Summary of Book XIII
THE consul Valerius Laevinus fought a losing engagement with Pyrrhus, the soldiers being greatly terrified
by the strange sight of the elephants. after this battle,
when Pyrrhus was looking at the bodies of the Romans
who had fallen, he found that they all faced their
enemies, and laying waste the country, advanced towards
the city of Rome. Gaius Fabricius, being sent to him
by the senate to treat for the ransom of the prisoners,
was in vain solicited by the King to forsake his country.
The prisoners were released without a price. cineas,
having been dispatched by Pyrrhus as an envoy to the
senate, asked that the King might be received into the
City for the purpose of arranging terms of peace. on
its having been resolved to refer this proposal to a fuller
meeting of the senate, Appius Claudius, who by reason of
a weakness of the eyes had long abstained from public
[p. 551]
business, entered the Curia and by his speech prevailed
on the senators to deny Pyrrhus his request. Gnaeus
Domitius was the first plebeian censor to close the
lustrum. The number of the citizens was returned as
287,222. There was a second battle with Pyrrhus, of
an indecisive nature. The treaty with the Carthaginians
was renewed for the fourth time. when a deserter from
Pyrrhus promised Gaius Fabricius the consul that he
would poison the King, Fabricius sent him back to the
King with the story of his guilt. The book contains also
successful campaigns against the Lucanians and the
Bruttians, the Samnites and the Etruscans.