The Pyrrhic War ( PIRR-ik; 281–275 BC) was a conflict fought by Pyrrhus of Epirus and his allies against the Roman Republic, supported by its allies, and Carthage. Fought mainly in Magna Graecia and Sicily, Pyrrhus first intervened at the invitation of the Italiote Greeks against Roman expansion. However, his aims in the war became oriented towards establishing hegemony over southern Italy and Sicily. Initially meeting some success, his aims were left unfulfilled after his campaign in Sicily stalemated against Carthaginian resistance and Rome forced his withdrawal from Italy in 275 BC. The first major conflict involving Rome and one of the Hellenistic powers, Rome's victory showed its emergence as a major Mediterranean power.
Prior to the war, the Romans had expanded for some decades into southern Italy, defeating most notably the Samnites. They also started to conclude alliances with the Greek city-states of Magna Graecia. The outbreak of a new conflict between one of those allies, Thurii, and a Samnite-led alliance led to Roman intervention. Tarentum, seeking to prevent continued Roman intervention in southern Italy, attacked a Roman fleet sailing in their waters contrary to a previous treaty and marched on Thurii, deposing the pro-Roman government there. After rejection of a Roman ultimatum in early 281 BC, war was declared. Cognisant of their weakness in the field, the Tarentines sought foreign support in the form of Pyrrhus of Epirus, who landed at Tarentum with reinforcements in the winter of 281/80 BC.
Pyrrhus advanced north, defeating the Romans at Heraclea in Lucania and causing some Roman allies to defect. He advanced quickly into Latium with interest in supporting the Etruscans against Rome. However, after the Romans concluded victory in Etruria, Pyrrhus withdrew from Latium for winter quarters. Over the winter, the Romans refused negotiations for a peace and reengaged Pyrrhus at Asculum in 279 BC, where the Romans were again defeated. In the aftermath of Pyrrhus' victory, however, he is said to have exclaimed "Another such victory and we are lost!" due to the losses incurred, giving rise to the modern phrase "Pyrrhic victory". With the Romans displaced from southern Italy, Pyrrhus moved into Sicily to intervene in favour of Syracuse against Carthage.
Successful on much of the island, Pyrrhus was however unable to take the Carthaginian stronghold of Lilybaeum due to weakness at sea. With renewed Roman aggression in southern Italy between 279 and 276 BC and dwindling support among the Sicilians due to the costs of the war, Pyrrhus heeded a renewed Tarentine call for aid and returned to southern Italy with some losses in early 276. In 275 BC he engaged the Romans again at Beneventum, where he was defeated or stalemated, forcing him on the defensive. With the campaign unwinnable, Pyrrhus withdrew to Epirus in the winter of 275/74, leaving a small garrison at Tarentum. While Pyrrhus' intervention had revitalised the cause of the Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians, and Italian Greeks against Rome, the gains were short-lived. In 272, some two years after Pyrrhus' withdrawal, Tarentum fell to the Romans with the Epirote garrison given free passage home. That year Pyrrhus, campaigning in a different war in the Peloponnese, also met his end at Argos. Roman prestige on the pan-Mediterranean stage was greatly enhanced and its status as the dominant power on peninsular Italy would again be challenged only at the end of the century during the Hannibalic War.
The Pyrrhic War ( PIRR-ik; 281–275 BC) was a conflict fought by Pyrrhus of Epirus and his allies against the Roman Republic, supported by its allies, and Carthage. Fought mainly in Magna Graecia and Sicily, Pyrrhus first intervened at the invitation of the Italiote Greeks against Roman expansion. However, his aims in the war became oriented towards establishing hegemony over southern Italy and Sicily. Initially meeting some success, his aims were left unfulfilled after his campaign in Sicily stalemated against Carthaginian resistance and Rome forced his withdrawal from Italy in 275 BC. The first major conflict involving Rome and one of the Hellenistic powers, Rome's victory showed its emergence as a major Mediterranean power.
