Plutarch: Lives of the noble Grecians and Romans
discouragement and terror prevailed among the Greeks, until Pyrrhus,
understanding what had happened, rode about the army with his face
bare, stretching out his hand to his soldiers, and telling them aloud
it was he. At last, the elephants more particularly began to
distress the Romans, whose horses, before they came near, not
enduring them, went back with their riders; and upon this, he
commanded the Thessalian cavalry to charge them in their disorder,
and routed them with great loss. Dionysius affirms near fifteen
thousand of the Romans fell; Hieronymus, no more than seven thousand.
On Pyrrhus's side, the same Dionysius makes thirteen thousand slain,
the other under four thousand; but they were the flower of his men,
and amongst them his particular friends as well as officers whom he
most trusted and made use of. However, be possessed himself of the
Romans' camp which they deserted, and gained over several confederate
cities, and wasted the country round about, and advanced so far that
he was within about thirty-seven miles of Rome itself. After the
fight many of the Lucanians and Samnites came in and joined him, whom
he chid for their delay, but yet he was evidently well pleased and
raised in his thoughts, that he had defeated so great an army of the
Romans with the assistance of the Tarentines alone.
The Romans did not remove Laevinus from the consulship; though it is
told that Caius Fabricius said, that the Epirots had not beaten the
Romans, but only Pyrrhus, Laevinus; insinuating that their loss was
not through want of valor but of conduct; but filled up their
legions, and enlisted fresh men with all speed, talking high and
boldly of war, which struck Pyrrhus with amazement. He thought it
advisable by sending first to make an experiment whether they had any
inclination to treat, thinking that to take the city and make an
absolute conquest was no work for such an army as his was at that
time, but to settle a friendship, and bring them to terms, would be
highly honorable after his victory. Cineas was dispatched away, and
applied himself to several of the great ones, with presents for
themselves and their ladies from the king; but not a person would
receive any, and answered, as well men as women, that if an agreement
were publicly concluded, they also should be ready, for their parts,
to express their regard to the king. And Cineas, discoursing; with
the senate in the most persuasive and obliging manner in the world,
yet was not heard with kindness or inclination, although Pyrrhus
offered also to return all the prisoners he had taken in the fight
without ransom, and promised his assistance for the entire conquest
of all Italy, asking only their friendship for himself, and security
for the Tarentines, and nothing further. Nevertheless, most were
well-inclined to a peace, having already received one great defeat,
and fearing another from an additional force of the native Italians,
now joining with Pyrrhus. At this point Appius Claudius, a man of
great distinction, but who, because of his great age and loss of
sight, had declined the fatigue of public business, after these
propositions had been made by the king, hearing a report that the
senate was ready to vote the conditions of peace, could not forbear,
but commanding his servants to take him up, was carried in his chair
through the forum to the senate house. When he was set down at the
door, his sons and sons-in-law took him up in their arms, and,
walking close round about him, brought him into the senate. Out of
reverence for so worthy a man, the whole assembly was respectfully
silent.
And a little after raising up himself: "I bore," said he, "until
this time, the misfortune of my eyes with some impatience, but now
while I hear of these dishonorable motions and resolves of yours,
destructive to the glory of Rome, it is my affliction, that being
already blind, I am not deaf too. Where is now that discourse of
yours that became famous in all the world, that if he, the great
Alexander, had come into Italy, and dared to attack us when we were
young men, and our fathers, who were then in their prime, he had not
now been celebrated as invincible, but either flying hence, or
falling here, had left Rome more glorious? You demonstrate now that
all that was but foolish arrogance and vanity, by fearing Molossians
and Chaonians, ever the Macedonian's prey, and by trembling at
Pyrrhus who was himself but a humble servant to one of Alexander's
life-guard, and comes here, not so much to assist the Greeks that
inhabit among us, as to escape from his enemies at home, a wanderer
about Italy, and yet dares to promise you the conquest of it all by
that army which has not been able to preserve for him a little part
of Macedon. Do not persuade yourselves that making him your friend
is the way to send him back, it is the way rather to bring over other
invaders from thence, contemning you as easy to be reduced, if
Pyrrhus goes off without punishment for his outrages on you, but,
on the contrary, with the reward of having enabled the Tarentines and
Samnites to laugh at the Romans." When Appius had done, eagerness
for the war seized on every man, and Cineas was dismissed with this
answer, that when Pyrrhus had withdrawn his forces out of Italy,
then, if he pleased, they would treat with him about friendship and
alliance, but while he stayed there in arms, they were resolved to
prosecute the war against him with all their force, though he should
have defeated a thousand Laevinuses. It is said that Cineas, while
he was managing this affair, made it his business carefully to
inspect the manners of the Romans, and to understand their methods of
government, and having conversed with their noblest citizens, he
afterwards told Pyrrhus, among other things, that the senate seemed
to him an assembly of kings, and as for the people, he feared lest it
might prove that they were fighting with a Lernaean hydra, for the
consul had already raised twice as large an army as the former, and
there were many times over the same number of Romans able to bear
arms.
