He
therefore retreated to winter quarters at Tarentum. The next year the
two forces met on the edge of the plains of Apulia, at Asculum, but the
battle resulted in no gain to Pyrrhus, who was again obliged to retire
for the winter to Tarentum. (B.C. 279.)
In the last battle the brunt of the fighting had fallen to the share of
the Epirots, and Pyrrhus was not anxious to sacrifice his comparatively
few remaining troops for the benefit of the Tarentines. Therefore,
after arranging a truce with Rome, he accepted an invitation from the
Greeks of Sicily to go to their help against the Carthaginians. For two
years he fought, at first with success; but afterwards he met repulses,
so that being again asked to assist his former allies in Italy, he
returned, in 276, and for two years led the remnants of his troops and
the mercenaries that he had attracted to his standard against the
Romans. His Italian career closed in the year 274, when he encountered
his enemy in the neighborhood of Maleventum, and was defeated, the
Romans having learned how to meet the formerly dreaded elephants. The
name of this place was then changed to Beneventum. Two years later
still, in 272, Tarentum fell under the sway of Rome, which soon had
overcome every nation on the peninsula south of a line marked by the
Rubicon on the east and the Macra on the west,--the boundaries of
Gallia Cisalpina.
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