Marcus Calpurnius Flamma was a Roman military leader and hero in the First Punic War

First Punic War

The First Punic War was the first of three wars fought between Ancient Carthage and the Roman Republic. For 23 years, the two powers struggled for supremacy in the western Mediterranean Sea, primarily on the Mediterranean island of Sicily and its surrounding waters but also to a lesser extent in...

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Flamma was a military tribune

Military tribune

A military tribune was an officer of the Roman army who ranked below the legate and above the centurion...

 who led 300 volunteers on a suicide mission to free a consular army from a defile in which they had been trapped by the Carthaginians. Flamma was found gravely wounded under a pile of bodies but survived.

According to Livy

Livy

Titus Livius — known as Livy in English — was a Roman historian who wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people. Ab Urbe Condita Libri, "Chapters from the Foundation of the City," covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome well before the traditional foundation in 753 BC...

, Consul Aulus Atilius Calatinus

Aulus Atilius Calatinus

Aulus Atilius Calatinus , was a politician and general in Ancient Rome. He was the first Roman dictator to lead an army outside Italy , when he led his army into Sicily. He was consul in 258 BC and again in 254 BC, a praetor and triumphator in 257 BC, and finally a censor in 247 BC...

 "carelessly led his troops to a place where they were surrounded by Carthaginians." Flamma asked for 300 volunteers for a diversionary attack.

Livy writes:

...Calpurnius Flamma, in the first Punic war, when we were young men, spoke to his three hundred volunteers whom he was leading to the capture of a height situated in the very centre of the enemy's position: 'Let us,' he exclaimed, 'die, my men, and by our death rescue our blockaded legions from their peril'....

Frontinus writes:

This man, seeing that the army had entered a valley, the sides and all commanding parts of which the enemy had occupied, asked and received from the consul three hundred soldiers. After exhorting these to save the army by their valour, he hastened to the centre of the valley. To crush him and his followers, the enemy descended from all quarters, but, being held in check in a long and fierce battle, they thus afforded the consul an opportunity to extricate his army.

Pliny the Elder

Pliny the Elder

Gaius Plinius Secundus , better known as Pliny the Elder, was a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher, as well as naval and army commander of the early Roman Empire, and personal friend of the emperor Vespasian...

 states that he was awarded the Grass Crown

Grass Crown

The Grass Crown or Blockade Crown was the highest and rarest of all military decorations in the Roman Republic and early Roman empire. It was presented only to a general, commander, or officer whose actions saved the legion or the entire army...

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