upon his
tusks, and then attempted to force a passage through the crowd,
trampling down all who came in his way. History has awarded to this
elephant a distinction which he well deserved, by recording his name.
It was Nicon.

[Illustration: DEATH OF PYRRHUS.]

All this time Pyrrhus was near the rear of his troops, and thus was
in some degree removed from the greatest severity of the pressure.
He turned and fought, from time to time, with those who were
pressing upon his line from behind. As the danger became more
imminent, he took out from his helmet the plume by which he was
distinguished from the other generals, and gave it to a friend who
was near him, in order that he might be a less conspicuous mark for
the shafts of his enemies. The combats, however, between his party
and those who were harassing them in the rear were still continued;
and at length, in one of them, a man of Argos wounded him, by
throwing a javelin with so much force that the point of it passed
through his breast-plate and entered his side. The wound was not
dangerous, but it had the effect of maddening Pyrrhus against the
man who had inflicted it, and he turned upon him with great fury,
as if he were intending to annihilate him at a blow. He would very
probably have killed the Greek, had it not been that just at that
moment the mother of the man, by a very singular coincidence, was
surveying the scene from a house-top which overlooked the street
where these events were occurring. She immediately seized a heavy
tile from the roof, and with all her strength hurled it into the
street upon Pyrrhus just as he was striking the blow. The tile came
down upon his head, and, striking the helmet heavily, it carried
both helmet and head down together, and crushed the lower vertebrae
of the neck at their junction with the spine.

Pyrrhus dropped the reins from his hands, and fell over from his horse
heavily to the ground. It happened that no one knew him who saw him
fall, for so great had been the crowd and confusion, that Pyrrhus had
got separated from his immediate friends. Those who were near him,
therefore, when he fell, pressed on, intent only on their own safety,
and left him where he lay. At last a soldier of Antigonus's army,
named Zopyrus, coming up to the spot, accompanied by several others of
his party, looked upon the wounded man and recognized him as Pyrrhus.
They lifted him up, and dragged him out of the street to a portico
that was near. Z