Regulus, 1828-29, finished 1837. Oil on canvas, 91 x 124 cm. Tate Gallery, London

This is one of Turner’s gorgeous classical dreams. Splendid as Carthage probably was, it is scarcely probable that it ever equalled the magnifi­cence of this imaginary pile of buildings. As usual, Turner has chosen a scene from ancient history to give special meaning to his This time it is the departure of Marcus Attilius Regulus, the Roman general

Regulus was made Consul for the second time about 256 B.C., and with his colleague, Manlius Vulso, commanded in the first war against Carthage. He was made prisoner, and then sent to Rome by the Carthaginians, with an embassy, to make peace, and he bound himself by an oath to return if the terms were rejected. Not thinking it right to advise the abandonment of the war, he, regard­less of the entreaties of his family, and even of those of the senate and the people. urged its prosecution. This was eventually decided upon, and he returned with the irritated embassy to Carthage and certain death. He therefore, as a man who refused to purchase life by sacrificing his country or breaking his oath, was fully worthy of the commemoration which Turner bestowed upon him in this picture.

 In 1828 Turner expend some months in Rome. According to Sir Charles Eastlake, he began "eight or ten pictures and exhibited three including Regulus all in just over months." But "the pictures...were in fact not finished; nor could any of his exhibited pictures finished till he had worked on them when they were on the walls of the Royal Academy. Regulus was completed almost ten years after it was begun, in 1837. There is a painting by Thomas Fearnley (see Turner on Vanishing Day) showing Turner at work on the picture, as well as the following description by Sir John Gilbert, which go together with Rippingille's account of the artist's technique. 

He had been the Royal Academy all the morning, and seemed likely, judging by the state of the picture, to remain for the rest of the day. He was absorbed in his work, did not look about him, but kept on scumbling a lot of white into his picture -nearly all over it. The subject was a Claude-like composition, a bay or harbour-classic buildings on the banks of either side and in the centre the sun. The picture was a mass of red and. yellow in all varieties. Every object was in this fiery state. He had a large palette, nothing on it but a huge lump of flake white; he had two or three biggish hog tools to work with, and with these he was driving the white into all the hollows, and every part of the surface. . . . The picture gradually became wonderfully effective, just the effect of brilliant sunshine absorbing everything and throwing a misty haze over every object. Standing sideway of the canvas, I saw that the sun was a lump of white standing out like the boss of a shield.

 With time, however, the embossed sun has sunk in, or has been flattened out by some re-liner, but the blinding, dazzling sunlight remains. This is the real motif of the painting-the effect on one's eyes of staring for any length of time directly into the sun. But Turner needed a subject-something people would recognize and accept. A purely abstract study of brilliant light would have seemed bizarre and aberrant. He turned again to the Punic Wars, and depicted an episode from the life of Regulus, the Roman general who was defeated by the Carthaginians in 255 B.C. Sent to Rome on parole to negotiate peace, Regulus advised the senate not to accept the enemy's terms, and then returned to Carthage, refusing to break his parole. His troops are shown embarking on the return voyage. He was subsequently tortured to death by his captors. The tragedy appealed to Turner's pessimism, for he saw in the fate of Regulus a further example of "the fallacies of hope," the title of his unfinished poem.