Pyrrhus: Warlord of Ancient Greece

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See site for details. It's 279 BC.
On a large plain in southern Italy, near the town of Asculum, two armies line up against each other. On one side you have the legions of the Roman Republic, a power that has been gradually expanding its control into southern Italy over the past few decades.
Opposing them was the most formidable general the Romans had ever faced. A famous Greek warlord, renowned for his charisma and his exceptional military skill.
So much so that he was likened to Alexander the Great. This general had with him a powerful army.
Heavy, pike-wielding infantry and shock cavalry feared throughout the Mediterranean, not to mention elephants, brought all the way from India. The general's name was Pyrrhus.
He had come to southern Italy to stop the Romans in their tracks and to carve out his own empire. Yet it would be the outcome of this battle that would define his legacy.
It's the Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host, and today we are talking through the story of one of

my favourite figures from ancient history, the Hellenistic warlord who I wrote my dissertation on, who challenged Rome in southern Italy and won a victory against them that was so costly that he is the figure from whom we get the term Pyrrhic victory, where you win a battle at such great cost that you lose the war.

This is the incredible story of King Pyrrhus of Epirus. where you win a battle at such great cost that you lose the war.

This is the incredible story of King Pyrrhus of Epirus.

He fought Romans, Carthaginians, Sicilians, Greeks.

He was related to Alexander the Great and highly regarded by many of his contemporaries, including the Romans.

His story took him all across the Mediterranean world, and he was obsessed with gaining great conquests. He was the definition of an ancient warlord.
To talk through his story, I was delighted to head to Cardiff University to interview Dr. Louis Rawlings.
Louis has been on the podcast several times before, talking through the campaigns of Hannibal Barker against Rome. But Louis, he also has a big fascination with Pyrrhus.
This is an episode I've been wanting to do since I started the Ancients four years ago. And well, better late than never.
Louis, welcome back to the podcast. It has been too long.
I know, I've really missed our conversations, Tristan. Our conversations have usually been about Hannibal, but when we've talked in the past, we've talked about this figure who I've been dying to do a podcast episode on since this whole podcast, since the ancients began some four years ago.
One of my favourite figures and one of your favourite figures too, Pyrrhus. Yes, indeed.
Mainly because he's an inspiration to Hannibal and has a go at the Romans in the same kind of way. So yes, I'm really looking forward to talking about him and talking with you about him.
Well, let's set the scene first of all. Who was Pyrrhus? So Pyrrhus was king of Epirus.
He was born in about 319 and passed away in 272 BC. He is a Molossian, so quite a small region of Western Greece, which was effectively divided up between three tribes.
And today, that's kind of like Southern Albania and Northwest Greece today, isn't it? That area, yeah. Absolutely.
So we've got the Molossians in the middle and the Chaonians to the north and the Thesproteans to the south. And sometime in the 4th century BC, these three tribes became unified as the kind of kingdom of Epirus under a dynasty of Aeacids.
Aeacids, what? Aeacids, yes. So named after Aeacides, who was the first king, but this name recurs.
So in fact, some generations down the line, Pyrrhus' father is in fact Aekides as well. And so he's born into a royal family.
It has an interesting relationship with the tribes in the sense that the kings sit above the tribes, even though they're ethnically Molossian and the kings were originally a Molossian dynasty, they sit above the tribes and they have to work with the tribes to get things done. And so they have fairly limited royal powers.
They are able to lead armies and conduct

foreign policy, but they're not able to mint coins, for example. That is the koine, the

