Chapter X

WAR WITH PYRRHUS-UNION WITH ITALY

T

280-268 B.C.

HE preceding chapter presented the chief features of that career of conquest which left Rome without a rival in Italy. But before her position was firmly and permanently established, and before the various Italian races were united under her rule, one more step remained, and one more struggle had to be decided. The interest of this final phase in the subjugation of Italy is chiefly due to the romantic charm of the name of Pyrrhus. The personal qualities and adventurous enterprises of Pyrrhus himself cannot but excite our imagination and kindle our sympathies. Of still greater moment is the fact that this was the first occasion on which Roman and Greek influences met in conflict; that from Pyrrhus date Rome's direct relations with Greece; that the struggle between phalanxes and cohorts, between a mercenary army and a militia, between military monarchy and senatorial government, between individual talent and national vigor, was first fought out in the battles between Pyrrhus and the Roman generals. The victory on this occasion, as on all others, rested with Roman arms, but the victory was of a different character from that over Gauls and Phoenicians; for in the end the subtle charm of Hellenic ideas and Hellenic life amply avenged the physical and political inferiority of the Greek to the Roman.

For the sake of chronological sequence it will be well to reach the causes which brought Pyrrhus to Italy before we narrate his previous career or estimate his position in history.

The peace with Samnium had scarce been concluded when the storm broke out afresh, and this time from a new quarter. The Romans had granted the Lucanians, in consideration of their services in the Samnite war, the Greek cities in their territory. In consequence of this, Thurii, among other cities, was attacked by the Lucanians and Bruttians, and reduced to great extremities. Thurii appealed for protection to Rome; and Rome, feeling that the

285-281 B.C.

fortress of Venusia enabled her to dispense with the Lucanian alliance, granted the appeal. The Lucanians and Bruttians, thus foiled by the Romans, proceeded to form a new coalition against their old allies, and at the same time opened the campaign by a fresh attack on Thurii about 285 B.C. This coalition was at once joined by the Etruscans, Gauls, Umbrians, and Samnites. The last-named, exhausted and hemmed in on all sides as they were, could render but little assistance. But in the north, under the walls of Arretium, the Roman army, led by the praetor Lucius Caecilius, was annihilated by the Celtic Senones, who were in the pay of the Etruscans.

As reprisals a terrible revenge was executed on the Senones in 283 B.C., by the consul Publius Cornelius Dolabella, who carried fire and sword through their territory, and completely expelled the whole Celtic tribe from Italy. Their Celtic kinsmen and neighbors, the Boii, at once joined the Etruscans, and a mighty combined army marched to wreak vengeance on Rome; but two battles, one near Lake Vadimo in 283 B.C., and another near Populonia in the following year, crushed this combination, and caused the Boii to conclude a separate peace with Rome. The Romans were now free to prosecute with vigor the war in southern Italy. Thurii was relieved and the Lucanians utterly defeated in 282 B.C.; the most important places-Locri, Croton, Thurii, and Rhegium -were garrisoned. That part of the Adriatic coast which had been occupied by the Senones was secured by a colony planted in the seaport of Sena, the former Senonian capital. A Roman fleet sailed from the Tyrrhene Sea to take up its station in the Adriatic, and, on its way, anchored in the harbor of Tarentum. The time had at last arrived for the supine people of Tarentum to shake off their lethargy; but their awakening came too late. Old treaties had forbidden Roman men-of-war from sailing beyond the promontory of Lacinium. Fiery appeals by mob-orators excited the Tarentine multitude to such a degree of senseless passion that it rushed down to the harbor, fell upon the unsuspecting Romans, and seized their ships and crews after a sharp struggle. The wanton outrage was followed up by the surprise of Thurii and the severe punishment of its inhabitants. Notwithstanding this violent breach of all civilized law, the Romans displayed great moderation and forbearance in the terms they offered Tarentum. But all negotiations failed, and the Roman consul, Lucius Aemilius, entered Tarentine

320-287 B.C.

territory in 281 B.C. It was clear that Tarentum could not resist Rome single-handed, and the fear of the demagogues as to the vengeance which Rome would exact drove them to urge the completion of the alliance with Pyrrhus on the terms proposed by the Epirot king.

At this point we must revert to the previous history of the man whose name has cast a halo of romance upon this war. Born in 320 B.C., Pyrrhus, when but six years old, was by his father's downfall deprived of his hereditary throne among the Molossians of Epirus, and subjected to the many vicissitudes that befell all those engaged in Macedonian politics. Trained in the campaigns of the veteran Antigonus, one of Alexander's chief generals, universally admired by the Alexandrian court of Ptolemy, whither the battle of Ipsus brought him as a hostage, he was restored to his native land and kingdom of Epirus in 296 B.C., through the influence of Ptolemy, who wished to counteract the growing power of the Macedonian ruler, Demetrius Poliorcetes. Aided by the brave Epirots, whose loyalty and enthusiasm were fired by their young ruler, "the eagle of Epirus," as they styled him, extended his dominions. When Demetrius was driven from his throne in 287 B.C., Pyrrhus was summoned to wear the royal diadem of Philip and of Alexander.

