in this second contest, still it was not long before they were again in
arms and engaged in their third struggle with Rome. This time they had
formed a powerful coalition which embraced the Etruscans, the Umbrians,
the Gauls, and other nations.

Roman courage rose with the danger. The united armies of the league met
with a most disastrous defeat (at Sentinum, 295 B.C.), and the power of
the coalition was broken. One after another the states that had joined the
alliance were chastised, and the Samnites were forced to acknowledge the
supremacy of Rome. A few years later, almost all of the Greek cities of
Southern Italy, save Tarentum, also came under the growing power of the
imperial city.

WAR WITH PYRRHUS (282-272 B.C.).--Tarentum was one of the most noted of
the Hellenic cities of Magna Graecia. It was a seaport on the Calabrian
coast, and had grown opulent through the extended trade of its merchants.
The capture of some Roman vessels, and an insult offered to an envoy of
the republic by the Tarentines, led to a declaration of war against them
by the Roman Senate. The Tarentines turned to Greece for aid. Pyrrhus,
king of Epirus, a cousin of Alexander the Great, who had an ambition to
build up such an empire in the West as his renowned kinsman had
established in the East, responded to their entreaties, and crossed over
into Italy with a small army of Greek mercenaries and twenty war-
elephants. He organized and drilled the effeminate Tarentines, and soon
felt prepared to face the Romans.

The hostile armies met at Heraclea (280 B.C.). It is said that when
Pyrrhus, who had underestimated his foe, observed the skill which the
Romans evinced in forming their line of battle, he exclaimed, in
admiration, "In war, at least, these men are not barbarians." The battle