commonality of the pirates who have that kind of authority. So there's a devolution of roles between the king and the people.
And every year they have to swear an oath to each other to obey the laws in common. And can we explore a bit more about Epirus itself, as you mentioned there? Because when someone mentions ancient Greece or a Greek kingdom, you might think of Athens or Sparta or Corinth, and ultimately with Alexander the Great to the Macedonians.
Epirus, you know, this kingdom that is formed by these three different tribes in northwest Greece, it feels a bit of an outlier. It's one that we haven't heard the name of as much as others, but is Epirus the time when it does come to the fore? I think they're beginning to flex their muscles in the mid to late fourth century.
They ally with Alexander the Great's family. So originally Philip, his father, Philip II of Macedon, receives in marriage a Molossian noblewoman, the sister of Alexander I, the Molossian, who we'll come to a bit later on.
And her name is Olympias, and she's the mother of Alexander the Great. So in terms of geopolitics, although on one level, Epirus is a bit of a backwater for most Greeks, and I would imagine most Athenians would struggle to know where Epirus was.
Nevertheless, in terms of the politics of the emerging Macedonian kingdom, and of course, Alexander's great conquests, they are an important and integral part of the early empire building of Philip II. And therefore, they have this kind of relationship with Macedon, which is quite intricate and intimate.
But yes, they're a geopolitical backwater, essentially, for most Greeks. The location, as you said, is sort of northern Western Greece and southern Albania.
They're surrounded by the Macedonians on their east. They have Illyrian tribes, and a big Illyrian kingdom has emerged in the fourth century to the north, and to the south they have the Greeks.
And to the west there is the island of corfu corcyra as it was known then as well so this is their

mini world as it were their geography is quite awkward sorry that's corfu isn't it that ancient

the geography of a pirates is quite complex in the sense that there is a big mountain range

the pinaris mountains to the east but this this creates a series of north south folds and so

Thank you. mountain range, the Penaris Mountains to the east.
But this creates a series of north-south folds, which eventually flattens out to the sea. So it's quite awkward traveling west to east, because the mountains get bigger and bigger as you kind of go over them.
But it does mean that it's harder to invade Epirus. And so the Epirus benefit really from being quite secluded from the aggression of their neighbours.
It's interesting. So if we go to the time of Pyrrhus' birth, first off, what does Epirus look like by the time of Pyrrhus' birth? And what is the whole story behind Pyrrhus' birth? I'm guessing he is born into a high status.
Yeah. I mean, he's the son of the current king, Kidas, who succeeds Alexander the Molossian.
We'll come back to him, I think, later on. He is born into a world which is very volatile.
Alexander has conquered the known world and then died. The Macedonian Alexander.
Yes. Sorry, Alexander the Great has passed away and left an empire in disarray.
And his generals, the Diadokes, are now competing with one another to carve up the empire of Alexander. And we therefore find that Pyrrhus is born into a world in 319 where the Macedonians are tearing themselves apart, essentially, with huge armies and great wars of great generals that spread from Epirus all the way across to Afghanistan.
These are the wars of the successors. That's right.
And so when Pyrrhus is born, he's born into a royal family which has connections with the Macedonian elite. But they're kind of, you know, they're bit players.
They are aligned with Olympias, of course, the Molossian, and she is in competition with Cassander, one of Alexander's generals and regent in Macedonia, and the pair of those don't get on at all. And Aikidas sides with the wrong side.
He backs Olympias, and in fact, Cassander comes out on top. And so Aikides and his family have to flee and they flee to Illyria eventually.
And there's a story that Pyrrhus is, as a little baby, he's only two when they have to flee the court. They're trying to get across a river to get into Illyria and it's overrun, you know, it's swollen with floodwater.
And so they shoot an arrow across with a letter wrapped around saying, please come and help us.

And somebody wades across.

And the first person to wade across has the name Achilles.

Now, why this is interesting is that this is seen as a sign that Pyrrhus is destined for great things.

Because Pyrrhus actually is an alternative name for the son of Achilles, whose name was Neoptolemus in some versions and Pyrrhus in other versions. So there's this connection already with a, you know, a saviour Achilles figure who is the father-like figure for Pyrrhus.
And the royal family of Molossia traced their whole family line back to Neoptolemus and to Achilles eventually. And also they claim heralds.
They love mythological ancestors. They love these mythological connections.
But irritatingly, they also start naming each other after these people. So we will see that the person who replaces Aikidas on the throne is called Neoptolemus.
Not the hero Neoptolemus, but this Neoptolemus. And he's a child king, a puppet of Cassander at this time.

