an Argive, not of noble
birth, but the son of a poor old woman, who, like the rest, was
looking on at the battle from the roof of her house. As soon as she
saw Pyrrhus attacking her son, in an ecstasy of fear and rage she took
up a tile and hurled it at Pyrrhus. It struck him on the helmet,
bruising the spine at the back of his neck, and he fell from his
horse, blinded by the stroke, at the side of the sacred enclosure of
Likymnius. Few recognized him, but one Zopyrus, who was in the service
of Antigonus, and two or three others, seized him just as he was
beginning to recover his senses, and dragged him into an archway near
at hand. When Zopyrus drew an Illyrian sword to cut off his head
Pyrrhus looked so fiercely at him that he was terrified, and bungled
in his work, but at length managed to sever his head from his body.
By this time most men had learned what had happened, and Halkyoneus,
running up, asked to see the head, that he might identify it. When he
obtained this he rode off with it to his father, and finding him
sitting amongst his friends, he threw it down at his feet. Antigonus
when he recognized it chased his son out of his presence, striking him
with his staff, and calling him accursed and barbarous, and then
covered his own face with his mantle and wept, remembering how in his
own family his grandfather Antigonus and his father Demetrius had
experienced similar reverses of fortune. He had the body and head of
Pyrrhus decently arranged on a funeral pyre and burned. Halkyoneus,
meeting Helenus in poor and threadbare clothes, embraced him kindly,
and led him to Antigonus, who said to him, "This meeting, my boy, is
better than the other; but still you do not do right in not removing
these clothes, which rather seem to disgrace us who are, as it
appears, the victors." He treated Helenus with great kindness, and
sent him back to his kingdom of Epirus loaded with presents, and also
showed great favour towards the friends of Pyrrhus, who, together with
all his army and war material, had fallen into his hands.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 38: By 'Kings' throughout this 'Life,' Plutarch refers to
the successors of Alexander the Great.]

[Footnote 39: See Thirlwall's 'History of Greece,' chap. lx.]

[Footnote 40: Plutarch's account of these transactions is hardly
intelligible. Demetrius, it appears, was about to lay siege to Athens
when Pyrrhus prevented him. See Thirlwall's History, chap. lx.]

[Footnote 41: The ri