PYRRHUS (365?-272
BCE)
by
Plutarch
translated by
John Dryden
First Page | Second Page
A sort of barbarous people about Messena, called Mamertines,
gave much trouble to the Greeks, and put several of them under
contribution. These being numerous and valiant (from whence they had their
name, equivalent in the Latin tongue to warlike,*) he first intercepted
the collectors of the contribution money, and cut them off, then beat them in
open fight, and destroyed many of their places of strength. The
Carthaginians being now inclined to composition, and offering
him a round sum of money, and to furnish him with shipping, if a peace were
concluded, he told them plainly, aspiring still to greater things, there was
but one way for a friendship and right understanding between them, if they,
wholly abandoning Sicily, would consent to make the African sea the limit
between them and the Greeks. And being elevated with his good
fortune, and the strength of his forces, and pursuing those hopes in
prospect of which he first sailed thither, his immediate aim was at Africa;
and as he had abundance of shipping, but very ill equipped, he collected
seamen, not by fair and gentle dealing with the cities, but by force
in a haughty and insolent way, and menacing them with punishments. And as
at first he had not acted thus, but had been unusually indulgent and kind,
ready to believe, and uneasy to none; now of a popular leader becoming a
tyrant by these severe proceedings, he got the name of an ungrateful and a
faithless man. However, they gave way to these things as necessary, although
they took them very ill from him; and especially when he began to show
suspicion of Thoenon and Sosistratus, men of the first position in
Syracuse, who invited him over into Sicily, and when he was come, put the
cities into his power, and were most instrumental in all he had done there
since his arrival, whom he now would neither suffer to be about his person, nor
leave at home; and when Sosistratus out of fear withdrew himself, and then
he charged Thoenon, as in a conspiracy with the other, and put him to
death, with this all his prospects changed, not by little and little, nor in a
single place only, but a mortal hatred being raised in the cities against
him, some fell off to the Carthaginians, others called in the
Mamertines. And seeing revolts in all places, and desires of
alteration, and a potent faction against him, at the same time he received
letters from the Samnites and Tarentines, who were beaten
quite out of the field, and scarce able to secure their towns against the war,
earnestly begging his help. This served as a colour to make his
relinquishing Sicily no flight, nor a despair of good success; but in truth
not being able to manage Sicily, which was as a ship labouring in a storm,
and willing to be out of her, he suddenly threw himself over into Italy. It
is reported that at his going off he looked back upon the island, and said to
those about him, "How brave a field of war do we leave, my friends,
for the Romans and Carthaginians to fight in," which, as
he then conjectured, fell out indeed not long after.
* Mamers being another and older form for Mars. The Mamertines
were descended from Campanian or Oscan mercenaries and spoke a kind of
Latin.
When he was sailing off, the barbarians having conspired
together, he was forced to a fight with the Carthaginians in the
very road, and lost many of his ships; with the rest he fled into Italy.
There, about one thousand Mamertines, who had crossed the sea a
little before, though afraid to engage him in open field, setting upon him
where the passages were difficult, put the whole army in confusion. Two
elephants fell, and a great part of his rear was cut off. He,
therefore, coming up in person, repulsed the enemy, but ran into great
danger among men long trained and bold in war. His being wounded in the head
with a sword, and retiring a little out of the fight, much increased their
confidence, and one of them advancing a good way before the rest, large of
body and in bright armour, with an haughty voice challenged him to come
forth if he were alive. Pyrrhus, in great anger, broke away
violently from his guards, and, in his fury, besmeared with blood,
terrible to look upon, made his way through his own men, and struck the
barbarian on the head with his sword such a blow, as with the strength of
his arm, and the excellent temper of the weapon, passed downward so far that
his body being cut asunder fell in two pieces. This stopped the course of the
barbarians, amazed and confounded at Pyrrhus, as one
more than man; so that continuing his march all the rest of the way
undisturbed, he arrived at Tarentum with twenty thousand foot and three
thousand horse, where, reinforcing himself with the choicest troops of the
Tarentines, he advanced immediately against the Romans, who
then lay encamped in the territories of the Samnites, whose
affairs were extremely shattered, and their counsels broken, having
been in many fights beaten by the Romans. There was also a discontent
amongst them at Pyrrhus for his expedition into Sicily, so that not many
came in to join him.
