Though he lived in an age when the education of sovereigns was sadly neglected, he possessed a fair amount of information, and he had the fortunate habit of listening to good advice, so that he got credit for being wise on the strength of the wisdom of his counsellors. His tongue was no less polished than his sword, and his manners would have fully justified their being charged as extras in the bill of any school in which they may have been acquired. He was only thirty-seven years old when he entered Italy with a stud, including no less than twenty elephants and two thousand horses, though he was, of course, the principal lion of his great travelling menagerie. He was accompanied by a vast number of slingers, whose arms were in their slings, and a large body of bowmen, who could draw the longest bow with a truthfulness quite astonishing. An incident connected with the invocation of the aid of Pyrrhus by the Tarentines has come down to us by tradition, that common carrier who lays much at the historian's door, that he is not always inclined to answer for. It is said that a respectable young nobleman, of the name of Meto, appeared one day in the Tarentine senate with a quantity of faded flowers in his hair, as if he had just come home late from a dinner party, and had passed on his way through one of the markets. Being attended by a female with a pipe, the Tarentines were seized with a sudden desire to cheer, a propensity still evinced by a modern mob in the presence of any absurdity. [Illustration: _Pyrrhus arrives in Italy with his Troupe._] [Illustration: Appearance in the Senate of a young Nobleman, named Meto.]