tribes of Italian aborigines, to separate her from that which was at once the object of her highest hopes and of her most practical and stern resolves, the union of the whole of Italy beneath her sway.

We have said that there was but one obstacle to the realisation of the aim of Rome; but one other there shortly appeared, which, as it had been beyond the visible, so was it necessarily beyond the mental horizon of so matter-of-fact a body as the Roman Senate. The adventurous King of Epirus, whose erratic course it would have required a genius like his own to have anticipated, shot down like a meteor on the scene (B.C. 280). Fired with the ambition of emulating his great relative Alexander, and of founding a vast Greek empire in the west on the ruins of Italy and Carthage, as Alexander had founded his on the ruins of Persia and of Egypt, he eagerly seized the opportunity afforded him by the appeal of the frivolous Tarentines, and offered to lead the Greek cities of Italy in their opposition to Rome.

The struggle is rich, above most of those in which Rome engaged, in the play of individual character and in the traits of knightly chivalry and generosity, which lend to it a charm which is together its own. Even his sober minded and severely practical enemies could scarcely come into contact with so high-bred and chivalrous a foe as Pyrrhus without catching some sparks of his courtesy and his enthusiasm ; but the struggle is also memorable as the first occasion in which Greece and Rome met in the shock of battle. Here for the first time might be seen the Roman legion meeting the phalanx of Macedon; a national militia arrayed against highly trained and veteran mercenaries; individual military genius against collective mediocrity. For a moment fortune seemed to waver, or even to incline in favour of the adventurer; but she could not waver long. The victories of Heraclea and Asculum must have made the name of Pyrrhus a name to be spoken with bated breath even in the Roman Senate; and the lightning rapidity with which he swept Sicily from end to end, cooping the Mamertines in Messana

ROME FACE TO FACE WITH CARTHAGE.

65

on the extreme east, and the Phoenicians in Lilybæum in the extreme west, must have made his name a name of terror even among the burghers of Carthage. But the proud answer returned by the Roman Senate to the embassy of Pyrrhus after his first victory, that Rome never negotiated so long as an enemy was on Italian soil,1 must have at once opened the eyes of the Epirot king to the hopeless nature of the enterprise he had undertaken, and marked triumphantly the goal to which centuries of tempered aspiration and of impetuous resolve had raised the Latin city. To the Roman mind an ideal which could not be realised was no ideal at all, and the Romans had now realised their highest ideal to an extent which entitled them to take a wholly new point of departure (B.C. 278).

Pyrrhus disappeared from the western world almost as rapidly as he had descended on it, crying with his last breath, half in pity, half in envy, "How fair a battle field are we leaving to the Romans and Carthaginians ! 2 He spoke too truly. The arena was already cleared of its lesser combatants, and for some few years there was, as it were, the hush of expectation, the audible silence of suspense, while mightier combatants were arming for the fray, and the great duel was preparing of which a hundred years would hardly see the termination.

I Plutarch, Pyrrhus, xix. 5; Appian, Sam. ; Frag. 10. 2, 3.

2 Plutarch, Pyrrhus, xxiii. 7: οἵαν ἀπολείπομεν, ὦ φίλοι, Καρχηδονίοις καὶ Ῥωμαίοις παλαίστραν.

CHAPTER IV.

FIRST PUNIC WAR.

(264-241 B.C.)

MESSANA AND AGRIGENTUM.

(264-262 B.C.)

Relations of Sicily to Carthage and Rome-Appeal of Mamertines for aid -The question at issue-Importance of the decision-Romans occupy Messana-They attack Syracuse-Results of first campaign-Romans ally themselves with Hiero-Carthaginians unprepared for war-Agrigentum-Its siege-Its fate.

IT is not the least striking testimony to the sense of relief with which the nations of the West must have seen Pyrrhus return to his own country, that the Romans and Carthaginians, in the face of so redoubtable a foe, had agreed to forget their mutual jealousies till such time as he should transfer himself and his ambitious schemes to another quarter of the globe. The second victory of Pyrrhus over the Romans had been followed by the appearance of a Carthaginian fleet off the mouth of the Tiber, offering to the Roman Senate their aid against him.1 The offer was at first declined, but shortly afterwards a close alliance was concluded, and the Carthaginian fleet, which had in vain attempted to intercept Pyrrhus on his crossing into Sicily, inflicted a heavy loss upon him as he hastily retreated from it. But hardly had Pyrrhus turned his back for the last

Justin, xviii. 2. 1-3.

2 Polybius, iii. 25; Plutarch, Pyrrhus, xxiv. 1; Appian, Sam. 12. Frag. G 2.