A.C. 272.

The same ambitious, quarrelsome prince fell upon Argos, at a time when it was divided by the factions of Aristias and Aristippus. The Argives at first sent to Pyrrhus to beg him to evacuate their territories. He promised to do so, but that very same night entered their gates, aided by the treachery of Aristias. A great part of his troops had already spread themselves throughout the city, when an act of imprudence deprived him of his victory and his life. Whoever reads the life of Pyrrhus will observe the importance he always attached to his elephants—engines of war, if we may so call them, introduced for a time into Europe by the conquests of Alexander. He had tried to terrify the Romans with these monstrous animals, but without success. So partial was he to these bulky assistants, that he insisted upon their being brought into LacedÆmon, though the gates were not large enough, or the streets sufficiently wide, to make them at all available. Alarmed by the noise created by the confusion the elephants produced, the Argives flew to arms, and their houses became so many citadels, from which they poured all sorts of missiles down upon the troops of the king of Epirus. The elephants so completely blocked up the way, as to prevent the entrance of fresh troops, and were of more injury to their masters than to the Spartans. Abandoned by his people, Pyrrhus maintained his character for personal valour by the brave manner in which he fought his way through the enemy. An Argive attacked him, and hurled his javelin at him; but the point was blunted by the thickness of his cuirass. The furious prince was about to strike him dead, when the mother of the Argive, who beheld the fight from the roof of her house, threw a tile at Pyrrhus, which, striking him on the head, stretched him senseless on the ground. One of the soldiers of Antigonus coming up, was rejoiced to find their great enemy in such a state, and immediately cut off his head. His soldiers, deprived of their leader, were soon put to the rout. Thus perished, by the hand of an old woman, a captain famous for his exploits against both Rome and Carthage, and whose victorious arms had made Greece tremble more than once.