ed this
mockery for a few moments as well as he could, but was finally goaded
by it into a perfect phrensy of rage. He seized his weapons, pushed
his friends and attendants aside, and, in spite of all their
remonstrances and all their efforts to restrain him, he rushed forth
and assailed his enemies with greater fury than ever. Breathless as he
was from his former efforts, and covered with blood and gore, he
exhibited a shocking spectacle to all who beheld him. The champion of
the Mamertines--the one who had been foremost in challenging Pyrrhus
to return--came up to meet him with his weapon upraised. Pyrrhus
parried the blow, and then, suddenly bringing down his own sword upon
the top of his antagonist's head, he cut the man down, as the story is
told, from head to foot, making so complete a division, that one half
of the body fell over to one side, and the other half to the other.

It is difficult, perhaps, to assign limits to the degree of physical
strength which the human arm is capable of exerting. This fact,
however, of cleaving the body of a man by a blow from a sword, was
regarded in ancient times as just on the line of absolute
impossibility, and was considered, consequently, as the highest
personal exploit which a soldier could perform. It was attributed, at
different times, to several different warriors, though it is not
believed in modern days that the feat was ever really performed.

But, whatever may have been the fate of the Mamertine champion under
Pyrrhus's sword, the army itself met with such a discomfiture in the
battle that they gave Pyrrhus no further trouble, but, retiring from
the field, left him to pursue his march to Tarentum for the remainder
of the way in peace. He arrived there at last, with a force in numbers
about equal to that with which he had left Tarentum for Sicily. The
whole object, however, of his expedition had totally failed. The
enterprise, in fact, like almost all the undertakings which Pyrrhus
engaged in, though brilliantly and triumphantly successful in the
beginning, came only to disappointment and disaster in the end.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE RETREAT FROM ITALY.

B.C. 276-274

State of Pyrrhus's army.--His enfeebled condition.--Precarious
situation of his affairs.--Affair of Locri.--Pyrrhus recaptures
it.--Proserpina, the Goddess of Death.--Explanations.--Centaurs,
mermaids, hippogriffs, and other fables.--Fabulous history of
Proserpina.--Ceres seeks her.--Mystical si