No worthier successor could have been found. But Macedonian jealousy, and that national feeling which could not brook a foreign leader, caused him to resign the kingdom after a short reign of seven months. The colorless life of an Epirot king could not satisfy the ambition of such a man as Pyrrhus. Conscious of his great powers as a general, fired with a desire to imitate the great Alexander, Pyrrhus eagerly embraced the opportunity that now offered itself of founding an Hellenic empire in the West. In estimating the possibilities of success, and the historical position of Pyrrhus himself, we cannot but feel that the attempt to draw a comparison between him and Alexander completely fails. Alexander was at the head of a powerful and well-officered Macedonian army; he was the foremost general and most gifted statesman of his time; his own dominions were secured by the powerful army he left behind him; the foes he went to encounter were such as, long inured to despotism, knew nothing of national independence and national vigor, and regarded with indifference a change of despots. In the case of Pyrrhus none of these advantages existed.

281-280 B.C.

Despite his noble descent, his strategic ability, his pure and chivalrous nature, he was but a soldier of fortune, a king of mountaintribes, a man whose chances of success depended on mercenaries and foreign alliances, and on his ability to keep together a coalition of secondary states. Wide-reaching as was his scheme of founding a great Hellenic empire in the West, it was the unreal dream of a romantic adventurer, not the possible and practicable aim of a powerful conqueror and statesman.

When once Tarentum had signed the treaty with Pyrrhus, the arrival of Cineas, the confidential adviser of Pyrrhus, and of his general, Milo, in 281 B.C., with three thousand Epirots, put an end to all further vacillation. Pyrrhus himself landed early in the following year, with a mixed force of various Greek tribes, amounting in all to about twenty thousand infantry, two thousand archers, five hundred slingers, three thousand cavalry, and twenty elephants. The boasts which the Tarentine envoys had made, of the huge confederate army ready to take the field in Italy, were soon proved to be utterly fallacious. In the north, the Etruscans alone were still in arms, but misfortune attended every effort they made. The Tarentines, who had hoped that Pyrrhus would take all the blows while they shared the spoil, found their master in the eagle of Epirus. They were called upon to serve; and the foreign soldiers were quartered in their houses, and foreign guards set over their gates. The strictest military government everywhere prevailed; and all the clubs, theaters, and amusements of the pleasure-loving Tarentines were ruthlessly suspended.

Special exertions were made by Rome to meet the new danger. In 280 B.C., on the banks of the Siris, near Heraclea, the Roman consul, Publius Laevinus, first measured swords with a Greek army under the greatest general of the day. After a stubborn contest, varied by many vicissitudes of fortune, the elephants of Pyrrhus decided the issue. The losses of the Romans, estimated from fifteen to twenty thousand, were almost equaled by those of Pyrrhus. But the value of winning the first battle was at once shown by the fact that the Lucanians, Bruttians, Samnites, and all the Greek cities joined Pyrrhus. The Latins, however, remained firm, and the frontier fortress, Venusia, although completely hemmed in by enemies, refused to desert Rome. Pyrrhus saw that his hopes lay in securing favorable terms from the Romans, while the impressions of the battle of Heraclea were still vivid. He commissioned Cineas, whose

312-279 B.C.

rhetorical powers were famous, to go to Rome and demand the freedom of all Greek towns, and the restitution of the territory taken from the Samnites, Daunians, Lucanians, and Bruttians. The leniency and respect shown by Pyrrhus towards his Roman prisoners, and the persuasive arts of Cineas, made the senate waver, but the undaunted energy of the blind and aged Appius Claudius, who had been censor in 312, and consul in 307 and 296 B.C., and who had caused himself to be carried into the senate-house at this critical moment, revived the true Roman spirit in the hearts of his audience. The proud answer was given that Rome could not negotiate with foreign troops as long as they were on Italian soil. This answer, then heard for the first time, passed thenceforth into a maxim of state.

Pyrrhus now marched upon Rome, hoping by this step to shake the allegiance of her allies and to terrify the capital. Roman courage, however, was proof alike against the flatteries of Cineas and the armed threats of Pyrrhus. No Latin ally, no Campanian Greek state joined him; moreover, the Etruscans at this time concluded peace with Rome, and thus set free the army of the consul Tiberius Coruncanius. Three armies, one in his rear under Laevinus, and two in the vicinity of the capital, barred his progress. After surprising Fregellae and reaching Anagnia, the king was forced to retrace his steps without striking a decisive blow. At the approach of winter he returned to his old quarters in Tarentum. In the spring of 279 B.C. Pyrrhus resumed the offensive, and met the Roman army in Apulia near Ausculum. The allied forces of Pyrrhus amounted to about seventy thousand infantry, eight thousand cavalry, and nineteen elephants. The Romans with their confederates were not inferior in number; and as a protection against the elephants they had invented a sort of war-chariot, armed with projecting iron poles and movable masts, capable of being lowered, and fitted with an iron spike. Pyrrhus also had copied the Roman system of maniples, and placed companies on the wings of the phalanx, with spaces between them, in imitation of the cohorts. For two days the battle raged; at last the elephants, as at Heraclea, forced back the Roman line, and Pyrrhus remained in possession of the field.

This defeat cost the Roman forces some six thousand lives; but Pyrrhus himself was wounded. Nor was the victory decisive enough to break up the Roman confederacy, and thus fur