In fact, after trying their strength against each other in this battle, neither party seemed to be in haste to bring on another contest. They both drew away to places of security, and began to send for re-enforcements, and to take measures to strengthen themselves for future operations. They remained in this state of inaction until at length the season passed away, and they then went into winter-quarters, each watching the other, but postponing, by common consent, all active hostilities until spring. In the spring they took the field again, and the two armies approached each other once more. The Roman army had now two new commanders, one of whom was the celebrated Fabricius, whom Pyrrhus had negotiated with on former occasions. The two commanders were thus well acquainted with each other; and though, as public men, they were enemies, in private and personally they were very good friends.
Pyrrhus had a physician in his service named Nicias. This man conceived the design of offering to the Romans to poison his master on condition of receiving a suitable reward. He accordingly wrote a letter to Fabricius making the proposal. Fabricius immediately communicated the letter to his colleague, and they both concurred in the decision to inform Pyrrhus himself of the offer which had been made them, and put him on his guard against the domestic traitor. They accordingly sent him the letter which they had received, accompanied by one from themselves, of the following tenor:
"Caius Fabricius and Quintus Æmilius to King Pyrrhus,
greeting:
"You seem to be as unfortunate in the choice of your friends
as you are in that of your enemies. The letter which we send
herewith will satisfy you that those around you, on whom you
rely, are wholly unworthy of your confidence. You are
betrayed; your very physician, the man who ought to be most
faithful to you, offers to poison you. We give you this
information, not out of any particular friendship for you,
but because we do not wish to be suspected of conniving at an
assassination-a crime which we detest and abhor. Besides, we
do not wish to be deprived of the opportunity of showing the
world that we are able to meet and conquer you in open war."
Pyrrhus was very much struck with what he considered the extraordinary generosity of his enemies. He immediately collected together all the prisoners that he had taken from the Romans, and sent them home to the Roman camp, as a token of acknowledgment and gratitude on his part for the high and honorable course of action which his adversaries had adopted. They, however, Roman-like, would not accept such a token without making a corresponding return, and they accordingly sent home to Pyrrhus a body of Greek prisoners equal in number and rank to those whom Pyrrhus had set free.
All these things tended to increase the disinclination of Pyrrhus to press the further prosecution of the war. He became more and more desirous every day to make peace with the Romans, preferring very much that such a people should be his allies rather than his enemies. They, however, firmly and pertinaciously refused to treat with him on any terms, unless, as a preliminary step, he would go back to his own dominions. This he thought he could not do with honor. He was accordingly much perplexed, and began earnestly to wish that something would occur to furnish him with a plausible pretext for retiring from Italy.
CHAPTER VII. THE SICILIAN CAMPAIGN.
B.C. 291-276
Lanassa.-The tyrant her father.-His adventures.-Agathocles's flight from Africa.-Terrible consequences.-The sea dyed with blood.-Shocking story.-Texina and her children.-Extraordinary story.-Mænon's contrivance for administering poison.-Dangers of usurpation.-Mænon's career.-Pyrrhus receives two tempting invitations.-Pyrrhus's perplexity.-He decides to go to Sicily.-He makes great preparations at Tarentum.-The Tarentines remonstrate.-Their arguments.-Pyrrhus sends Cineas in advance to Sicily.-Form of Sicily.-Situation of Messana.-Conduct of the Mamertines in Sicily.-The Mamertines take complete possession of Messana.-Three objects to be accomplished in Sicily.-The grand expedition sails to Sicily.-He determines to take Eryx by storm.-Pyrrhus at the head of the column.-Combat on the walls.-Pyrrhus victorious.-Grand celebration.-Result of the battle.-He attacks the Mamertines.-Is victorious.-Pyrrhus forms new schemes.-Want of seamen.-The Sicilians are opposed to his plans.-General rebellion in Sicily.-Pyrrhus's character.-He possesses no perseverance.-New plan.-Disastrous attempt to get back to Italy.-Terrible conflict.-Pyrrhus is wounded in the head.-Shocking spectacle.-The Mamertine champion.-Pyrrhus succeeds in reaching Tarentum.
The fact has already been mentioned that one of the wives whom Pyrrhus had married after the death of Antigone, the Egyptian princess, was Lanassa, the daughter of Agathocles, the King of Sicily. Agathocles was a tyrannical monster of the worst description. His army was little better than an organized band of robbers, at the head of which he went forth on marauding and plundering expeditions among all the nations that were within his reach. He made these predatory excursions sometimes into Italy, sometimes into the Carthaginian territories on the African coast, and sometimes among the islands of the Mediterranean Sea. In these campaigns he met with a great variety of adventures, and experienced every possible fate that the fortune of war could bring. Sometimes he was triumphant over all who opposed him, and became intoxicated with prosperity and success. At other times, through his insane and reckless folly, he would involve himself in the most desperate difficulties, and was frequently compelled to give up every thing, and to fly alone in absolute destitution from the field of his attempted exploits to save his life.
On one such occasion, he abandoned an army in Africa, which he had taken there on one of his predatory enterprises, and, flying secretly from the camp, he made his escape with a small number of attendants, leaving the army to its fate. His flight was so sudden on this occasion that he left his two sons behind him in the hands and at the mercy of the soldiers. The soldiers, as soon as they found that Agathocles had gone and left them, were so enraged against him that they put his sons to death on the spot, and then surrendered in a body to the enemy. Agathocles, when the tidings of this transaction came to him in Sicily, was enraged against the soldiers in his turn, and, in order to revenge himself upon them, he immediately sought out from among the population of the country their wives and children, their brothers and sisters, and all who were in any way related to them. These innocent representatives of the absent offenders he ordered to be seized and slain, and their bodies to be cast into the sea toward Africa as an expression of revengeful triumph and defiance. So great was the slaughter on this occasion, that the waters of the sea were dyed with blood to a great distance from the shore.
Of course, such cruelty as this could not be practiced without awakening, on the part of those who suffered from it, a spirit of hatred and revenge. Plots and conspiracies without number were formed against the tyrant's life, and in his later years he lived in continual apprehension and distress. His fate, however, was still more striking as an illustration of the manner in which the old age of ambitious and unprincipled men is often embittered by the ingratitude and wickedness of their children. Agathocles had a grandson named Archagathus, who, if all the accounts are true, brought the old king's gray hairs in sorrow to the grave. The story is too shocking to be fully believed, but it is said that this grandson first murdered Agathocles's son and heir, his own uncle, in order that he might himself succeed to the throne-his own father, who would have been the next heir, being dead. Then, not being willing to wait until the old king himself should die, he began to form plots against his life, and against the lives of the remaining members of the family. Although several of Agathocles's sons were dead, having been destroyed by violence, or having fallen in war, he had a wife, named Texina, and two children still remaining alive. The king was so anxious in respect to these children, on account of Archagathus, that he determined to send them with their mother to Egypt, in order to place them beyond the reach of their merciless nephew. Texina was very unwilling to consent to such a measure. For herself and her sons the proposed retiring into Egypt was little better than going into exile, and she was, moreover, extremely reluctant to leave her husband alone in Syracuse, exposed to the machinations and plots which his unnatural grandson might form against him. She, however, finally submitted to the hard necessity and went away, bidding her husband farewell with many tears. Very soon after her departure her husband died.