He divided his army into two parts, and despatched the first into Lucania
to oppose one of the consuls there, so that he should not come in to
assist the other; the rest he led against Manius Curius, who had posted
himself very advantageously near Beneventum, and expected the other
consul's forces, and partly because the priests had dissuaded him by
unfavourable omens, was resolved to remain inactive. Pyrrhus,
hastening to attack these before the other could arrive, with his best men,
and the most serviceable elephants, marched in the night toward
their camp. But being forced to go round about, and through a very woody
country, their lights failed them, and the soldiers lost their way. A
council of war being called, while they were in debate, the night was spent,
and, at the break of day, his approach, as he came down the hills, was
discovered by the enemy, and put the whole camp into disorder and tumult.
But the sacrifices being auspicious, and the time absolutely
obliging them to fight, Manius drew his troops out of the
trenches, and attacked the vanguard, and, having routed them
all, put the whole army into consternation, so that many were cut off and
some of the elephants taken. This success drew on Manius into the level plain, and here, in open battle, he defeated part
of the enemy; but, in other quarters, finding himself overpowered by the
elephants and forced back to his trenches, he commanded out
those who were left to guard them, a numerous body, standing thick at the
ramparts, all in arms and fresh. These coming down from their strong
position, and charging the elephants, forced them to retire; and
they in the flight turning back upon their own men, caused great disorder and
confusion, and gave into the hands of the Romans the victory and the
future supremacy. Having obtained from these efforts, and these contests, the
feeling as well as the fame of invincible strength, they at once reduced
Italy under their power, and not long after Sicily too.
Thus fell Pyrrhus from his Italian and Sicilian hopes, after he
had consumed six years in these wars, and though unsuccessful in his
affairs, yet preserved his courage unconquerable among all these
misfortunes, and was held, for military experience, and personal
valour and enterprise, much the bravest of all the princes of his time, only
what he got by great actions he lost again by vain hopes, and by new
desires of what he had not, kept nothing of what he had. So that Antigonus
used to compare him to a player with dice, who had excellent throws, but knew
not how to use them. He returned into Epirus with eight thousand foot and
five hundred horse, and for want of money to pay them, was fain to look out
for a new war to maintain the army. Some of the Gauls joining him, he
invaded Macedonia, where Antigonus, son of Demetrius, governed, designing
merely to plunder and waste the country. But after he had made himself
master of several towns, and two thousand men came over to him, he began to
hope for something greater, and adventured upon Antigonus himself, and
meeting him at a narrow passage, put the whole army in disorder. The
Gauls, who brought up Antigonus's rear, were very numerous
and stood firm, but after a sharp encounter, the greatest part of them were
cut off, and they who had the charge of the elephants being
surrounded every way, delivered up both themselves and the beasts, Pyrrhus,
taking this advantage, and advising more with his good fortune than his
reason, boldly set upon the main body of the Macedonian foot,
already surprised with fear, and troubled at the former loss. They declined
any action or engagement with him; and he, holding out his hand and calling
aloud both to the superior and under officers by name, brought over the foot
from Antigonus, who, flying away secretly, was only able to retain
some of the seaport towns. Pyrrhus, among all these kindnesses of fortune,
thinking what he had effected against the Gauls the most advantageous
for his glory, hung up their richest and goodliest spoils in the
temple of Minerva Itonis, with this inscription:-
"Pyrrhus, descendant of Molossian kings,
These shields to thee, Itonian goddess, brings,
Won from the valiant Gaul when in the fight
Antigonus and all his host took flight;
'Tis not to-day or yesterday alone
That for brave deeds the Aeacidae are known."
After this victory in the field, he proceeded to secure the cities, and having
possessed himself of Aegae, beside other hardships put upon the people there,
he left in the town a
garrison of
Gauls, some of those in his own
army, who being insatiably desirous of wealth, instantly dug up the
tombs of the kings that lay buried there, and took away the riches, and
insolently scattered about their bones.
Pyrrhus, in appearance,
made no great matter of it, either deferring it on account of the pressure of
other business, or wholly passing it by, out of
fear of punishing those
barbarians; but this made him very ill spoken of among the
Macedonians, and his
affairs being yet unsettled and
brought to no firm consistence, he began to entertain new
hopes and
projects, and in raillery called
Antigonus a shameless man, for still wearing
his
purple and not changing it for an ordinary dress; but upon
Cleonymus,
the
Spartan, arriving and inviting him to
Lacedaemon, he frankly embraced
the overture.
