first invasion from overseas. We have already seen that the Greek cities of the south were faced from the fifth century onwards by
the territorial and political ambitions of their 'barbaric' neighbours (above, pp. 390 f). Tarentum declined to compromise, as did
Cumae or Posidoma, which had accepted the presence of a partially Samnite or Lucanian elite. Instead,' she called to her aid a
succession of Greek mercenary commanders. The last of these was Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who was summoned in 280 to deal not
with Tarentum's Lucanian neighbours, but with the Romans, who were now the principal threat to the independence of Tarentum.
Roman silver coin (didrachm) of the Pyrrhic war (275-270 B.C.). On the obverse the head of Apollo wearing a laurel-wreath; on
the reverse a horse galloping to the right beneath a sixteen-pointed star By the depiction of Apollo, the Greek god who had lately
repulsed the Gauls from Delphi, Rome promotes itself as the champion of civilization against the forces of barbarism.
It should be remarked that Tarentine opposition to Rome was by no means typical of the reaction of the Greek poleis of the south.
Many welcomed the protection and alliance of Rome, both now and later. The obverse type of the issue of silver coins which Rome
struck during the war against Pyrrhus should be seen as quite deliberately placing Rome on the side of civilization in the fight
against barbarism. The type in question is a head of Apollo, the god who had become in 279 the symbol throughout the Greek
world of the victory of the civilized over the barbarous, by reason of his defence of Delphi against a band of marauding Gauls.
Rome too, as we have seen, had defeated a similar band, in 295, along with her other enemies.
Pyrrhus succeeded initially in winning a number of costly victories over the armies of Rome (hence the phrase 'Pyrrhic victory').
But he was in due course defeated at Beneventum and returned across the Adriatic. It was undoubtedly his defeat at the hands of
Rome that caused the Greek historian, Timaeus of Tauromenium, writing in exile at Athens, to take notice of the new power in the
West.
Shortly afterwards, this new power found itself at war with the other power in the West, Carthage, longer established as such and
much better known in the Greek world as a result of the long series of bloody wars which she had fought with the Greeks in Sicily.
The earlier relations of Carthage with Rome had been pacific, and the two states had indeed made three treaties with each other,
agreeing not to interfere in their respective spheres of interest. The treaties are preserved by Polybius. The earliest, belonging to the
first year of the Republic, is the earliest Roman document known in something like its entirety.
In addition to the factors making for Roman expansion which we have already considered, others are evidenced by the outbreak of
the First Punic War. Polybius reports that the Senate did not vote for action, but that the assembly did, and there is no doubt that