n to continue the war. Pyrrhus's ambassador was told to tell
his master that the Romans could not treat so long as there was an enemy
on Italian soil. He told Pyrrhus that the Senate seemed to him an
assembly of kings.

The firm mind of the Romans did not change when Pyrrhus marched north.
Though he got within forty miles of the city there was no panic: only a
rush of men to join the armies standing outside the walls to guard it.
He had to retire south again. Even after another victory in the next
campaign--at Asculum (279)--Rome was not shaken: the Italians stood
firm. Pyrrhus knew that to win battles was not enough; he could not
conquer Rome unless he could shake the solid resistance of a whole
people. This he could not do. Nor did he know how to appeal to the
Italians and unite them against Rome. To the Italians Pyrrhus was a
foreigner, called in by the Tarentine Greeks whom they rightly despised.
Against him they rallied round Rome. And the Romans never wavered for an
instant. At the darkest hour there had been no break in the will of the
whole people. Pyrrhus saw this: he saw that the Romans would last him
out. After Asculum he crossed to Sicily and defeated the Carthaginians,
the allies of Rome who were gradually capturing the island from
Agathocles the king. But though he soon overran a large part of this
island, the Greeks in Sicily liked his iron rule no better than the
Greeks of Tarentum had done. He returned to Italy, leaving the great
fortress of Lilybaeum still in Carthaginian hands, crying as he sailed
away, 'What a battleground for Romans and Carthaginians I am leaving.'
In Italy he fought one more big battle, at Beneventum (275); but it was
a defeat. His hopes were ended. He had won glory for himself, but he
had, and this he knew, helped to unite Italy under Rome; and, as he saw,
to prepare the way for a great struggle between Rome and Carthage.
Pyrrhus saw, sooner than any Roman, the great struggle coming in which
the fate of Rome was to be decided. He had shown the Romans the way: had
made their strength visible to them and turned their eyes beyond Italy,
across the seas.

Carthage

The power of Carthage, to the men of the age of Pyrrhus, seemed
infinitely greater than that of Rome. Rome at that time was but a single
city whose rule did not extend even over the whole of Italy. Carthage
was the head of an empire, built up on a trade which spread its name
over the whole of the known world. The Punic