Cleonymus was of royal descent, but seeming too arbitrary and
absolute, had no great respect nor credit at home; and
Areus was king there.
This was the occasion of an old and public grudge between him and the citizens;
but, beside that,
Cleonymus, in his
old age, had married a young lady of
great
beauty and royal
blood,
Chilonis, daughter of
Leotychides, who,
falling desperately in love with
Acrotatus,
Areus's son, a
youth in the flower of
manhood, rendered this match both uneasy and
dishonourable to
Cleonymus, as there was none of the
Spartans who
did not very well know how much his wife slighted him; so these domestic
troubles added to his public
discontent. He brought
Pyrrhus to
Sparta
with an
army of twenty-five thousand foot, two thousand
horse, and
twenty-four
elephants. So great a preparation made it
evident to
the whole world that he came, not so much to gain
Sparta for
Cleonymus, as
to take all
Peloponnesus for himself, although he expressly denied this to
the
Lacedaemonian ambassadors that came to him at
Megalopolis,
affirming he came to deliver the cities from the
slavery of
Antigonus, and
declaring he would send his younger sons to
Sparta, if he might, to be
brought up in
Spartan habits, that so they might be better bred than all
other kings. With these
pretensions amusing those who came to meet
him in his march, as soon as ever he entered
Laconia he began to
plunder
and waste the country, and on the
ambassadors complaining that he
began the war upon them before it was proclaimed: "We know," said he, "very
well that neither do you
Spartans, when you design anything, talk of
it beforehand." One
Mandroclidas, then present, told him, in the broad
Spartan dialect: "If you are a
god, you will do us no harm, we are wronging
no man; but if you are a man, there may be another stronger than you.
He now marched away directly for Lacedaemon, and being advised by Cleonymus
to give the assault as soon as he arrived, fearing, as it is said, lest
the soldiers, entering by night, should plunder the city, he
answered, they might do it as well next morning, because there were but few
soldiers in town, and those unprovided against his sudden approach,
as Areus was not there in person, but gone to aid the
Gortynians in Crete. And it was this alone that saved the town,
because he despised it as not tenable, and so imagining no defence would be
made, he sat down before it that night. Cleonymus's
friends, and the Helots, his domestic servants, had made great
preparation at his house, as expecting Pyrrhus there at supper. In the night
the Lacedaemonians held a consultation to ship over all the
women into Crete, but they unanimously refused, and Archidamia came into
the senate with a sword in her hand, in the name of them all, asking if the
men expected the women to survive the ruins of Sparta. It was next
resolved to draw a trench in a line directly over against the enemy's
camp, and, here and there in it, to sink wagons in the ground, as deep as the
naves of the wheel, that, so being firmly fixed, they might obstruct the
passage of the elephants. When they had just begun the work, both
maids and women came to them, the married women with their robes tied
like girdles round their underfrocks, and the unmarried girls in their
single frocks only, to assist the elder men at the work. As for the
youth that were next day to engage, they left them to their rest, and
undertaking their proportion, they themselves finished a third part of the
trench which was in breadth six cubits, four in depth, and eight
hundred feet long, as Phylarchus says; Hieronymus makes it somewhat less.
The enemy beginning to move by break of day, they brought their arms to the
young men, and giving them also in charge the trench, exhorted them to defend
and keep it bravely, as it would be happy for them to conquer in the view of
their whole country, and glorious to die in the arms of their mothers and
wives, falling as became Spartans. As for Chilonis, she
retired with a halter about her neck, resolving to die so rather than fall
into the hands Cleonymus, if the city were taken.
Pyrrhus himself, in person, advanced with his foot to force through the
shields of the Spartans ranged against him, and to get over
the trench, which was scarce passable, because the looseness of the fresh
earth afforded no firm footing for the soldiers. Ptolemy, his
son, with two thousand Gauls, and some choice men of the Chaonians, went
around the trench, and endeavoured to get over where the wagons
were. But they, being so deep in the ground, and placed close together, not
only made his passage, but also the defence of the
Lacedaemonians, very troublesome. Yet now the Gauls
had got the wheels out of the ground, and were drawing off the wagons toward
the river, when young Acrotatus, seeing the danger, passing through the town
with three hundred men, surrounded Ptolemy undiscerned, taking the advantage
of some slopes of the ground, until he fell upon his rear, and forced him to
wheel about. And thrusting one another into the ditch, and falling among
the wagons, at last with much loss, not without difficulty, they withdrew. The
elderly men and all the women saw this brave action of Acrotatus, and when be
returned back into the town to his first post, all covered with blood and
fierce and elate with victory, he seemed to the Spartan women to have become
taller and more beautiful than before, and they envied Chilonis so worthy a
lover. And some of the old men followed him, crying aloud, "Go on,
Acrotatus, be happy with Chilonis, and beget brave sons for Sparta."
