VIII, 3.--Such was the behavior of Pyrrhus toward the Tarentini. [Sidenote: FRAG. 40^8] THOSE IN ROME LEARNING THAT PYRRHUS HAD COME TO TARENTUM WERE SMITTEN WITH TERROR BECAUSE THE ITALIAN STATES HAD BEEN SET AT ENMITY WITH THEM AND BECAUSE HE WAS REPORTED TO BE WITHOUT DOUBT A GOOD WARRIOR AND TO HAVE A FORCE THAT WAS BY NO MEANS DESPICABLE AS AN ADVERSARY. So they proceeded to enlist soldiers and to gather money and to distribute garrisons among the allied cities to prevent them from likewise revolting; and learning that some were already stirred with sedition they punished the principal men in them. A handful of those from Præneste were brought to Rome late in the afternoon and thrown into the treasury for security. Thereby a certain oracle was fulfilled for the Romans. For an oracle had told them once that these people should occupy the Roman treasure-house. The oracle, then, resulted this way: the men lost their lives.
Valerius Lavinius was despatched against Pyrrhus, the Tarentini, and the rest of their associates, but a part of the army was retained in the city. As for Lavinius, he at once set out on his march so that he might carry on the war as far as possible from his own territory. He hoped to frighten Pyrrhus by showing the latter those men advancing against him of their own accord whom he had thought to besiege. In the course of his journey he seized a strong strategic point in the land of the Lucanians, and he left behind a force in Lucania to hinder the people from giving aid to his opponents.