ted some Roman ships which put into their gulf, and then insulted
the ambassador who was sent to complain. Then when the terrible Romans
were found to be really coming to revenge their honor, the Tarentines
took fright, and sent to beg Pyrrhus to come to their aid.

He readily accepted the invitation, and coming to Italy with 28,000 men
and twenty elephants, hoped to conquer the whole country; but he found
the Tarentines not to be trusted, and soon weary of entertaining him,
while they could not keep their promises of aid from the other Greeks of
Italy.

[Illustration: PYRRHUS.]

The Romans marched against him, and there was a great battle on the
banks of the river Siris, where the fighting was very hard, but when the
elephants charged the Romans broke and fled, and were only saved by
nightfall from being entirely destroyed. So great, however, had been
Pyrrhus' loss that he said, "Such another victory, and I shall have to
go back alone to Epirus."

He thought he had better treat with the Romans, and sent his favorite
counsellor Kineas to offer to make peace, provided the Romans would
promise safety to his Italian allies, and presents were sent to the
senators and their wives to induce them to listen favorably. People in
ancient Greece expected such gifts to back a suit; but Kineas found that
nobody in Rome would hear of being bribed, though many were not
unwilling to make peace. Blind old Appius Claudius, who had often been
consul, caused himself to be led into the Senate to oppose it, for it
was hard to his pride to make peace as defeated men. Kineas was much
struck with Rome, where he found a state of things like the best days of
Greece, and, going back to his master, told him that the senate-house
was like a temple, and those who sat there like an assembly of kings,
and that he feared they were fighting with the Hydra of Lerna, for as
soon as they had destroyed one Roman army another had sprung up in its
place.

However, the Romans wanted to treat about the prisoners Pyrrhus had
taken, and they sent Caius Fabricius to the Greek camp for the purpose.
Kineas reported him to be a man of no wealth, but esteemed as a good
soldier and an honest man. Pyrrhus tried to make him take large
presents, but nothing would Fabricius touch; and then, in the hope of
alarming him, in the middle of a conversation the hangings of one side
of the tent suddenly fell, and disclosed the biggest of all the
elephants, who waved his trunk