Where Pyrrhus himself fought was the hottest of the action and many of the
Spartans did gallantly, but in particular one Phyllius
signalized himself, made the best resistance, and killed most
assailants; and when he found himself ready to sink with the many
wounds he had received, retiring a little out of his place behind another, he
fell down among his fellow-soldiers, that the enemy might not carry
off his body. The fight ended with the day, and Pyrrhus, in his sleep,
dreamed that he drew thunderbolts upon Lacedaemon, and set it all on
fire, and rejoiced at the sight; and waking, in this transport of joy, he
commanded his officers to get all things ready for a second assault, and
relating his dream among his friends, supposing it to mean that he
should take the town by storm, the rest assented to it with admiration, but
Lysimachus was not pleased with the dream, and told him he feared
lest as places struck with lightning are held sacred, and not to be trodden
upon, so the gods might by this let him know the city should not be
taken. Pyrrhus replied, that all these things were but idle talk, full of
uncertainty, and only fit to amuse the vulgar; their thought, with their
swords in their hands, should always be-
"The one good omen is King Pyrrhus's cause,"
and so got up, and drew out his
army to the walls by break of day. The
Lacedaemonians, in resolution and
courage, made a
defence
even beyond their power; the women were all by, helping them to arms, and
bringing bread and drink to those that desired it, and taking care of the
wounded. The
Macedonians attempted to fill up the
trench,
bringing huge quantities of materials and throwing them upon the arms and dead
bodies, that lay there and were covered over. While the
Lacedaemonians opposed this with all their force,
Pyrrhus,
in person, appeared on their side of the
trench and wagons, pressing on
horseback toward the city, at which the men who had that post calling out, and
the women shrieking and running about, while
Pyrrhus violently
pushed on, and beat down all that disputed his way, his
horse received a shot
in the belly from a
Cretan arrow, and, in his convulsions as he died, threw
off
Pyrrhus on slippery and steep ground. And all about him being in
confusion at this, the
Spartans came
boldly up, and making
good use of their
missiles, forced them off again. After this
Pyrrhus, in other quarters also, put an end to the combat, imagining the
Lacedaemonians would be inclined to yield, as almost all of
them were wounded, and very great numbers killed outright; but the good
fortune of the city, either satisfied with the experiment upon the bravery of
the citizens, or willing to prove how much even in the last extremities such
interposition may effect, brought, when the
Lacedaemonians had
now but very slender
hopes left, Aminias, the Phocian, one of
Antigonus's commanders, from
Corinth to their assistance, with a
force of mercenaries; and they were no sooner received into the town, but
Areus, their king, arrived there himself, too, from
Crete, with two
thousand men more. The women upon this went all home to their houses, finding
it no longer necessary for them to meddle with the business of the war; and
they also were sent back, who, though not of
military age, were by necessity
forced to take arms, while the rest prepared to fight
Pyrrhus.
