The battleground of Beneventum still dallied in Rome’s collaborative memory as a strange admixture of triumph and apprehension. Pyrrhus had withdrawn, defeated not by a single decisive blow but by prostration, by the stubborn grind of Roman adaptability, and by the stirring runs of Italian politics that deprived him of abettors . Yet indeed as the bank cleared and the Epirote king sailed down, leaving only fractions of his formerly-grand ambition behind, Rome set up itself poised on the edge of metamorphosis. Palm had n't brought peace; it had brought occasion — dangerous, tempting, and laden with liabilities the Republic had noway