Pyrrhus (319–272 BC)

King of Epirus (an area of northwestern Greece and southern Albania) from 307 BC. In the early years of his reign he struggled to maintain his throne and retain independence from Macedonian control. In 280 BC he invaded Italy as an ally of the Tarentines against Rome. He twice defeated the Romans, but with such heavy losses that a ‘Pyrrhic victory’ has come to mean a victory not worth winning. He returned to Epirus in 275 after his defeat at Beneventum and was killed in street fighting at Argos.

In the turbulent wars and intrigues of the ‘Successors’ to Alexander (III) the Great, Pyrrhus' military career underwent rapid changes of fortune. Having been expelled from his kingdom in about 303/302 BC, where he had ruled as a minor, he served with Demetrius (I) Poliorcetes at Ipsus in 301 BC. Soon afterwards, Ptolemy (I) Soter helped restore him to the throne of Epirus.

He then intervened in Macedonia, gaining territorial concessions, and when Demetrius made himself king there Pyrrhus allied himself with the other Diadochi to remove him. He divided Macedon and Thessaly with Lysimachus but by 284 BC had been driven back to Epirus. When Tarentum appealed to Pyrrhus for help against Rome, he crossed to Italy with 25,000 infantry, 3,000 cavalry, and 20 elephants. Despite bloody (‘Pyrrhic’) victories at Heraclea in 280 BC and Ausculum in 279 BC that won him allies in Samnium, Lucania, Bruttium, and the southern Greek cities of Italy, he failed to conclude peace with Rome. He nevertheless intervened in Sicily and campaigned in person against the Carthaginians on the island between 278 and 276 BC. However, a lack of decisive success drew him back to Italy and defeat at Beneventum against the Romans.

He returned to Epirus with about 8,000 of his original force, but was soon involved in Macedonia again, becoming king in 274 BC. This gain was squandered in an unsuccessful war in the Peloponnese and a failed attack on the city of Sparta in 273 BC. He attempted to seize Argos, but was killed by a roof tile thrown by a woman during street fighting.

Pyrrhus' exceptional daring and personal prowess in combat combined with his flair for military operations led many contemporaries to compare him with Alexander the Great. Yet he never realized such expectations. He wrote a treatise on the art of war and commentaries on his own campaigns but only limited fragments survive.

Pyrrhus

In Greek mythology, another name for Neoptolemus, son of Achilles.