As the reader will have learned long before this time, it was not the nature of Pyrrhus to remain on the spot and grapple with difficulties like these. If there were any new enterprise to be undertaken, or any desperate battle to be fought on a sudden emergency, Pyrrhus was always ready and eager for action, and almost sure of success. But he had no qualities whatever to fit him for the exigencies of such a crisis as this. He had ardor and impetuosity, but no perseverance or decision. He could fight, but he could not plan. He was recklessly and desperately brave in encountering physical danger, but, when involved in difficulties and embarrassments, his only resource was to fly. Accordingly, it was soon announced in Sicily that Pyrrhus had determined to postpone his plan of proceeding to Africa, and was going back to Tarentum, whence he came. He had received intelligence from Tarentum, he said, that required his immediate return to that city. This was probably true; for he had left things in such a condition at Tarentum, that he was, doubtless, continually receiving such intelligence from that quarter. Whether he received any special or extraordinary summons from Tarentum just at this time is extremely uncertain. He, however, pretended that such a message had come; and under this pretense he sheltered himself in his intended departure, so as just to escape the imputation of being actually driven away.
His enemies, however, did not intend to allow him to depart in peace. The Carthaginians, being apprised of his design, sent a fleet to watch the coast and intercept him; while the Mamertines, crossing the Strait, marched to the place on the coast of Italy where they expected he would land, intending to attack him as soon as he should set foot upon the shore. Both these plans were successful. The Carthaginians attacked his fleet, and destroyed many of his ships. Pyrrhus himself barely succeeded in making his escape with a small number of vessels, and reaching the shore. Here, as soon as he gained the land, he was confronted by the Mamertines, who had reached the place before him with ten thousand men. Pyrrhus soon collected from the ships that reached the land a force so formidable that the Mamertines did not dare to attack him in a body, but they blocked up the passes through which the way to Tarentum lay, and endeavored in every way to intercept and harass him in his march. They killed two of his elephants, and cut off many separate detachments of men, and finally deranged all his plans, and threw his whole army into confusion. Pyrrhus at length determined to force his enemies to battle. Accordingly, as soon as a favorable opportunity occurred, he pushed forward at the head of a strong force, and attacked the Mamertines in a sudden and most impetuous manner.
A terrible conflict ensued, in which Pyrrhus, as usual, exposed himself personally in the most desperate manner. In fact, the various disappointments and vexations which he had endured had aroused him to a state of great exasperation against his tormenting enemies. He pushed forward into the hottest part of the battle, his prodigious muscular strength enabling him to beat down and destroy, for a time, all who attempted to oppose him.
At last, however, he received a terrible wound in the head, which, for the moment, entirely disabled him. He was rescued from his peril by his friends, though stunned and fainting under the blow, and was borne off from the scene of conflict with the blood flowing down his face and neck-a frightful spectacle. On being carried to a place of safety within his own ranks, he soon revived, and it was found that he was not dangerously hurt. The enemy, however, full of rage and hatred, came up as near as they dared to the spot where Pyrrhus had been carried, and stood there, calling out to him to come back if he was still alive, and filling the air with taunting and insulting cries, and vociferations of challenge and defiance. Pyrrhus endured this mockery for a few moments as well as he could, but was finally goaded by it into a perfect phrensy of rage. He seized his weapons, pushed his friends and attendants aside, and, in spite of all their remonstrances and all their efforts to restrain him, he rushed forth and assailed his enemies with greater fury than ever. Breathless as he was from his former efforts, and covered with blood and gore, he exhibited a shocking spectacle to all who beheld him. The champion of the Mamertines-the one who had been foremost in challenging Pyrrhus to return-came up to meet him with his weapon upraised. Pyrrhus parried the blow, and then, suddenly bringing down his own sword upon the top of his antagonist's head, he cut the man down, as the story is told, from head to foot, making so complete a division, that one half of the body fell over to one side, and the other half to the other.
It is difficult, perhaps, to assign limits to the degree of physical strength which the human arm is capable of exerting. This fact, however, of cleaving the body of a man by a blow from a sword, was regarded in ancient times as just on the line of absolute impossibility, and was considered, consequently, as the highest personal exploit which a soldier could perform. It was attributed, at different times, to several different warriors, though it is not believed in modern days that the feat was ever really performed.
But, whatever may have been the fate of the Mamertine champion under Pyrrhus's sword, the army itself met with such a discomfiture in the battle that they gave Pyrrhus no further trouble, but, retiring from the field, left him to pursue his march to Tarentum for the remainder of the way in peace. He arrived there at last, with a force in numbers about equal to that with which he had left Tarentum for Sicily. The whole object, however, of his expedition had totally failed. The enterprise, in fact, like almost all the undertakings which Pyrrhus engaged in, though brilliantly and triumphantly successful in the beginning, came only to disappointment and disaster in the end.
CHAPTER VIII. THE RETREAT FROM ITALY.
B.C. 276-274
State of Pyrrhus's army.-His enfeebled condition.-Precarious situation of his affairs.-Affair of Locri.-Pyrrhus recaptures it.-Proserpina, the Goddess of Death.-Explanations.-Centaurs, mermaids, hippogriffs, and other fables.-Fabulous history of Proserpina.-Ceres seeks her.-Mystical significancy of Proserpina's life.-Pyrrhus resolves to confiscate the treasures at Locri.-The ships are wrecked and the treasures lost.-Pyrrhus is oppressed with superstitious fears.-He goes forth from Tarentum to meet the Romans.-Pyrrhus meets Curius near Beneventum.-He advances through a mountain path by torch-light.-The Romans taken by surprise.-Pyrrhus is repulsed.-Adventures of Pyrrhus on the field of battle.-Onset of the elephants.-They are terrified by the torches.-The young elephant and its mother.-Pyrrhus's flight.-His desperate expedient.-He arrives at length safely in Epirus.-
The force with which Pyrrhus returned to Tarentum was very nearly as large as that which he had taken away, but was composed of very different materials. The Greeks from Epirus, whom he had brought over with him in the first instance from his native land, had gradually disappeared from the ranks of his army. Many of them had been killed in battle, and still greater numbers had been carried off by exposure and fatigue, and by the thousand other casualties incident to such a service as that in which they were engaged. Their places had been supplied, from time to time, by new enlistments, or by impressment and conscription. Of course, these new recruits were not bound to their commander by any ties of attachment or regard. They were mostly mercenaries-that is, men hired to fight, and willing to fight, in any cause or for any commander, provided they could be paid. In a word, Pyrrhus's fellow-countrymen of Epirus had disappeared, and the ranks of his army were filled up with unprincipled and destitute wretches, who felt no interest in his cause-no pride in his success-no concern for his honor. They adhered to him only for the sake of the pay and the indulgences of a soldier's life, and for their occasional hopes of plunder.