Whether Pyrrhus really had had such a dream, or whether he fabricated the story for the purpose of inspiring anew the courage and confidence of his men, which, as would naturally be supposed, might have been somewhat weakened by the ill success of the preceding day, can not be absolutely ascertained. Whichever it was, it failed wholly of its intended effect. Pyrrhus's generals said, in reply, that the omen was adverse, and not propitious, for it was one of the fundamental principles of haruspicial science that lightning made sacred whatever it touched. It was forbidden even to step upon the ground where a thunder-bolt had fallen; and they ought to consider, therefore, that the descent of the lightning upon Sparta, as figured to Pyrrhus in the dream, was intended to mark the city as under the special protection of heaven, and to warn the invaders not to molest it. Finding thus that the story of his vision produced a different effect from the one he had intended, Pyrrhus changed his ground, and told his generals that no importance whatever was to be attached to visions and dreams. They might serve, he argued, very well to amuse the ignorant and superstitious, but wise men should be entirely above being influenced by them in any way. "You have something better than these things to trust in," said he. "You have arms in your hands, and you have Pyrrhus for your leader. This is proof enough for you that you are destined to conquer."
How far these assurances were found effectual in animating the courage of the generals we do not know; but the result did not at all confirm Pyrrhus's vain-glorious predictions. During the first part of the day, indeed, he made great progress, and for a time it appeared probable that the city was about to fall into his hands. The plan of his operations was first to fill up the ditch which the Spartans had made; the soldiers throwing into it for this purpose great quantities of materials of every kind, such as earth, stones, fagots, trunks of trees, and whatever came most readily to hand. They used in this work immense quantities of dead bodies, which they found scattered over the plain, the results of the conflict of the preceding day. By means of the horrid bridging thus made, the troops attempted to make their way across the ditch, while the Spartans, formed on the top of the rampart of earth on the inner side of it, fought desperately to repel them. All this time the women were passing back and forth between them and the city, bringing out water and refreshments to sustain the fainting strength of the men, and carrying home the wounded and dying, and the bodies of the dead.
[Illustration: THE CHARGE.]
At last a considerable body of troops, consisting of a division that was under the personal charge of Pyrrhus himself, succeeded in breaking through the Spartan lines, at a point near one end of the rampart which had been thrown up. When the men found that they had forced their way through, they raised loud shouts of exultation and triumph, and immediately rushed forward toward the city. For a moment it seemed that for the Spartans all was lost; but the tide of victory was soon suddenly turned by a very unexpected incident. An arrow pierced the breast of the horse on which Pyrrhus was riding, and gave the animal a fatal wound. The horse plunged and reared in his agony and terror, and then fell, throwing Pyrrhus to the ground. This occurrence, of course, arrested the whole troop in their progress. The horsemen wheeled suddenly about, and gathered around Pyrrhus to rescue him from his danger. This gave the Spartans time to rally, and to bring up their forces in such numbers that the Macedonian soldiers were glad to be able to make their way back again, bearing Pyrrhus with them beyond the lines. After recovering a little from the agitation produced by this adventure, Pyrrhus found that his troops, discouraged, apparently, by the fruitlessness of their efforts, and especially by this last misfortune, were beginning to lose their spirit and ardor, and were fighting feebly and falteringly all along the line. He concluded, therefore, that there was no longer any prospect of accomplishing his object that day, and that it would be better to save the remaining strength of his troops by withdrawing them from the field, rather than to discourage and enfeeble them still more by continuing what was now very clearly a useless struggle. He accordingly put a stop to the action, and the army retired to their encampment.
Before he had opportunity to make a third attempt, events occurred which entirely changed the whole aspect of the controversy. The reader will recollect that Areus, the king of Sparta, was absent in Crete at the time of Pyrrhus's arrival, and that the command of the army devolved, during his absence, on Acrotatus, his son; for the kings of the other line, for some reason or other, took a very small part in the public affairs of the city at this time, and are seldom mentioned in history. Areus, as soon as he heard of the Macedonian invasion, immediately collected a large force and set out on his return to Sparta, and he entered into the city at the head of two thousand men just after the second repulse which Acrotatus had given to their enemies. At the same time, too, another body of re-enforcements came in from Corinth, consisting of allies of the Spartans, gathered from the northern part of the Peloponnesus. The arrival of these troops in the city filled the Spartans with joy, and entirely dispelled their fears. They considered themselves as now entirely safe. The old men and the women, considering that their places were now abundantly supplied, thenceforth withdrew from all active participation in the contest, and retired to their respective homes, to rest and refresh themselves after their toils.
Notwithstanding this, however, Pyrrhus was not yet prepared to give up the contest. The immediate effect, in fact, of the arrival of the re-enforcements was to arouse his spirit anew, and to stimulate him to a fresh determination that he would not be defeated in his purpose, but that he would conquer the city at all hazards. He accordingly made several more desperate attempts, but they were wholly unsuccessful; and at length, after a series of losses and defeats, he was obliged to give up the contest and withdraw. He retired, accordingly, to some little distance from Sparta, where he established a permanent camp, subsisting his soldiers by plundering the surrounding country. He was vexed and irritated by the mortifications and disappointments which he had endured, and waited impatiently for an opportunity to seek revenge.
While he was thus pondering his situation, uncertain what to do next, he received one day a message from Argos, a city in the northern part of the Peloponnesus, asking him to come and take part in a contest which had been opened there. It seems that a civil war had broken out in that city, and one of the leaders, knowing the character of Pyrrhus, and his readiness to engage in any quarrel which was offered to him, had concluded to apply for his aid. Pyrrhus was, as usual, very ready to yield to this request. It afforded him, as similar proposals had so often done before, a plausible excuse for abandoning an enterprise in which he began to despair of being able to succeed. He immediately commenced his march to the northward. The Spartans, however, were by no means disposed to allow him to go off unmolested. They advanced with all the force they could command, and, though they were not powerful enough to engage him in a general battle, they harassed him and embarrassed his march in a very vexatious manner. They laid ambushes in the narrow defiles through which he had to pass; they cut off his detachments, and plundered and destroyed his baggage. Pyrrhus at length sent back a body of his guards under Ptolemy, his son, to drive them away. Ptolemy attacked the Spartans and fought them with great bravery, until at length, in the heat of the contest, a celebrated Cretan, of remarkable strength and activity, riding furiously up to Ptolemy, felled him to the ground, and killed him at a single blow. On seeing him fall, his detachment were struck with dismay, and, turning their backs on the Spartans, fled to Pyrrhus with the tidings.