the
Romans that, excepting the Greeks of Lower Italy, no allied state of
any note dared to break off from the Roman alliance. Then Pyrrhus
turned against Rome itself. Through a rich country, whose flourishing
condition he beheld with astonishment, he marched against Fregellae
which he surprised, forced the passage of the Liris, and reached
Anagnia, which is not more than forty miles from Rome. No army
crossed his path; but everywhere the towns of Latium closed their
gates against him, and with measured step Laevinus followed him
from Campania, while the consul Tiberius Coruncanius, who had just
concluded a seasonable peace with the Etruscans, brought up a
second Roman army from the north, and in Rome itself the reserve was
preparing for battle under the dictator Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus.
In these circumstances Pyrrhus could accomplish nothing; no course was
left to him but to retire. For a time he still remained inactive in
Campania in presence of the united armies of the two consuls; but no
opportunity occurred of striking an effective blow. When winter came
on, the king evacuated the enemy's territory, and distributed his
troops among the friendly towns, taking up his own winter quarters in
Tarentum. Thereupon the Romans also desisted from their operations.
The army occupied standing quarters near Firmum in Picenum, where by
command of the senate the legions defeated on the Siris spent the
winter by way of punishment under tents.

Second Year of the War

Thus ended the campaign of 474. The separate peace which at the
decisive moment Etruria had concluded with Rome, and the king's
unexpected retreat which entirely disappointed the high-strung hopes
of the Italian confederates, counterbalanced in great measure the
impression of the victory of Heraclea. The Italians complained of the
burdens of the war, particularly of the bad discipline of the
mercenaries quartered among them, and the king, weary of the petty
quarrelling and of the impolitic as well as unmilitary conduct of his
allies, began to have a presentiment that the problem which had fallen
to him might be, despite all tactical successes, politically
insoluble. The arrival of a Roman embassy of three consulars,
including Gaius Fabricius the conqueror of Thurii, again revived in
him for a moment the hopes of peace; but it soon appeared that they
had only power to treat for the ransom or exchange of prisoners.
Pyrrhus rejected their demand, but at the