ves.

In the spring the Roman army took the field and marched south against
the invader. When Pyrrhus surveyed from a hill the Roman camp and line
of battle he exclaimed in surprise: 'These are no barbarians!' In the
end he won a victory at Heraclea (280), partly by reason of the panic
caused among the Roman soldiers by the elephants--they had never seen
such beasts before--but the victory was a very expensive one. Pyrrhus's
own losses were so heavy that he said, 'One more victory like this and I
shall be ruined.' As he walked over the field at night and saw the Roman
dead, all their wounds in front, lying where they had fallen in their
own lines, he cried: 'Had I been king of these people I should have
conquered the world.'

A deep impression was made on him by the envoy Fabricius. Plutarch tells
the story:

_Pyrrhus and Fabricius_

Presently envoys came to negotiate about the fate of the
prisoners, and among them Gaius Fabricius, who was famed among the
Romans, as Cineas told the King, for uprightness and military
talent, and for extreme poverty as well. Therefore Pyrrhus
received him kindly, apart from the rest, and urged him to accept
a present, of course not corruptly, but as a so-called token of
friendship and intimacy. When Fabricius refused, the King did no
more for the moment, but next day, wishing to try his nerves as he
had never seen an elephant, he had the largest of these beasts put
behind a curtain close to them as they conversed. This was done,
and at a signal the curtain was drawn aside, and the beast
suddenly raised its trunk and held it over the head of Fabricius,
uttering a harsh and terrifying cry. Undisturbed, he turned round
and, smiling, said to Pyrrhus, 'Yesterday your gold did not move
me, nor does your elephant to-day.'

At dinner all sorts of subjects were discussed, and as a great
deal was said about Greece and its philosophers, Cineas happened
to mention Epicurus and explained the doctrines of his disciples
about the gods and service to the state and the chief end of life.
This last, as he said, they identified with pleasure, while they
avoided service to the state as interrupting and marring their
happiness, and banished the gods far away from love and anger and
care for mankind to an untroubled life of ceaseless enjoyment.
Before he had finished, Fabricius interrupted him and said, 'By
Hercules, I hope that Pyrrhus and the Samni