Prior to the war, the Romans had expanded for some decades into southern Italy, defeating most notably the Samnites. They also started to conclude alliances with the Greek city-states of Magna Graecia. The outbreak of a new conflict between one of those allies, Thurii, and a Samnite-led alliance led to Roman intervention. Tarentum, seeking to prevent continued Roman intervention in southern Italy, attacked a Roman fleet sailing in their waters contrary to a previous treaty and marched on Thurii, deposing the pro-Roman government there. After rejection of a Roman ultimatum in early 281 BC, war was declared. Cognisant of their weakness in the field, the Tarentines sought foreign support in the form of Pyrrhus of Epirus, who landed at Tarentum with reinforcements in the winter of 281/80 BC.
Pyrrhus advanced north, defeating the Romans at Heraclea in Lucania and causing some Roman allies to defect. He advanced quickly into Latium with interest in supporting the Etruscans against Rome. However, after the Romans concluded victory in Etruria, Pyrrhus withdrew from Latium for winter quarters. Over the winter, the Romans refused negotiations for a peace and reengaged Pyrrhus at Asculum in 279 BC, where the Romans were again defeated. In the aftermath of Pyrrhus' victory, however, he is said to have exclaimed "Another such victory and we are lost!" due to the losses incurred, giving rise to the modern phrase "Pyrrhic victory". With the Romans displaced from southern Italy, Pyrrhus moved into Sicily to intervene in favour of Syracuse against Carthage.
Successful on much of the island, Pyrrhus was however unable to take the Carthaginian stronghold of Lilybaeum due to weakness at sea. With renewed Roman aggression in southern Italy between 279 and 276 BC and dwindling support among the Sicilians due to the costs of the war, Pyrrhus heeded a renewed Tarentine call for aid and returned to southern Italy with some losses in early 276. In 275 BC he engaged the Romans again at Beneventum, where he was defeated or stalemated, forcing him on the defensive. With the campaign unwinnable, Pyrrhus withdrew to Epirus in the winter of 275/74, leaving a small garrison at Tarentum. While Pyrrhus' intervention had revitalised the cause of the Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians, and Italian Greeks against Rome, the gains were short-lived. In 272, some two years after Pyrrhus' withdrawal, Tarentum fell to the Romans with the Epirote garrison given free passage home. That year Pyrrhus, campaigning in a different war in the Peloponnese, also met his end at Argos. Roman prestige on the pan-Mediterranean stage was greatly enhanced and its status as the dominant power on peninsular Italy would again be challenged only at the end of the century during the Hannibalic War.
Outbreak
In the years prior to the Pyrrhic War, the Romans had steadily expanded south down the Italian peninsula. The Samnites were defeated in the Third Samnite War (298–290 BC) along with their Italic allies. The Greek city of Thurii allied itself to Rome in 285 BC seeking protection from an invasion by Lucanians and a few years later, in 282, the city fell under siege by an allied force of Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians. A Roman army under the command of consul Gaius Fabricius Luscinus relived the city and probably followed up with an offensive into Samnium and Lucania with little successful opposition.
The Roman alliance with Thurii, along with the demonstrable Roman ability to operate deep in southern Italy, was highly concerning to the Greek city of Taras (later called Tarentum; modern Taranto). They had aligned themselves with the Lucanians to oppose Roman expansion, which now encroached into Tarentum's sphere of influence. The Thurian alliance with Rome not only challenged Tarentine leadership of the Greek cities of southern Italy but also encircled Taras itself with pro-Roman allies and colonies. Logistical demands also saw the Romans operate a fleet in the Gulf of Taranto to support a new Roman garrison at Thurii; such a fleet was possibly in contravention of a putative treaty between Rome and Taras signed probably some fifty years earlier restricting Romans from sailing past the Lacinian promontory. Regardless, the Romans' expansion into Tarentum's sphere of influence, along with the appearance of Roman warships in Tarentine waters, was threatening to Tarentine regional interests but also its democratic regime, which feared Roman intervention overthrowing its democracy for a pro-Roman oligarchy.
