The Pyrrhic War was fought from 280 to 275 BC when the Greek ruler Pyrrhus of Epirus attempted to expand Epirus into southern Italy and Sicily, with the pretext of defending the city-states of Magna Graecia against the expanding Roman Republic. Pyrrhus' victories at Heraclea and Asculum proved costly and hollow, coining the term "Pyrrhic victory" to describe their outcomes; in 275 BC, he was decisively defeated at the Battle of Beneventum, ending his campaigning in Italia. As a result of the Roman victory, Magna Graecia came under Roman control, and Rome was now in a position to challenge Carthage for control of Sicily.
Background[]
By 290 BC, at the end of the Samnite Wars, the Roman Republic had established its hegemony in central and southern Italy, cementing its rule through alliances with various Italic peoples on the peninsula. Rome's southward expansion came to threaten the independent Greek colonies in Magna Graecia, especially the Spartan city-state of Tarentum, the most powerful among them. Tarentum had provoked Rome by attacking their ships and harassing their envoys, and, worried about the Roman response, the Tarentines voted to send an embassy to Epirus to ask for assistance in 281 BC. Epirus' ruler, Pyrrhus, had already made a name for himself as a military adventurer who had engaged in several failed attempts to create an empire in Macedonia and Greece. He agreed, but demanded that Tarentum must pay the costs of the war and give him supreme command of the allied forces. To further pressure his western rival into going to Italy so that he could concentrate on the East, King Ptolemy Keraunos offered Pyrrhus 5,000 more phalangites for the campaign.
War[]
Heraclea[]
In early 280 BC, Tarentum sent its fleet to transport Pyrrhus' Epirote army into Italy. Pyrrhus' army included 20,000 Macedonian and Epirote sarissa pikemen, 3,000 cavalry, 2,000 archers, 500 slingers, and 20 war elephants. After landing, the King began to militarize Tarentum and deal with any political enemies there, while the Romans did the same in the cities under their control. Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus was given command of four legions and sent against Tarentum, where they would force Pyrrhus into battle before his Greek allies arrived. The Romans ravaged the countryside as they marched south, and Pyrrhus marched to meet his new foe near the Greek city of Heraclea. The ensuing Battle of Heraclea was close-fought, with the Romans losing 9,000 men and the Greeks losing 4,000; however, Pyrrhus lost some of his best veteran officers during the course of the battle. Though Pyrrhus had won his first major battle against Rome, it had been difficult, and he would soon learn that, despite his own martial prowess, he truly met his match. Rome dismissed Pyrrhus' offer of surrender terms and began recruiting a new army; meanwhile, Pyrrhus began to patch up his own and prepare for the next battle.
In the wake of the defeat at Heraclea, Consul Laevinus returned to Rome, and the Roman recruiting machine intensified and quickly replaced the losses from Heraclea. Pyrrhus marched on Rome, with his army being swelled by the Italian Greeks and Rome's rebellious Italic allies. However, the Roman levy system was faster, again matching the Greeks. Pyrrhus released the prisoners from Heraclea in a gesture of kindness after an honorable Roman diplomat named Fabricius warned him of his physician's plot to poison him for money, having said that Rome would not defeat Pyrrhus through treachery. The Greek army then marched north and attempted to take Capua, but Laevinus reached Capua first and prevented Pyrrhus from taking the city. Pyrrhus then failed in his attempt to take Neapolis and the cities of Campania, so he marched up the Latin Road to Rome and stopped just six kilometers from the city. The walls had been strengthened and the garrison size increased since the 390 BC Sack of Rome, so Pyrrhus retreated south to Tarentum rather than besiege Rome over the winter.
Asculum[]
The campaign continued into 279 BC, and the Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttii, and other Italic tribes (who viewed Pyrrhus as a "liberator") sent contingents to join his army. Instead of attacking Rome directly, Pyrrhus decided to campaign up the Adriatic coast in Apulia to win over more of Rome's allies and secure his supply line to Epirus. The Roman army was forced to intervene to prevent the fall of Apulia, and the two armies met at the Battle of Asculum. The two sides again fought to a standstill until the Greeks narrowly secured a victory, although, at the end of the battle, Pyrrhus declared, "One more such victory and I am lost." Pyrrhus was once again forced to march back to Tarentum to refill his depleted ranks and recover.