Then Caius Fabricius came in embassy from the Romans to treat about
the prisoners that were taken, one whom Cineas had reported to be a
man of highest consideration among them as an honest man and a good
soldier, but extremely poor. Pyrrhus received him with much
kindness, and privately would have persuaded him to accept of his
gold, not for any evil purpose, but calling it a mark of respect and
hospitable kindness. Upon Fabricius's refusal, he pressed him no
further, but the next day, having a mind to discompose him, as he had
never seen an elephant before, he commanded one of the largest,
completely armed, to be placed behind the hangings, as they were
talking together. Which being done, upon a sign given the hanging
was drawn aside, and the elephant, raising his trunk over the head of
Fabricius, made an horrid and ugly noise. He, gently turning about
and smiling, said to Pyrrhus, "neither your money yesterday, nor this
beast today make any impression upon me." At supper, amongst all
sorts of things that were discoursed of, but more particularly Greece
and the philosophers there, Cineas, by accident, had occasion to
speak of Epicurus, and explained the opinions his followers hold
about the gods and the commonwealth, and the object of life, placing
the chief happiness of man in pleasure, and declining public affairs
as an injury and disturbance of a happy life, removing the gods afar
off both from kindness or anger, or any concern for us at all, to a
life wholly without business and flowing in pleasures. Before he had
done speaking, "O Hercules!" Fabricius cried out to Pyrrhus, "may
Pyrrhus and the Samnites entertain themselves with this sort of
opinions as long as they are in war with us." Pyrrhus, admiring the
wisdom and gravity of the man, was the more transported with desire
of making friendship instead of war with the city, and entreated him,
personally, after the peace should be concluded, to accept of living
with him as the chief of his ministers and generals. Fabricius
answered quietly, "Sir, this will not be for your advantage, for they
who now honor and admire you, when they have had experience of me,
will rather choose to be governed by me, than by you." Such was
Fabricius. And Pyrrhus received his answer without any resentment or
tyrannic passion; nay, among his friends he highly commended the
great mind of Fabricius, and entrusted the prisoners to him alone, on
condition that if the senate should not vote a peace, after they had
conversed with their friends and celebrated the festival of Saturn,
they should be remanded. And, accordingly, they were sent back after
the holidays; it being decreed pain of death for any that stayed
behind.
After this, Fabricius taking the consulate, a person came with a
letter to the camp written by the king's principal physician,
offering to take off Pyrrhus by poison, and so end the war without
further hazard to the Romans, if he might have a reward
proportionable to his service. Fabricius, hating the villainy of the
man, and disposing the other consul to the same opinion, sent
dispatches immediately to Pyrrhus to caution him against the treason.
His letter was to this effect: "Caius Fabricius and Quintus
Aemilius, consuls of the Romans, to Pyrrhus the king, health. You
seem to have made an ill judgment both of your friends and enemies;
you will understand by reading this letter sent to us, that you are
at war with honest men, and trust villains and knaves. Nor do we
disclose this to you out of any favor to you, but lest your ruin
might bring a reproach upon us, as if we had ended the war by
treachery, as not able to do it by force." When Pyrrhus had read the
letter, and made inquiry into the treason, he punished the physician,
and as an acknowledgment to the Romans sent to Rome the prisoners
without ransom, and again employed Cineas to negotiate a peace for
him. But they, regarding it as at once too great a kindness from an
enemy, and too great a reward of not doing an ill thing to accept
their prisoners so, released in return an equal number of the
Tarentines and Samnites, but would admit of no debate of alliance or
peace until he had removed his arms and forces out of Italy, and
sailed back to Epirus with the same ships that brought him over.
Afterwards, his affairs demanding a second fight, when he had
refreshed his men, he decamped, and met the Romans about the city
Asculum, where, however, he was much incommoded by a woody country
unfit for his horse, and a swift river, so that the elephants, for
want of sure treading, could not get up with the infantry. After
many wounded and many killed, night put an end to the engagement.
Next day, designing to make the fight on even ground, and have the
elephants among the thickest of the enemy, he caused a detachment to
possess themselves of those incommodious grounds, and, mixing
slingers and archers among the elephants, with full strength and
courage, he advanced in a close and well-ordered body. The Romans,
not having those advantages of retreating and falling on as they
pleased, which they had before, were obliged to fight man to man upon
plain ground, and, being anxious to drive back the infantry before
the elephants could get up, they fought fiercely with their swords
among the Macedonian spears, not sparing themselves, thinking only to
wound and kill, without regard of what they suffered. After a long
and obstinate fight, the first giving ground is reported to have been
where Pyrrhus himself engaged with extraordinary courage; but they
were most carried away by the overwhelming force of the elephants,
not being able to make use of their valor, but overthrown as it were