He reigned quietly in Epirus for a few years. Then a chance came to try and conquer the Romans who lived just across the Adriatic Sea. Pyrrhus was delighted. Ruling Epirus was a dull business. In the south of Italy a great many Greeks had settled. Greek was the language of the people who lived there and the region was called "Great Greece."
Rome wished to rule all Italy, but those Greeks were not willing to be under Roman rule; so they sent word to Pyrrhus that they were in trouble and would like him to help them.
Preparations for war were at once made and as soon as possible Pyrrhus landed on the shores of Italy with an army of about 30,000 men and twenty elephants.
A great battle was fought, and Pyrrhus won the victory, but the loss of life was dreadful. As he walked among the dead after the battle he said, "Another such victory and I shall have to go home alone." Half his men were slain.
However, the Greeks of South Italy furnished him with fresh soldiers and he gained a second victory.
The war came to an end in a very curious way. One of the servants of Pyrrhus deserted to the Romans and offered to poison his master for the consuls. The consuls sent back the deserter to Pyrrhus under guard and with a message that they scorned to gain a victory through treason.
Pyrrhus, to show his gratitude, then sent back to Rome all the prisoners whom he held, without asking any ransom. This made the enemies friends, and a truce was concluded. It was one of the terms of the truce that Pyrrhus should leave Italy.
A large number of Greeks lived in Sicily. They had built Syracuse and other large cities and towns. At that time Carthage in Africa was a powerful city and the Carthaginians were trying to conquer the Sicilian Greeks. Pyrrhus crossed to Sicily to help his countrymen.
But his Italian friends got into trouble with the Romans again and begged him once more to help them. Accordingly he left Sicily and went back to Italy. Now, however, his good fortune forsook him. He was totally defeated by the Romans under Curius Dentatus and forced to leave Italy.
He now returned to Epirus, but as he was no lover of peace he soon went to war a second time with Macedonia. Again he conquered the land of Alexander, but again the king of Macedonia regained the kingdom.
Not content to rule Epirus, Pyrrhus next went into the Peloponnesus and fought against the Spartans, but they drove him from their territory.
Finally he went to Argos and took part in a civil war which was going on in that state.
A fight took place in one of the streets of Argos, and during it a woman threw a tile from the roof of her house. It struck Pyrrhus upon the head and stunned him, and some of the soldiers of the party against whom he was fighting ran up and killed him. (287 B.C.)
II
Sicily, about whose struggle with the Carthaginians you have just read, was the home of a famous mathematician named Archimedes. He was born at Syracuse in 287 B.C., and was only a boy when Pyrrhus was in Sicily helping the Carthaginians fight the Sicilians. Many years later Syracuse was besieged by another enemy, the Romans. Archimedes, then an old man, proved of great help to his countrymen. He invented engines for throwing stones at the enemy. By using these engines the Sicilians kept the Romans at bay for a long time.
THE DEATH OF ARCHIMEDES by Vimont
It is said that Archimedes set fire to the Roman ships with powerful burning-glasses. At last, however, Syracuse fell, and Archimedes was put to death by a Roman soldier, contrary to the order of the Roman commander.
Cleomenes III
I
About a hundred years after the death of Alexander the Great lived a young prince named Cleomenes. His father was one of the kings of Sparta and bore the name of one of the greatest of Greek heroes, Leonidas, the famous defender of Thermopylae. One day, when the prince was about eighteen years old, he started from home to go hunting. He had not gone far from the city gate when one of his father's slaves overtook him and handed to him a writing tablet. On its waxed surface Cleomenes read the words, "Leonidas the king to Cleomenes: Come back to the palace the moment you have read this note." Cleomemes turned and went back toward the city.
Late in the afternoon he reached the palace. The gateway was hung with a garland of flowers, and entering he found the women busily arranging roses and lilies in every room.
As soon as he saw his father, he asked, "Is anyone going to be married?"
"You are," replied his father. "This evening I wish you to marry Agiatis, the widow of King Agis. I am having the palace decorated for the wedding. She is beautiful and good and the heiress of one of the richest men in Sparta."
"But," said Cleomenes, "how can she ever be willing to marry your son?"
"I am the king," replied Leonidas, "and she is bound to obey me."
"Since you wish it, I will marry her," said Cleomenes, "but I never can hope that she will love me."
Cleomenes had good reason for saying this; for Leonidas had caused his fellow-king, Agis, the husband of Agiatis, to be murdered.
Agis had been one of the best and greatest of Sparta's kings. He had been distressed at the state of his country when he came to the throne. The old customs of Lycurgus had been set aside. Since the close of the Peloponnesian War, when Sparta had proved more than a match for Athens, a great change had come over the kingdom. Her men were no longer warriors. The hope of Agis was that he might persuade the people to live according to the old laws which no one now obeyed.
But Leonidas, his fellow-king, did not wish to return to the old ways of living, and the five ephors, or magistrates of Sparta, were friends of his. They determined to put Agis to death. The ephors seized him upon the street and carried him to prison, and—for no other reason than that he had tried to carry out the laws of Lycurgus and restore the glory of Sparta—he was put to death.
THE RACE-COURSE OF SPARTA by Hoffmann
This had been done at the order of Leonidas. Cleomenes therefore had reason to think that Agiatis never would marry him. However, the marriage took place as Leonidas wished, and although Agiatis hated Leonidas, who had murdered her husband, she soon learned to love Cleomenes, who was manly and true, and who devoted his life to making her happy.
She talked to him of Agis and what he had wished to do for Sparta. As Cleomenes listened he made up his mind to do just what Agis had wished to do. He saw that luxurious ways of living had weakened Sparta and destroyed her influence. And he saw also that his father's friends were not the few good and brave men still left in Sparta, but rich men who cared for nothing but money and pleasure.
II
Leonidas died a few years after the murder of Agis, and then Cleomenes became king.
At this time a great general named Aratus was at the head of a league of Greek cities called the Achæan League. It seemed likely that it would soon control all the Peloponnesus. Cleomenes therefore persuaded the Spartans to go to war against the Achæans.
In several battles he defeated Aratus and won for himself great fame as a soldier. This made the Spartans very fond of him, and he thought that the time had arrived when he might persuade them to obey once more the old laws and customs.
But the ephors were opposed to the changes which he wished to make, and so he boldly put them to death.
Next day he banished eighty citizens who were opposed to his plans. He then explained to the people why he had done this and why he had put the ephors to death.
"If without bloodshed," he said, "I could have driven from Sparta luxury and extravagance, debts and usury—the riches of the few and the poverty of the many—I should have thought myself the happiest of kings."