So we find that Pyrrhus enters the court of the Illyrian king. And Illyria, that's the region to the north.
That's kind of the Balkans area, a bit further north of Epirus. That's right.
And the king is Glaucius. And there's another story that when the baby turns up, you know, Glaucius is worried about Cassander.
but the baby crawls out of his little robes

and either comes up and tugs at Glaucus's costume at his throat. His robes, yeah.
Yeah, his robes. Or he goes over to an altar and sort of supplicates a god.
You know, there's two-year-olds just kind of crawling around. Anyway, Glaucus's heart melts and he gives him over to his wife to raise as one of his own sort of foster children really and so for the next few years Pyrrhus is raised in the court of Illyria as an Illyrian prince essentially and makes lots of connections with the Illyrian royal family and is raised to be a typical kind of Hellenistic Illyrian noble Greek noble.
A Hell, Illyrian, because Illyrians are normally seen as quite barbarian, but they're also very warlike and warriors. And also this kind of time following Alexander the Great's death, where to be a warlord, to be a leader, you're almost, you're meant to be someone who leads from the front at the same time.
So I guess this, even though in the past, the Illyrians and the Greeks are seen, they distance themselves from each other, one's barbarians in Greek eyes, the others, you know, they see themselves as civilised. I guess at that time for Pyrrhus being raised in that court, perhaps, you know, those lines are a bit more skewed now because what is expected of a leader at that time is someone who can fight, who can be a warrior, who's not afraid to put their life on the line in the front ranks with their soldiers.
Absolutely. So the warrior culture of Northern Greece is really coming to the fore.
And those kind of civic values of the Athenians and Corinthians and Argives, those are sort of becoming less important in the grand scheme of things, because these men are these these boys are raised to become leaders and kings of nations you know the illyrians are they're they're a kingdom the pirates epirus is a kingdom macedonia is a kingdom these are different kind of structures to what the greeks had experienced so-called like democracy or oligarchy yes so to be a good king, you need to be a good war leader. And essentially, as we'll see, the position of a ruler is based entirely on his capacity to keep it.
In fact, there's a story that Pyrrhus is asked, or his sons, when he has sons later on, he's asked which of his sons is going to succeed. And he says, whichever one keeps his sword sharpest.
Makes it half difficult for the succession of all and kind of making sure that there will be a bloody succession crisis. But that is a story from another day.
We are ultimately talking about the successor wars in our chapter two. I mean, this is something those titanic wars after Alexander the Great.
Now, Pyrrhus himself, when he's pretty young, he's drawn into those too, isn't he? Yeah. So interestingly, he's restored to his throne at the age of 11 by Glaucius, who moves and displaces Neoptolemus.
But six years later, it's Cassander who comes back and essentially throws Pyrrhus out and he's forced to flee again. And Neoptolemus is restored and Pyrrhus then has to go and find something else to do or find somewhere else to be and pyrrhus's dad eacades he's dead by this point well he dies in 313 so eacades has died in 313 so he's essentially a pyrrhus is essentially an orphan he's relying not quite a lot on glaucus and so in 307 when he's 11 glaucus puts him on the pirate throne but by 302 he's out again and he goes to the husband of his sister he has two sisters and one of them is married to Demetrius who is the son of one of Alexander's oldest and greatest generals Antigonus the one eyed but Demetrius is going to become demetrius the procedure so he's a famous figure in his own right and commands huge armies and holds greece for antigonus and he joined apyrus joins demetrius his brother-in-law and the pair of them go off to fight in the successive wars and they fight the great battle of ipsus in 301 where we don't know whether pyrrhus actually had a command but he certainly fought incredibly bravely in that battle he was probably with demetrius on the right where the cavalry of demetrius swept all before it but then was unable to come back because elephants blocked the way and antigonus himself the one-eyed is killed in battle and falls.
So this is a defeat for Demetrius. The point I want to make is that Pyrrhus is exposed to these huge battles with 70,000 plus men.
This is the titanic battle, he said. Elephants, horses, infantry, more than 100,000 soldiers.
