Epirus was an ancient Greek state which existed in present-day Greece and Albania from 330 BC to 167 BC, with Apollonia serving as its capital. The kingdom was formed in 330 BC when the three Molossian tribes of Epirus united, and, from 280 BC to 275 BC, Pyrrhus of Epirus made Epirus the most powerful state in the Greek world. He came to the aid of the Greek city-state of Taras in Magna Graecia on the Italian peninsula in 280 BC, defeating the Roman Republic at Heraclea that year and Asculum in 279 BC, the latter of which came at such high a cost that it became the first "Pyrrhic victory", a victory neutered by high losses. In 277 BC, Pyrrhus' capture of the Carthaginian fortress of Eryx on Sicily led to all of Carthaginian Sicily becoming loyal to him, but his despotic behavior angered the local Siceliotes and forced him to abandon the island. In 275 BC, he lost the vast majority of his army in another battle with the Romans at Benevento, and he returned to Greece in defeat. He unsuccessfully besieged Sparta in 272 BC, and he was killed that same year during a civil revolt in Argos. In 233 BC, the last Aeacid monarch, Deidamia II, was murdered. This led to the collapse of the monarchy and the rise of a federal republic, and Acarnania declared its independence, while the Aetolian League seized Ambracia, Amphilochia, and the other lands north of the Ambracian Gulf. The Epirotes moved their capital to Phoenice, and Epirus would soon face the threat of the expanding Roman Republic. During the Third Macedonian War of 171 BC-168 BC, the Epirotes sided with Macedon against Rome, and Molossia fell to Rome in 167 BC, and 150,000 of its inhabitants were enslaved.
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