he felt himself so moved by the generosity of his brave opponents that he offered, by way of personal recompense, a singularly fair and favourable peace.  Cineas appears to have gone once more to Rome, and Carthage seems to have been seriously apprehensive that Rome might come to terms.  But the senate remained firm, and repeated its former answer.  Unless the king was willing to allow Syracuse to fall into the hands of the Carthaginians and to have his grand scheme thereby disconcerted, no other course remained than to abandon his Italian allies and to confine himself for the time being to the occupation of the most important seaports, particularly Tarentum and Locri.  In vain the Lucanians and Samnites conjured him not to desert them; in vain the Tarentines summoned him either to comply with his duty as their general or to give them back their city.  The king met their complaints and reproaches with the consolatory assurance that better times were coming, or with abrupt dismissal.  Milo remained behind in Tarentum; Alexander, the king’s son, in Locri; and Pyrrhus, with his main force, embarked in the spring of 476 at Tarentum for Syracuse.

Embarkation of Pyrrhus for Sicily—­
The War in Italy Flags

By the departure of Pyrrhus the hands of the Romans were set free in Italy; none ventured to oppose them in the open field, and their antagonists everywhere confined themselves to their fastnesses or their forests.  The struggle however was not terminated so rapidly as might have been expected; partly in consequence of its nature as a warfare of mountain skirmishes and sieges, partly also, doubtless, from the exhaustion of the Romans, whose fearful losses are indicated by a decrease of 17,000 in the burgess-roll from 473 to 479.  In 476 the consul Gaius Fabricius succeeded in inducing the considerable Tarentine settlement of Heraclea to enter into a separate peace, which was granted to it on the most favourable terms.  In the campaign of 477 a desultory warfare was carried on in Samnium, where an attack thoughtlessly made on some entrenched heights cost the Romans many lives, and thereafter in southern Italy, where the Lucanians and Bruttians were defeated.  On the other hand Milo, issuing from Tarentum, anticipated the Romans in their attempt to surprise Croton:  whereupon the Epirot garrison made even a successful sortie against the besieging army.  At length, however, the consul succeeded by a stratagem in inducing it to march forth, and in possessing himself of the undefended town (477).  An incident of more moment was the slaughter of the Epirot garrison by the Locrians, who had formerly surrendered the Roman garrison to the king, and now atoned for one act of treachery by another.  By that step the whole south coast came into the hands of the Romans, with the exception of Rhegium and Tarentum.  These successes, however, advanced the main object but little.  Lower Italy itself had long been defenceless; but Pyrrhus was not subdued so long as