the new
campaign with vigour, and although the Romans had hitherto sustained
nothing but defeat in this war, it was not they but the victors that
were weary of it and longed for peace. Pyrrhus made another attempt
to obtain accommodation on tolerable terms. The consul Fabricius had
handed over to the king a wretch, who had proposed to poison him on
condition of being well paid for it. Not only did the king in token
of gratitude release all his Roman prisoners without ransom, but he
felt himself so moved by the generosity of his brave opponents that
he offered, by way of personal recompense, a singularly fair and
favourable peace. Cineas appears to have gone once more to Rome, and
Carthage seems to have been seriously apprehensive that Rome might
come to terms. But the senate remained firm, and repeated its former
answer. Unless the king was willing to allow Syracuse to fall into
the hands of the Carthaginians and to have his grand scheme thereby
disconcerted, no other course remained than to abandon his Italian
allies and to confine himself for the time being to the occupation of
the most important seaports, particularly Tarentum and Locri. In vain
the Lucanians and Samnites conjured him not to desert them; in vain
the Tarentines summoned him either to comply with his duty as their
general or to give them back their city. The king met their
complaints and reproaches with the consolatory assurance that better
times were coming, or with abrupt dismissal. Milo remained behind in
Tarentum; Alexander, the king's son, in Locri; and Pyrrhus, with his
main force, embarked in the spring of 476 at Tarentum for Syracuse.

Embarkation of Pyrrhus for Sicily--
The War in Italy Flags

By the departure of Pyrrhus the hands of the Romans were set free
in Italy; none ventured to oppose them in the open field, and their
antagonists everywhere confined themselves to their fastnesses or
their forests. The struggle however was not terminated so rapidly as
might have been expected; partly in consequence of its nature as a
warfare of mountain skirmishes and sieges, partly also, doubtless,
from the exhaustion of the Romans, whose fearful losses are indicated
by a decrease of 17,000 in the burgess-roll from 473 to 479. In 476
the consul Gaius Fabricius succeeded in inducing the considerable
Tarentine settlement of Heraclea to enter into a separate peace, which
was granted to it on the most favourable terms. In the campaign of
477