He, upon the coming of these additional forces, was indeed possessed with a
more eager desire and ambition than before to make himself master of the
town; but his designs not succeeding, and receiving fresh losses
every day, he gave over the siege, and fell to plundering the
country, determining to winter thereabout. But fate is unavoidable, and a
great feud happening at Argos between Aristeas and Aristippus, two
principal citizens, after Aristippus had resolved to make use of the
friendship of Antigonus, Aristeas to anticipate him invited Pyrrhus
thither. And he always revolving hopes upon hopes, and treating
all his successes as occasions of more, and his reverses as defects to be
amended by new enterprises, allowed neither losses nor victories to limit him
in his receiving or giving trouble, and so presently went for Argos. Areus,
by frequent ambushes, and seizing positions where the ways were most
unpracticable, harassed the Gauls and Molossians that
brought up the rear. It had been told Pyrrhus by one of the priests that
found the liver of the sacrificed beast imperfect that some of his
near relations would be lost; in this tumult and disorder of his rear,
forgetting the prediction, he commanded out his son Ptolemy with some of
his guards to their assistance, while he himself led on the main body
rapidly out of the pass. And the fight being very warm where Ptolemy
was (for the most select men of the Lacedaemonians, commanded
by Evalcus, were there engaged), one Oryssus of Aptera in
Crete, a stout man and swift of foot, running on one side of the young
prince, as he was fighting bravely, gave him a mortal wound and slew him. On
his fall those about him turned their backs, and the Lacedaemonian horse,
pursuing and cutting off many, got into the open plain, and found
themselves engaged with the enemy before they were aware, without
their infantry; Pyrrhus, who had received the ill news of his son, and was
in great affliction, drew out his Molossian horse against them, and
charging at the head of his men, satiated himself with the blood and
slaughter of the Lacedaemonians, as indeed he always showed
himself a terrible and invincible hero in actual fight, but now he exceeded
all he had ever done before in courage and force. On his riding his horse
up to Evalcus, he by declining a little to one side, had almost cut off
Pyrrhus's hand in which he held the reins, but lighting on the reins,
only cut them; at the same instant Pyrrhus, running him through with his
spear, fell from his horse, and there on foot as he was proceeded to
slaughter all those choice men that fought about the body of Evalcus; a
severe additional loss to Sparta, incurred after the war itself was now at an
end, by the mere animosity of the commanders. Pyrrhus having thus offered,
as it were, a sacrifice to the ghost of his son, and fought a glorious
battle in honour of his obsequies, and having vented much of his pain in
action against the enemy, marched away to Argos. And having intelligence
that Antigonus was already in possession of the high grounds, he
encamped about Nauplia, and the next day despatched a herald to
Antigonus calling him a villain, and challenging him to descend into the
plain field and fight with him for the kingdom. He answered, that his conduct
should be measured by times as well as by arms, and that if Pyrrhus had no
leisure to live, there were ways enough open to death. To both the kings, also,
came ambassadors from Argos, desiring each party to retreat,
and to allow the city to remain in friendship with both, without
falling into the hands of either. Antigonus was persuaded, and sent
his son as a hostage to the Argives; but Pyrrhus, although he
consented to retire, yet, as he sent no hostage, was suspected. A
remarkable portent happened at this time to Pyrrhus; the heads of the
sacrificed oxen, lying apart from the bodies, were seen to thrust
out their tongues and lick up their own gore. And in the city of
Argos, the priestess of Apollo Lycius rushed out of the temple, crying
she saw the city full of carcasses and slaughter, and an eagle
coming out to fight, and presently vanishing again.
In the dead of the night, Pyrrhus, approaching the walls, and finding the
gate called Diamperes set open for them by Aristeas, was undiscovered long
enough to allow all his Gauls to enter and take possession of the
market-place. But the gate being too low to let in the elephants,
they were obliged to take down the towers which they carried on their backs,
and put them on again in the dark and in disorder, so that time being lost,
the city took the alarm, and the people ran, some to Aspis the chief
citadel, and other places of defence, and sent away to Antigonus to
assist them. He, advancing within a short distance, made an halt, but sent in
some of his principal commanders, and his son with a considerable force.
Areus came thither, too, with one thousand Cretans, and some of
the most active men among the Spartans, and all falling on at
once upon the Gauls, put them in great disorder. Pyrrhus, entering
in with noise and shouting near the Cylarabis, when the Gauls returned
the cry, noticed that it did not express courage and assurance, but was the
voice of men distressed, and that had their hands full. He, therefore, pushed
forward in haste the van of his horse that marched but slowly and
dangerously, by reason of the drains and sinks of which the city is full. In
this night engagement there was infinite uncertainty as to what was being
done, or what orders were given; there was much mistaking and struggling in the
narrow streets; all generalship was useless in that darkness and noise and
pressure; so both sides continued without doing anything, expecting daylight.
At the first dawn, Pyrrhus, seeing the great citadel Aspis full of
enemies, was disturbed, and remarking, among a variety of figures
dedicated in the market-place, a wolf and a bull of brass, as it were
ready to attack one another, he was struck with alarm, recollecting an
oracle that formerly predicted fate had determined his death when he should
see a wolf fighting with a bull. The Argives say these figures
were set up in record of a thing that long ago had happened there. For
Danaus, at his first landing in the country, near the Pyramia in
Thyreatis, as he was on his way towards Argos, espied a wolf fighting
with a bull, and conceiving the wolf to represent him (for this stranger
fell upon a native as he designed to do), stayed to see the issue of the fight,
and the wolf prevailing, he offered vows to Apollo Lycius, and thus made
his attempt upon the town, and succeeded; Gelanor, who was then king,
being displaced by a faction. And this was the cause of dedicating those
figures.
