nder did in the East, and
responded to the call of the Tarentines. Rome was not now to contend with
barbarians, but with Hellenes--with phalanxes and cohorts instead of a
militia--with a military monarchy and sustained by military science. He
landed, B.C. 281, on the Italian shores, with an army of twenty thousand
veterans in phalanx, two thousand archers, three thousand cavalry, and
twenty elephants. The Tarentine allies promised three hundred and fifty
thousand infantry and twenty thousand cavalry to support him. The Romans
strained every nerve to meet him before these forces could be collected
and organized. They marched with a force of fifty thousand men, larger
than a consular army, under Laevinius and AEmilius. They met the enemy on
the plain of Heraclea. Seven times did the legion and phalanx drive one or
the other back. But the reserves of Pyrrhus, with his elephants, to which
the Romans were unaccustomed, decided the battle. Seven thousand Romans
were left dead on the field, and an immense number were wounded or taken
prisoners. But the battle cost Pyrrhus four thousand of his veterans,
which led him to say that another such victory would be his ruin. The
Romans retreated into Apulia, but the whole south of Italy, Lucania,
Samnium, the Bruttii, and the Greek cities were the prizes which the
conqueror won.

(M824) Pyrrhus then offered peace, since he only aimed to establish a
Greek power in Southern Italy. The Senate was disposed to accept it, but
the old and blind Appius Claudius was carried in his litter through the
crowded forum--as Chatham, in after times, bowed with infirmities and age,
was carried to the parliament--and in a vehement speech denounced the
peace, and infused a new spirit into the Senate. The Romans refused to
treat with a foreign enemy on the soil of Italy. The ambassador of
Pyrrhus, the orator Cineas, returned to tell the conqueror that to fight
the Romans was to fight a hydra--that their city was a temple, and their
senators were kings.

(M825) Two new legions were forthwith raised to re-enforce Laevinius, while
Pyrrhus marched direct to Rome. But when he arrived within eighteen miles,
he found an enemy in his front, while Laevinius harassed his rear. He was
obliged to retreat, and retired to Tarentum with an immense booty. The
next year he opened the campaign in Apulia; but he found an enemy of
seventy thousand infantry and eight thousand horse--a force equal to his
own. The first battle