re
narrow, he sent to his son Helenus, who had been left with a large
force without the city, ordering him to break down a part of the wall,
and protect the fugitives, if they were pressed by the enemy. But in
the hurry and confusion the messenger did not clearly explain his
orders, and by some mistake the young Helenus took all the remaining
elephants and the best troops, and marched through the gate with them
to help his father. Pyrrhus was already beginning to retire. As long
as he fought in the market-place, where there was ample room, he
effected his retreat in good order, and kept off the assailants by
occasional movements in advance. But when his troops began to march
down the narrow street leading to the gate, they were met face to face
by the reinforcement coming to their assistance. At this crisis some
of the soldiers refused to obey Pyrrhus's order to retreat, while
others who were willing enough to do so could not stem the tide of men
marching in from the gate. At the gate itself too the largest of the
elephants had fallen sideways and lay there bellowing, blocking up
the way for those who were trying to pass out, while one of the
elephants of the reinforcing party, called "the Conqueror," was
looking for his master, who had fallen off his back mortally wounded.
Charging violently back against the surging tide of fugitives, the
faithful beast trampled down friends and foes alike until he found his
master's body, when he seized it with his trunk and carried it upon
his tusks; and then, turning round in a frenzy of grief, overturned
and crushed every one whom he met. As the men were thus crowded
together, no one could do anything to help himself, but the whole mass
surged backwards and forwards in one solid body. The enemy who
attacked them behind did them but little hurt; they suffered chiefly
from one another, because when a man had once drawn his sword or
couched his lance he could not put it up again, and it pierced whoever
might happen to be forced against it.

XXXIV. Pyrrhus, seeing the danger with which he was menaced on every
side, took off the royal diadem from his helmet, and gave it to one of
his companions. He himself, trusting to the fact of his being on
horseback, now charged into the mass of assailants, and was struck
through his cuirass by one of them with a spear. The wound was not a
dangerous or important one, and Pyrrhus at once turned to attack the
man from whom he had received it. He was