Pyrrhus, quite out of heart at this sight, and seeing none of his designs
succeed, thought best to retreat, but fearing the narrow passage at
the gate, sent to his son Helenus, who was left without the town with a great
part of his forces, commanding him to break down part of the wall, and assist
the retreat if the enemy pressed hard upon them. But what with haste and
confusion, the person that was sent delivered nothing clearly; so that quite
mistaking, the young prince with the best of his men and the remaining
elephants marched straight through the gates into the town to assist
his father. Pyrrhus was now making good his retreat, and while the
market-place afforded them ground enough both to retreat and fight,
frequently repulsed the enemy that bore upon him. But when he was forced out
of that broad place into the narrow street leading to the gate, and fell in
with those who came the other way to his assistance, some did not hear him call
out to them to give back, and those who did, however eager to obey him, were
pushed forward by others behind, who poured in at the gate. Besides, the
largest of his elephants falling down on his side in the very
gate, and lying roaring on the ground, was in the way of those that would have
got out. Another of the elephants already in the town, called
Nicon, striving to take up his rider, who, after many wounds received, was
fallen off his back, bore forward upon those that were retreating,
and, thrusting upon friends as well as enemies, tumbled them
all confusedly upon one another, till having found the body, and taken it up
with his trunk, he carried it on his tusks, and, returning in a fury, trod down
all before him. Being thus pressed and crowded together, not a man could do
anything for himself, but being wedged, as it were, together into one mass, the
whole multitude rolled and swayed this way and that altogether, and did very
little execution either upon the enemy in their rear, or on any of them who
were intercepted in the mass, but very much harm to one another. For he who had
either drawn his sword or directed his lance could neither restore it
again, nor put his sword up; with these weapons they wounded their
own men, as they happened to come in the way, and they were dying by mere
contact with each other.
Pyrrhus, seeing this storm and confusion of things, took off the crown he
wore upon his helmet, by which he was distinguished, and gave it to one
nearest his person, and trusting to the goodness of his horse, rode in among
the thickest of the enemy, and being wounded with a lance through his
breastplate, but not dangerously, nor indeed very much, he turned about upon
the man who struck him, who was an Argive, not of any illustrious birth, but
the son of a poor old woman; she was looking upon the fight among other women
from the top of a house, and perceiving her son engaged with
Pyrrhus, and affrighted at the danger he was in, took up a tile with both
hands and threw it at Pyrrhus. This falling on his head below the
helmet, and bruising the vertebrae of the lower part of the neck, stunned
and blinded him; his hands let go the reins, and sinking down from his
horse he fell just by the tomb of Licymnius. The common
soldiers knew not who it was; but one Zopyrus, who served under
Antigonus, and two or three others running thither, and knowing it was
Pyrrhus, dragged him to a doorway hard by, just as he was recovering a little
from the blow. But when Zopyrus drew out an Illyrian sword, ready to cut
off his head, Pyrrhus gave him so fierce a look that, confounded
with terror, and sometimes his hands trembling and then again
endeavouring to do it, full of fear and confusion, he could not
strike him right, but cutting over his mouth and chin, it was a long time
before he got off the head. By this time what had happened was known to a great
many, and Alcyoneus hastening to the place, desired to look upon the head,
and see whether he knew it, and taking it in his hand rode away to his father,
and threw it at his feet, while he was sitting with some of his particular
favourites. Antigonus, looking upon it, and knowing it, thrust his son from
him, and struck him with his staff, calling him wicked and barbarous, and
covering his eyes with his robe shed tears, thinking of his own father
and grandfather, instances in his own family of the changefulness of fortune,
and caused the head and body of Pyrrhus to be burned with all due solemnity.
After this, Alcyoneus, discovering Helenus under a mean disguise in a
threadbare coat, used him very respectfully, and brought him to his father.
When Antigonus saw him, "This, my son," said he, "is better; and yet even now
you have not done wholly well in allowing these clothes to remain, to the
disgrace of those who it seems now are the victors." And treating
Helenus with great kindness, and as became a prince, restored him to his
kingdom of Epirus, and gave the same obliging reception to all
Pyrrhus's principal commanders, his camp and whole army having
fallen into his hands.