After 301 the several parts of the empire of Alexander the Great had become independent kingdoms. But the quarrels among the various diadochi went on and ultimately led to the expulsion of Demetrius Poliorcetes from Macedonia and the fall of Lysimachus of Thrace. The unsettled state of these kingdoms inspired hordes of Gauls, athirst for plunder, with the idea of crossing the Alps and conquering both the Apennine and Balkan peninsulas. Italy owed her salvation to the vigorous defence made by the Romans at the Vadimonian Lake (283 B.C.); but Macedonia was occupied for several years and the swarms of Gauls spread as far as Delphi, and finally settled in Asia Minor under the name of Galatians. Even before the Gallic invasion, Pyrrhus of Epirus, who had taken possession of Macedonia for a while, had withdrawn to his own home, and he and his army of mercenaries turned their eyes westward, eager for action. The wished-for opportunity of there regaining the influence and reputation he had lost in the west was not slow to present itself. Tarentum, the last independent city of any importance in Italy, had provoked Rome to hostilities and was endeavouring to enlist mercenaries for the war. Pyrrhus went to the help of the Tarentines, even as Alexander of Epirus, a cousin of Alexander the Great, had gone before him (334 B.C.). After some initial successes the latter had lost his life in battle against the Lucanians (331 B.C.). His nephew did not fare much better. The generalship of Roman mayors, elected afresh every year, was at first no match for that of Pyrrhus, who had great military successes to look back upon. Up to this time the Macedonian phalanx had invariably proved the instrument of victory, especially in the opening encounters of a campaign, and even the men of Rome gave ground before the elephants, the “heavy artillery” of the Epirots. But the second victory which the king gained over the Romans was a “Pyrrhic victory,” for his gains did not compensate his losses. On this occasion Rome owed the victory mainly to the inflexible courage of her statesmen. The blind Appius Claudius, who thirty years before had borne an honourable part in the successful struggle with the Samnites, caused himself to be led into the senate and by his arguments induced the Romans inflexibly to refuse all offers of peace on less than favourable terms. “Never have the Romans concluded peace with a victorious foe.” These proud words contain the secret of the ultimate success of Rome in all her wars of that century.