Marcus Atilius Regulus (consul 227 BC) army of 80,000 Romans and allies was amassed together to smash the Carthaginian army under Hannibal. The historian Polybius records that both he and Servilius died fighting bravely at the Battle of Cannae. However, there was a Marcus Atilius Regulus who was Praetor Urbanus (and later also Peregrinus), but it is thought that this person is actually a textual mis-reading of the name Marcus Aemilius Lepidus. It is unlikely that the aged, former consul would become a Praetor again three years after Cannae. His younger brother Gaius was killed fighting the Gauls at the Battle of Telamon in 225 BC,
Socii to raise a double-strength army of four legions and four "alae" e.g. at the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, where each Consul commanded an army of about 40,000 men. Polybius states that the Romans and their allies could draw on a grand total of 770,000 men fit to bear arms (of which 70,000 met the property requirement for cavalry) in 225 BC, shortly before the start of the Second Punic War. The Romans reportedly asked their allies for an urgent register of all "men fit to bear arms" for a "tumultus Gallicus". Polybius' subtotals, however, are garbled, as he