Pyrrhus

until, having found the body of his master, he took it up with his proboscis, laid it across his two tusks, and turned back as if crazed, overthrowing and killing those who came in his way. Thus crushed and matted together not a man of them could act at all for himself, but the whole multitude, bolted together, as it were, into one body, kept rolling and swaying this way and that.

Little fighting could be done against those of the enemy who were continually being caught up into their ranks or attacking them from the rear, and they wrought most harm to themselves. For when a man had drawn his sword or poised his spear, he could not recover or sheathe his weapon again, but it would pass through those who stood in its way, and so they died from one another’s blows.

But Pyrrhus, seeing the stormy sea that surged about him, took off the coronal, with which his helmet was distinguished, and gave it to one of his companions; then, relying on his horse, he plunged in among the enemy who were pursuing him. Here he was wounded by a spear which pierced his breastplate-not a mortal, nor even a severe wound-and turned upon the man who had struck him, who was an Argive, not of illustrious birth, but the son of a poor old woman.

His mother, like the rest of the women, was at this moment watching the battle from the house-top, and when she saw that her son was engaged in conflict with Pyrrhus she was filled with distress in view of the danger to him, and lifting up a tile with both her hands threw it at Pyrrhus. It fell upon his head below his helmet and crushed the vertebrae at the base of his neck, so that his sight was blurred and his hands dropped the reins. Then he sank down from his horse and fell near the tomb of Licymnius,[*](Cf. Pausanias, ii. 22, 8.) unrecognised by most who saw him.