Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/91

 THE RISE OF ROME 79 colony of Tarentum were suspected of having been the cause of the insurrections. A purely technical breach of treaty rights on the part of a small Roman squadron gave the Tarentines an excuse for an onslaught on the transgressors, war in South The insults with which a Roman Embassy of Italy, protest was received at Tarentum compelled a declaration of war ; and the Tarentines, who could now count on the support of nearly all the southern Italians, including the Samnites, succeeded also in obtaining the aid of the most brilliant but most erratic soldier of the age, Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, whom we have already met with when the Macedonian generals were fighting for the crown of Macedon. King Pyrrhus doubtless hoped to turn his intervention into account for himself by making himself king of Southern Italy and Sicily, and turning his new dominion into pyrrhus, a basis from which he could acquire a supremacy 280 Bc - among the kingdoms into which the empire of Alexander the Great had been broken up. He had been called in to the aid of Hellenes against barbarians. But the Roman was a very different kind of barbarian from those whom Alexander had overthrown. Pyrrhus had perfected the formation of troops known as the Macedonian Phalanx, a solid mass of heavily armed spearmen ranged sixteen deep, which usually proved impenetrable to the fiercest charges. On open ground the Phalanx proved invincible. Pyrrhus was victorious in a desperate battle at Heraclea, which brought him fresh allies. But the Roman defeat was not a rout, and Pyrrhus was obliged to wait for a fresh campaign next year, when he found on advancing towards Rome that the great bulk of the Latins and Campanians remained loyal to her. The cities which had been admitted to the full citizenship felt themselves to be one with Rome, and the rest hoped that loyalty would bring to them a like reward. The next year brought Pyrrhus another victory, but of an even less decisive character ; and in both he had lost immense numbers of his best troops. He resolved to let Repulse of Rome alone, and try the conquest of Sicily. After Pyrrhus. two years of campaigning with insufficient results, he returned