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.