. Polybius does not seem to realize that by any reasonable estimation an attempt at negotiation was the right thing to do. The Romans had won the field, they could sue for terms. The capture of Carthage had never been at stake, and opening the scope of the war (and its consequences) would have been a major undertaking. Likewise, Livy has Hannibal and Scipio discussing terms of peace (in what must be an invented series of speeches) before Zama, which Scipio finds totally unsatisfactory. This would have been rather normal practice. Moreover, Polybius' account does not agree with what is in Livy's Periochae. The Periochae state:
Et cum aliquot proeliis bene adversus Carthaginienses pugnasset, successorque ei a senatu prospere bellum gerenti non mitteretur, id ipsum per litteras ad senatum scriptas questus est, in quibus inter causas petendi successoris erat quod agellus eius a mercennariis desertus esset
And though he had fought well in several battles against the Carthaginians yet a successor was not sent by the senate to him, though he was waging the war successfully. This he complained about through his dispatches to the senate, in which he included among the reasons for his seeking a successor that his farm plot was being deserted by its workers.
That's a very different account of Regulus' actions, one in which Regulus wished to prosecute further a war which the senate considered already won, only to suffer a serious reversal when he did so. It supports the view that Regulus should have opened negotiations, as the Carthaginians were suing for peace and the senate clearly did not wish to prosecute the war further. Polybius appears to have possibly misunderstood something, not at all unusual in Polybius, or wishes to present a particular view of Regulus' character, and thus leaves part of the reasoning for Regulus' actions, incorrectly claiming that Regulus feared for his successor's claiming all the glory, when there was no successor.
Thank you both for your most helpful replies. So the Roman aid for the Mamertines and subsequent expedition to Africa did not take place in 261? I took the date from Polybius or rather his editor. Thank you so much, Xenophon, for pointing me to the Periochae, I'd forgotten that ancient summaries of Livy are still extant. I've just found them online. Your explanation that this was a personal flaw in Regulus rather than a failing in the consular system is persuasive, also that the capture of Carthage had never been on the cards and a negotiated peace was the right move. The Periochae certainly cast events in a very different light. As for gripping, I always find myself being carried away when I read a good ancient or modern historian, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, Gibbon, I find them all unputdownable. I've read them all my life (I'm 69) but as an amateur with no degrees in history. Which is why I was so delighted to find this subreddit where I can run things by those far more knowledgeable than myself.
Romulus_et_Remus, your point about the balancing power of the Senate was enlightening and the story of Lucullus most interesting, serving to illustrate the constraints that Roman officials including consuls and praetors had to act under. I know dictators had less constraints but could they too be held to account by the Senate if things went wrong? At least the Romans didn't crucify their failed generals. I'd forgotten just how readily the Carthaginians did this. Certainly the Romans would sometimes execute their generals for a defeat but it doesn't seem they did it with as much regularity as the Carthaginian senate. (Is that right? What did they call their governing body?)
Once again my thanks to you both for your instructive answers. I hope to learn much from this subreddit, especially as I'm embarking on a return voyage to the ancient and modern historians. I've just finished Gibbon, I'm in the midst of Polybius, with Livy, Sallust, Tacitus, Plutarch, Arrian, Macaulay and others to follow. I promise you I shall be a veritable nuisance in the foreseeable future, I'll have so many questions as I read. In my previous reading I did not have the benefit of the internet. I intend to make full use of it this time around.
Again my thanks to both.