As Pyrrhus recovered, two embassies arrived with unique opportunities. One, from Macedon, announced Ptolemy's death in battle with the Gauls in 279 BC, and they invited Pyrrhus to become their King. The other envoy came from the Greek Cities of Sicily, who were under threat from the mercenary Mamertines and the Carthaginians. Pyrrhus opted for the Sicilian option, hoping to use Sicily as a springboard to conquer Carthage. Pyrrhus and his army marched away from Tarentum, horrifying his Tarentine allies.
Sicilian campaign[]
The high water mark of Pyrrhus' Sicilian campaign
In the later summer of 278 BC, Pyrrhus, 8,000 infantry, and 2,000 cavalry landed near Tauromenia in Sicily, where the local tyrant Tyndarion had pledged his loyalty to Pyrrhus. He then marched to Catania, where the citizens welcomed him as a liberator and gave him 3,000 reinforcements. Pyrrhus then marched on Syracuse, which was besieged by the Carthaginians. Despite their numerical advantage, the Carthaginians decided to retreat, giving Pyrrhus control of Syracuse' 140-ship fleet. He then marched west on Agrigentum, whose tyrant was allied to him. He wintered there and gathered his troops, and, next year, he stormed Heraclea Minoa and crossed the Halicus River into Carthaginian territory. The next majorcities in the west, Selinus and Segesta, surrendered without a fight, but this would be Pyrrhus' last walkover in Sicily. Pyrrhus went on to attack the mountain fortress of Eryx, and he was the first to scale the walls, fighting heroically during the storming of the Carthaginian garrison. He then went to capture the outlying fortresses of Panormus before taking the port city itself, taking over the finest harbor in Sicily. Finally, he turned west to Lilybaeum. In his attempt to capture the final holdout of Carthaginian power in Sicily, Pyrrhus had to raise intense taxes and levies on his Sicilian Greek subjects, who came to view him as an unwelcome tyrant. Tarentum then sent an envoy to Pyrrhus and informed him that Rome had undone all of his gains, and, having seen his Sicilian campaign fall apart, Pyrrhus marched back to the eastern city of Messana and sailed back to Italy.
Return to Italy[]
Pyrrhus and his army looted the Temple to Persephone at Locri to fund Pyrrhus' campaigns, but his ships were destroyed in a storm while carrying the stolen offerings; Pyrrhus considered himself cursed by the gods. In the spring of 275 BC, his army returned to Tarentum, and he began to rebuild his army. He failed to find the veteran troops that he had lost in his previous battles, and the core of his phalanxes, Greeks and Balkans, were in short supply in Italy; he instead hired Greek militia to replace them. Tribes such as the Samnites had resented Pyrrhus for abandoning them and offered little support.
The Battle of Benevento
Pyrrhus now marched north to defeat two Roman armies in detail, sending a contingent of his army to Lucania to delay the approach of a consular army while taking his remanining 35,000 troops to face Manius Curius Dentatus on a hill near the town of Beneventum. The ensuing Battle of Beneventum was a disaster, as Pyrrhus' flanking maneuver failed, and, whenever he attempted to send in elephants in desperate attempts to turn the tide, the Roman skirmishers repositioned on their flanks, fired javelins at them, and sent them panicking and stomping into their own lines. Pyrrhus' defeat at Beneventum was the final straw for him. Bankrupted and defeated, Pyrrhus left a strong garrison in Tarentum before returning to his capital at Ambracia with 8,000 infantry and 5,000 cavalry.
Aftermath[]
Pyrrhus' second abandonment of Tarentum was final. Tarentum fell to the Roman Republic in 272 BC, the same year as Pyrrhus' death during a riot in Argos. The Romans then asserted their control over the Messapians of central and southern Apulia, and, in 268 BC, the Romans put down the Picentes and founded a new colony at Ariminum. The Romans continued their expansion, conquering the Umbri and taking Brundisium in 267 BC. The Romans sent colonists to Brundisium and other towns, converting Magna Graecia into a Romanized province.