Aulus Gellius (c. 125 – after 180 AD) — A Roman whose only book, Attic Nights, is a compilation of notes on grammar, geometry, philosophy, history and many other subjects.

Attic Nights
Book 7, Chapter 3

An account, taken from the works of Tubero, of a serpent of unprecedented length.

1  Tubero in his Histories has recorded that in the first Punic war the consul Atilius Regulus, when encamped at the Bagradas river in Africa, fought a stubborn and fierce battle with a single serpent of extraordinary size, which had its lair in that region; that in a mighty struggle with the entire army the reptile was attacked for a long time with hurling engines and catapults; and that when it was finally killed, its skin, a hundred and twenty feet long, was sent to Rome.