Greek Gods- Rome- Middle Ages- England

The War with Pyrrhus

If you will look again at the map of Italy, you will see that the Apennine mountains run from the northwestern part in a great curve through the peninsula. Within a hundred years after the Gauls destroyed Rome, the Romans ruled all the lands around the city between these mountains and the sea. But they had not yet crossed the mountains to the north; and they had no thought of going beyond them in the south either, until something happened there which forced them to do so.

The southern coast of Italy was not occupied by Italians, but by Greeks, who had come across the sea from Greece long, long before, and built cities on the southern shores of the peninsula. They were a gay, changeable people, who had now grown to be very much less worthy in character than the old Greeks who had fought the Persians so well in former days. They preferred to hire soldiers to fight for them, instead of fighting for themselves; for they loved the bustle and chatter of their city life, and the amusement of their open-air theatres, more than anything else in the world.

The most important of these Greek cities in Italy was Tarentum, which lay on the western side of the heel of the peninsula. There the people had built their theatre in a place which overlooked the sea; and as they were gathered here one day, they saw ten Roman war vessels approaching the city harbor.

Now, there was an agreement between the Romans and the people of Tarentum that the Roman war ships should not sail beyond a certain point on the southern shore; so, when the Tarentines saw these vessels coming in close to their town, they were very angry. They did not stop to think that the Romans might be coming peacefully, and with no thought of harm. They rushed headlong from the theatre to the shore, and got aboard their ships and rowed out to attack the Roman vessels; and, as the Romans were entirely unprepared for battle, five of their ships were sunk, and the men were taken prisoners.

The other five ships managed to escape, and when they returned to Rome with the news of how they had been treated at Tarentum, the Romans were very indignant. But they did not want to go to war with the people of Tarentum; so, instead of sending an army to attack that city, they sent ambassadors to demand an explanation of the wrong that had been done them.

When these ambassadors reached Tarentum, they were led before a large body of the citizens, in order that they might state their business in the hearing of all. Their grave manner and broken speech, as they tried to make their meaning clear in the Greek tongue, amused the Tarentines immensely. They laughed at them and mocked their blunders, and, at last, one wretched fellow threw dirt on the clean white toga of one of the ambassadors.

At this, the Greeks laughed louder than ever; but the insulted Roman raised the stained folds of his toga and held them before the eyes of the people.

"Laugh on, now," he cried; "but the stain on this gown can only be washed out with blood."

Then the ambassadors departed, and the two cities began to prepare for war,—but in what different ways! The Romans gathered their men together as usual, and sent them under the command of a consul across the mountains into southern Italy. But the Tarentines did not think of getting ready to fight themselves; that was not their fashion. The only thing they did was to send over into Greece to hire some general there to bring an army to fight for them against the Romans.

There were many men in the Grecian peninsula at this time who were willing enough to fight, and who knew how to fight well; but the man to whom the Taren tines sent was especially ready to give the help that they asked.

This was Pyrrhus, the king of one of the little countries of western Greece, who was a brave and generous man, and one of the best generals of that time. He was related to Alexander the Great, who a few years before this had become the conqueror of Greece and of much of the world besides. From his very boyhood Pyrrhus had lived with the Greek armies at home, in Asia, and in Egypt; and he had determined that if he should ever have the chance he would try to become like Alexander—a conqueror of great nations. So now, when the Tarentines sent to him and begged his help against the Romans, he readily gave his consent, and began to plan victories for himself in the west as great as those which Alexander had won in the east. For he meant not only to help the Tarentines against Rome, but to bring all the Greek cities of Italy and of the island of Sicily under his rule at the same time.