The inciting incident for the war was a Tarentine attack led by the politician Philocharis on a small Roman fleet of ten ships in Tarentum's harbour, probably late in 282 BC after the consul Fabricius had departed southern Italy with his men. Taras at the same time attacked the Roman ally Thurii and drove its pro-Roman government into exile, likely with the aid of pro-Tarentine supporters within the city. The attack resulted in a Roman ultimatum to the Tarentines, delivered early in 281 by Lucius Postumius Megellus, demanding the return of prisoners taken from the Roman fleet, the return of the pro-Roman Thruian exiles, the return of property taken in the sack of the city, and the surrender of the Tarentines responsible for the attacks. These Roman demands were extreme, especially relating to the surrender of Tarentine citizens, and the Tarentines refused (in Roman sources amid a stream of insults); the ultimatum rejected, the Romans declared war.
Course of the war
An army under the Roman consul Lucius Aemilius Barbula then invaded Tarentine territory directly, reiterating Roman demands while ravaging the countryside. The Tarentines, realising their own military weakness – even with the support of the Samnites, Lucanians, and Bruttians already fighting Rome – debated whether to accept Aemilius' demands or seek foreign assistance. The only viable source of substantial aid was Pyrrhus, king of Epirus (though he called himself king of the Molossians), whose reputation as a capable commander was already established across the Hellenistic world. Following internal deliberation in which the pro-Roman faction was outvoted, an invitation was extended. Recourse to foreign assistance was consistent with prior Tarentine policy, though historical precedent offered mixed results. The recent death of Agathocles of Syracuse, who had intervened for Tarentum in the past, further narrowed their options.
Aemilius learnt of the invitation quickly. His raiding of Tarentine territory continued apace but he also spared Tarentine citizens to signal Roman willingness to come to terms. Successful diplomatic missions also led to the Romans taking allies from Tarentum in the form of Locri, Croton, and Rhegium. Aemilius' campaign led to a change in Tarentine policy with the election of a new general, Agis, who sought to end the conflict as quickly as possible. Pyrrhus' aims were likely to establish a hegemony over Magna Graecia – claims in later Roman sources such as Plutarch that he sought to invade Rome and most of the western Mediterranean are exaggerated – and, after hearing of the invitation, he concluded a peace on favourable terms with Macedon so to freely turn west. Late in 281 BC, Epirote troops landed in Tarentum, removing pro-Roman politicians from the city such as Agis and causing Aemilius to withdraw to back to the Roman colony at Venusia for the winter. Amid claims from Tarentum and the Italic peoples threatened by Rome that they would raise some 350,000 soldiers with 20,000 cavalry to support Pyrrhus, the Epirote League conducted a levy ostensibly to free the southern Italian Greeks from Roman hegemony. Early in 280, Pyrrhus received a favourable oracle at Dodona, crossed the Adriatic, and was named supreme commander (strategos autocrator) of allied forces.
Campaign against the Romans (280–279 BC)
In 280 BC, the consul Publius Valerius Laevinus was assigned command of the southern theatre, while his colleague Tiberius Coruncanius advanced north to continue the war against the Etruscans. Aemilius, consul for the previous year, was prorogued, keeping forces at Venusia to contain Samnite activity. Rome also moved to secure its military position by arresting anti-Roman leaders in allied cities and reinforcing their garrisons to protect supply lines into southern Italy.
Heraclea
Marching south with probably a standard consular army, Laevinius met Pyrrhus near Heraclea with rough numerical parity. No precise numbers are given for the size of the armies, but later sources exaggerate the size of the Roman's army to cast Pyrrhus as an Alexandrine military genius and to further embellish the eventual Roman victory. Patrick Kent, in A History of the Pyrrhic War, places both armies at slightly more than 20,000 men each. Seeking a delay, Pyrrhus attempted to engage in negotiations and proposed that he serve to mediate between Tarentum and Rome. The proposal was declined.
