 Regulus agreed to accompany the consuls of 216 BC, Gaius Terentius Varro and Lucius Aemilius Paullus, along with the other surviving former consul of 217 BC, Gnaeus Servilius Geminus, when an 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.