The actions of the king caused hatred in the Greek cities. According to Plutarch, some of them sided with the Carthaginians and some called in the Mamertine mercenaries. While Pyrrhus was facing opposition and rebellion, he received a letter from the Tarentines and Samnites. The Samnites had been pushed out from their rural areas and found it difficult to defend their cities and begged him to come to their assistance. This gave Pyrrhus an excuse to leave Sicily, where he had lost control, without appearing to be running away. Plutarch wrote that Pyrrhus said "My friends, what a wrestling ground for Carthaginians and Romans we are leaving behind us!" We do not know whether Pyrrhus actually said this because ancient historians often made speeches by historical characters up. Cassius Dio wrote what when the Carthaginians saw that Pyrrhus' forces were small and that he had lost the goodwill of the Sicilian Greeks, they "took up the war vigorously. They harboured the Syracusans who were exiled and harassed so severely that he abandoned not only Syracuse but Sicily as well." Dionysius of Halicarnassus that wrote the Carthaginians sent an army to Sicily because the situation gave them an opportunity to regain the cities they had lost. After Pyrrhus left Sicily, the Carthaginians took control of their domains in the west again.