Details of the battle are not very trustworthy. Laevinius taking the initiative, had his men ford the river Siris and attack Pyrrhus' forces. While the Roman infantry was thrown into some disorder by a contested crossing, Roman cavalry was able to ford the river at a more favourable location, probably upstream. The main Roman infantry force engaged Pyrrhus' phalanx but was unable to break through. The Roman cavalry which had forded elsewhere may have attempted a flanking manoeuvre before being thrown back by Pyrrhus' war elephants. With an advantage in mobile forces, the Roman infantry was then likely flanked and pushed into rout. The Roman sources also include a dramatic scene where one Frentani cavalry officer named Oblacus Volsinius attempted a personal charge against Pyrrhus himself in an attempt to end the war before being felled by the king's bodyguards. The sources claim that after the charge, Pyrrhus swapped his royal armour with one of his companions before being forced to expose himself again when that companion fell and his men started to waver. It is unlikely the scene is historical.
Roman casualties on the field are also not clear. Many sources suggest that the Romans took heavy casualties while Pyrrhus had lost many of his best men. Pyrrhus, however, is reported to have cautioned against too eager a pursuit, since that would encourage the enemy to fight harder. His conduct reflected the political objective to secure a rapid settlement. In subsequent talks he released Roman prisoners to cultivate goodwill, a choice aligned with this aim. The Romans then withdrew to Venusia. Pyrrhus' victory also triggered some of Rome's allies to defect. When Pyrrhus appeared at Locri, the city threw open its gates and handed over its small Roman garrison of around 200 men. Attempts at Rhegium, however, to throw out the Roman garrison were suppressed by force.
Asculum
Pyrrhus marched north from Heraclea. Laevinius continued the retreat, moving from Venusia back to Capua before Pyrrhus' Samnite allies closed Roman lines of communication across the Apennines. Lacking siege equipment, Pyrrhus was unable to take Naples or Capua, which Laevinius had reinforced with troops quickly levied from Rome. He instead bypassed the cities and continued north into Latium along the Via Latina. He likely made it as far as Anagnia or possibly even Praeneste (the towns are respectively 38 and 20 miles southeast of Rome) before turning back when the other consul, Coruncanius, having defeated the Volsinii and Vulci in Etruria – precluding Etruscan support – redeployed south to defend Rome. Laevinius allowed Pyrrhus to leave Latium, not yet feeling confident in the disposition of his forces.
Peace negotiations resumed over the winter of 280/79 BC. According to a Livian tradition, three ex-consuls were dispatched to Pyrrhus wintering at Tarentum to seek the return of Roman prisoners. Impressed by one of the consulars, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, he had all the prisoners released and escorted to Rome by his envoy, Cineas. This envoy took the opportunity to present the Senate with terms: Rome would recognise the freedom of the southern Italian Greeks; give up all of its conquests in Samnium, Lucania, and Brutium; and conclude a bilateral alliance between Rome and Pyrrhus personally (rather than his kingdom). The tradition reports that the Senate was on the cusp of agreeing to the proposals – especially after Cineas went around to various senators with gifts, which later Romans labelled as bribes and insisted were rejected, – when the blind and aged former censorAppius Claudius Caecus spoke resolutely against it and, according to the story, carried the house. More plausibly, the Senate weighed the terms but judged them unacceptable due to the potential impact on Rome's prestige and strategic position in Italy. To bolster Roman morale, triumphs were also declared that winter for Coruncanius over the Etruscans and proconsul Aemilius over the Tarentines and Samnites.
The campaigning season for 279 BC saw both Roman consuls, Publius Sulpicius Saverrio and Publius Decius Mus, assigned to the fight against Pyrrhus with some 40,000 men (about half Romans and half allies). Pyrrhus faced this force again on roughly equal terms, centred on his 16,000 phalangites including Macedonians and with an advantage in cavalry. Ancient narratives of the battle concentrate on a supposed devotio which the consul Decius was to perform. The ritual involved Decius sacrificing himself – as his father and grandfather had at the battles of Sentinum and Veseris in 295 and 340 BC – to chthonic deities in exchange for victory. It is said that Pyrrhus, when hearing of the fear that this ritual evoked in his men, ordered them to ensure that Decius be captured alive. The episode is however almost certainly unhistorical, being a product of a Roman historiographical tradition which assumed families had characteristic behavioural traits. Regardless, the testimony of Cicero and Ammianus Marcellinus that Decius died in the battle should be discounted as Dio records a Decius Mus who is likely the same man being active in 265 BC.