The Samnites having been refused a peace from the Roman senate, Pontius their general resolved to obtain it by a stratagem. Occupying the defile of Claudium and defending all its outlets, he dressed ten of his sol diers as shepherds, who were instructed to throw themselves in the way of the Romans. The consul himself la in with the shepherds, and having learned from them that Pontius's army had gone to besiege Luceria a town of Apulia, he marched straight through the defiles, and never suspected the stratagem till he found himself enclosed in the middle of the Samnite army. Stripping them of every thing but their gar ments, Pontius made them pass through the yoke, and stipulated that they should evacuate the territory of the Samnites. The Romans were deeply afflicted with this disgraceful treaty, but they soon found cause to break it. Under the dictatorships and consulates of Papirius Cursor,the Romans gained repeated triumphs over the Samnites, and by the exertions of Fabius Maximus and Decius, they were finally subjugated.
Alarmed at the increase of the Roman power, the Tarentincs resolved to oppose them; but being de voted more to the pursuits of indolence and pleasure than to those of war, they invited Pyrrhus king of Epirus to lead their armies to battle. When the Ro man general Emilius heard of this invitation, he car ried on the war with greater vigcanr, and soon drove the Tarentine army within the walls of their capital.
The Tarentine ambassadors succeeded in making a treaty with Pyrrhus, who immediately despatched his skilful general Cyneas with 3000 men to take posses sion of Tarentum. When he had, after much diffi culty, got the command of the citadel, he solicited Pyrrhus to hasten into Italy. Emilius now resolved to go into winter quarters in Apulia, but his road lying through defiles flanked by lofty hills on the one side and by the sea on the other, he was unexpectedly at tacked by the Tarentines and Epirots, who had posted archers and slingers on the hills, and armed several barks with ballistx. Emilius, however, placed his Tarentine prisoners between him and the enemy, and thus made his way through the defiles without any farther molestation. In the following year Emilius was made proconsul.
Pyrrhus had no sooner arrived in than he found the inhabitants engrossed with licentiousness and gaiety. They had expected that the Epirots alone were to brave the dangers of the war; but Pyrrhus resolved to reform them and to put an end to the di visions which were fomented by their idleness and vices. He prohibited their feasts, their masquerades, and their plays. He put down the harangues and de bates of their demagogues; and, selecting the strongest of the youth he inured them to military exercises and the use of arms. The Tarentines could not brook
such a system of severe and rigorous discipline; they complained loudly of their new ally, and even at tempted to quit their country, but Pyrrhus made it a capital crime to abandon their territory, and increased the severity of his measures in proportion as they en deavoured to resist or evade them.
While Pyrrhus was thus disciplining the Taren tines, P. Valerius Lxvinus the Roman consul entered Lucania and ravaged the country. Though Pyrrhus had not yet collected his contingents from the allies of the Tarentines, he yet ventured into the field, and ad vanced to the Roman camp on the banks of the Siris. Upon reconnoitring the camp from the opposite bank, and observing the entrenchments, and the good order which characterized the whole, he renounced his plan of attacking them, and waited in his own entrench ments for the reinforcements which he expected.
The Roman consul, however, was desirous of bring ing Pyrrhus to a general engagement before the arrival of the confederate troops. He accordingly addressed his army, and drawing up his infantry on the banks of the Siris, the cavalry were ordered to make a great detour in order to cross some unprotected part of the river. Having succeeded in passing the Siris, the cavalry attacked the troops which Pyrrhus had drawn up in front of the Roman infantry, and thus gave time to the latter to cross the river by bridges which had been prepared for them. In the mean time, Pyrrhus advanced with his army, in the hopes of destroying the Romans during the hurry and disorder of forming on the banks of the river; but the Roman cavalry kept the Epirots in check till the infantry were formed. At this early period of the action, Pyrrhus astonished the Romans by his bravery and skill. He had a horse killed under him at the first onset, and as a report had gone abroad that he was slain, he rode through all his ranks before he began the general attack. The rich ness of his equipments having marked him out to the enemy, he exchanged his dress and his helmet with his favourite Megacles, and tl,ms masked be attacked the Romans with a vigour to which they had not been ac customed. The Romans bore the onset with undaunted firmness. The Epirots and the Romans gave way by turns, and by turns were rallied, and their leader gacles, in the royal garb, was pursued by Dexter a Roman knight, who slew him and carried his dress and armour to the consul. When these were shown to the Epirots, they began to give way under the be lief that their king had fallen; but Pyrrhus learning what had happened, rode bare-headed along the first. lines of his army and raised their hopes and their courage.