The Comic History of Rome

by Gilbert Abbott À Beckett

The attack was commenced by the Romans; and the Consul, resolving either to sink or swim, sent a body of cavalry across the river. Pyrrhus, putting himself at the head of his horse, proceeded to meet the charge, but he soon perceived that his brilliant armour was rendering him uncomfortably conspicuous, and he exchanged his dazzling coat of mail for an old rusty suit worn by his friend Megacles. The latter was perhaps proud to wear the trappings of royalty, but the emptiness of false glitter was speedily exemplified, for Megacles being mistaken for the king, was killed, and the shining armour was carried in triumph to the enemy's camp before the hollow mockery was discovered.

The battle was fought with determined bravery on both sides, but brute force decided it at last, for the elephants of Pyrrhus weighed immensely in the scale of victory. The creatures coming down en masse, were more effective than the heaviest of ordinary heavies, and advancing with all their might upon the horses, the latter, though resisting with all their mane, felt their animal spirits rapidly oozing out of them. The carnage committed upon the Romans would have been merciless and complete, had it not been for the humanity of one of the elephants, who, taking a benevolent turn, pulled himself short round, and prevented his own side from continuing the pursuit of the fugitives. Pyrrhus, having laid his hands on everything he could take, proceeded to take everything he could lay his hands upon. A rich harvest having been collected, he, on the day following, went to glean what he could on the field of battle. Perceiving that the Romans had all fallen with their eyes towards the foe, he could not but acknowledge, with so much bravery staring him in the face, the courage of his antagonists. "With such soldiers as these," he exclaimed, "the world would be mine, or, at all events, it would be theirs if I were their general." He had, however, lost half his own men; and as they lay prostrate before him, they seemed to offer a flat contradiction to the congratulations offered to him on his victory. "Another such a triumph," he replied, "and I should return to Epirus thoroughly unmanned, for there would not remain to me a single soldier." He offered to the prisoners employment in his own army, but they, without exception, refused; and, considering their conduct unexceptionable, he had their chains taken off, that they might feel themselves quite unfettered in their future movements. He burned the bodies of the dead, out of compliment to their remains, whose combustion, could they have acted for themselves, would no doubt have been spontaneous. He made a tolerably fair division of the spoil, giving some to his allies, and devoted a considerable slice to Zeus—a piece of devotion of which the priests of the temple got the chief benefit.

The policy of Pyrrhus was to turn old foes into new friends; and he sent his trusty counsellor, Cineas, to Rome, with a suggestion that all animosity should be buried in the graves of those who had fallen on both sides. The Senators were beginning to waver, when Appius Claudius the Blind—who had been carried down to the house by his four sons—an arrangement that suggests the picture of a veteran supported by a youth at each arm and at each leg—declared suddenly that he could see through the whole affair, and called upon the Romans to open their eyes to the designs of Pyrrhus. The veteran, who, from infirmity, was unable to stir without assistance, could still agitate with his tongue; he urged that the proposals of Cineas should be rejected; and the assembly having first carried the motion, carried home the mover in triumph.

Cineas, on returning to his master, described the city as a temple, and the Senate as an assembly of kings; for he could not get the temples out of his head; and the magnificent curule chairs kept reminding him of the dignified setting down he had received from the Senators.

Pyrrhus, finding his friendly advances repulsed, resolved on advancing upon Rome in a less amicable spirit. Proceeding towards Capua, he encountered Laevinius, the consul, whom he had on a previous occasion beaten; but he was now not quite so fortunate; for, after a severe contest, neither side could say exactly which had got the worst of it. Pyrrhus, however, marched upon Praeneste, which fell into his hands, in consequence of the Romans having let it slip through their fingers. From the acropolis of Praeneste he is said to have seen Rome, at a distance of eighteen miles; but he must have seen very little, if so far off, unless he was accustomed to magnify what he saw in a very remarkable manner. The sight was sufficiently imposing to cause him to retreat; and he went into winter quarters at Tarentum, where he spent his own time, and the money he had taken from the enemy.

Self-possession of Fabricius, the Ambassador, under rather Trying Circumstances.

While Pyrrhus was thus engaged, or rather disengaged, three ambassadors, named C. Fabricius, Q. A. Papus, and P. Dolabella, were sent to him from Rome, to negotiate for the release of prisoners. C. Fabricius was a very superior man; and Pyrrhus, thinking to gain over the superior man, employed means by which none but a very inferior individual was at all likely to be influenced. Bribery was the first expedient attempted by Pyrrhus; but C. Fabricius showed his contempt for money by pursing his eyebrows. Having failed in his coarse appeal to avarice, Pyrrhus tried what was to be done through fear; and one day a tête-à-tête between the king and the ambassador was disturbed by the sudden introduction of a third tête, in the shape of the head of an elephant. The sagacious brute stood concealed behind a curtain, and, with a blow of the trunk on the cheek, he administered a smart box on the ear to the startled ambassador. The animal accompanied the act with a hideous roar, and threw his trunk over the head of C. Fabricius, who remained for a moment unable to see the clumsy joke that was being played upon him. He, nevertheless, retained his self-possession, remarking simply that neither by throwing gold dust in his eyes, nor by the still blacker job of the elephant's trunk, was he to be blinded to his duty.

Though Pyrrhus would not accede to the terms proposed for ransoming the Roman prisoners, he allowed them to go to Rome, for the season, to be present at the celebration of the fêtes of the Saturnalia. These games appear to have included some rather melancholy mirth, the principal fun of the affair consisting in the practice of shouting out "Io!"—which is equivalent to "Go it!"—in the public thoroughfare. Presents were exchanged among friends; and servants were in the habit of offering wax candles to their masters,—a sort of composition, perhaps, which the former came to with their consciences, in memory of the enormities of the grease pot. The domestic was allowed to wear his employer's clothes; and this portion of the ceremonies of the Saturnalia is still privately observed by the gentleman's gentleman of the family. While the wardrobe of the master remained at the mercy of the valet, the synthesis, or dressing-gown, was the fashionable attire; and for a period of general relaxation, this loose wrapper was perfectly appropriate.

Having done at Rome as Rome was doing, during the Saturnalia, the prisoners returned to Pyrrhus, who opened the campaign in Apulia, and met the two Roman consuls—P. Sulpicius, and P. Decius Mus—at Asculum. This Mus is the third to which the labours of the historical muse have given birth; and he is said to have shared the fate of his grandfather and father—if at least that fate can be said to have been "shared," of which each had to bear the whole inconvenience. The battle fought at Asculum was severe, the Romans having lost 6000 men; for tradition delights in round numbers, with which probability often refuses to square; and no less than three thousand five hundred and five—for in this case exactness is carried to a degree of excess—are said to have fallen on the side of Pyrrhus.