d there and marched to Apulia, The
Bruttians, Lucanians, and Samnites joined Pyrrhus unmolested. With
the exception of Rhegium, which pined under the oppression of the
Campanian mutineers, the whole of the Greek cities joined the king,
and Locri even voluntarily delivered up to him the Roman garrison; in
his case they were persuaded, and with reason, that they would not be
abandoned to the Italians. The Sabellians and Greeks thus passed over
to Pyrrhus; but the victory produced no further effect. The Latins
showed no inclination to get quit of the Roman rule, burdensome as it
might be, by the help of a foreign dynast. Venusia, although now
wholly surrounded by enemies, adhered with unshaken steadfastness to
Rome. Pyrrhus proposed to the prisoners taken on the Siris, whose
brave demeanour the chivalrous king requited by the most honourable
treatment, that they should enter his army in accordance with
the Greek fashion; but he learned that he was fighting not with
mercenaries, but with a nation. Not one, either Roman or Latin,
took service with him.

Attempts at Peace

Pyrrhus offered peace to the Romans. He was too sagacious a soldier
not to recognize the precariousness of his footing, and too skilled a
statesman not to profit opportunely by the moment which placed him in
the most favourable position for the conclusion of peace. He now
hoped that under the first impression made by the great battle on the
Romans he should be able to secure the freedom of the Greek towns in
Italy, and to call into existence between them and Rome a series of
states of the second and third order as dependent allies of the new
Greek power; for such was the tenor of his demands: the release of all
Greek towns--and therefore of the Campanian and Lucanian towns in
particular--from allegiance to Rome, and restitution of the territory
taken from the Samnites, Daunians, Lucanians, and Bruttians, or in
other words especially the surrender of Luceria and Venusia. If a
further struggle with Rome could hardly be avoided, it was not
desirable at any rate to begin it till the western Hellenes should
be united under one ruler, till Sicily should be acquired and perhaps
Africa be conquered.

Provided with such instructions, the Thessalian Cineas, the
confidential minister of Pyrrhus, went to Rome. That dexterous
negotiator, whom his contemporaries compared to Demosthenes so far as
a rhetorician might be compared to a statesman and the ministe