For him to be there and on the losing side, I mean, it's quite a baptism of fire into the military workplace yeah for a 17 year old it's just incredible isn't it and by all by all accounts by this time he's already acquired the skills either either in illyria or when he's growing up in a pirates and has a regent and he's and he's kind of a young king he's acquired all the skills of war all the arts of combat to fight bravely to fight distinguishedly I think physiologically he's kind of a young king. He's acquired all the skills of war, all the arts of combat to fight bravely, to fight distinguishedly.
I think physiologically, he's quite a strong, powerful individual anyway. He seems to be very, very buff, to put it lightly.
And his appearance is supposedly more terrible than kingly in terms of how he inspires his men. so he learns at this battle, I think, how to manage huge armies.
And after Demetrius is defeated and survives, Demetrius carries on the wars of the successors, but leaves Pyrrhus in Greece to look after his possessions there. But despite being a loyal ally of Demetrius and holding and garrisoning in Greece, when Demetrius cuts a deal with one of the other successes, Ptolemy I of Egypt, he is part of the collateral.
He becomes a hostage and he's offered as a hostage to Ptolemy and goes to Alexandria. That familial loyalty didn't stretch very far, did it? No, entirely.
I mean, in a way, you know, it's flattering because it means that Demetrius is, Pyrrhus is regarded as important to Demetrius. He's an important asset to be given over as a guarantee in this peace treaty.
But obviously, usually the fate of hostages is when something, when the peace breaks down, these hostages are dealt with, you know. So it's almost a death sentence for him, potentially, if things go badly.
But he impresses the court at Alexandria in Egypt, a sort of flourishing town. It's quite new.
It was established by Alexander the Great himself. Alexandria, this is, yes.
Yeah, Alexandria. And Ptolemy I has kind of turned it into a kind of northern capital for him and flooding with Greek culture and Greek thinkers.
There's a story actually that Pyrrhus gets involved in a debate about which philosopher he prefers over two philosophers. And presumably this happens in Alexandria.
And he turns around and goes, well, I prefer Polyperchon, who is in fact a general. So he kind of, that's where his interests lie.
He's not very academic. He does study the art of war and he's known to have read a lot about the art of war and really studied it intensely.
Probably got a lot of benefit in the Library of Alexandria from that. Although I'm speculating here, but he was quite learned and he wrote his own memoirs and he wrote his own work on tactics in later life.
So he is a man of letters to a certain extent, but only when it comes to war. He's not really interested in philosophy and other stuff like that.
He impresses the court of Ptolemy with his hunting prowess and his riding skills as well. I think that's something they must have done in the pyrrhus on a rainy afternoon, you know, when nothing much is happening in the kingdom.
These Macedonian kings are extremely proficient riders and hunters and users of spears and things like that because they impart martial qualities. So he impresses everyone in court.
And in particular, he impresses Berenice, who is the wife of Ptolemy. And she's so impressed that she actually proposes a marriage with her daughter by another husband.
And so she marries off one of her daughters to Pyrrhus, which is a great mark of respect and puts Pyrrhus ahead of the other princes in the court. And with this connection, he's then able to persuade Ptolemy to restore him to the throne of Epirus.
And Ptolemy backs him with an army and troops and money. And so he returns in 297 BC to Epirus.
Fortunately, Cassander's dead by now. And so that is the opening because Macedon falls into disarray and Cassander's sons are competing against one another.
He then takes the throne, but rather than throwing Neoptolemus out, because these two have been oscillating backwards and forwards, and we know that essentially Neoptolemus would have gone to another king and tried to persuade him. Tried to get their support.
Yeah, to restore him. He cuts a deal and they co-rule for a little while.
Unfortunately, they don't really get on. They've never got on.
Neoptolemus. And the Molossians and the pirates don't seem to like their kings all that much.
So they kind of tolerate them. But they'd already removed Aekidas, Pyrrhus' father, when he was off on a campaign.
They just went, well, we've had enough of him. He's really unpopular.
And so they just got rid of him. And Neoptolemus was kind of brought in by Cassander.
And now Neoptolemus is out of favour with the Molossians. And so Pyrrhus seeing this and also learning of a conspiracy to poison him, which Pyrrhus gets witnesses for and confirms.
And he's then able to infiltrate the conspiracy and then invite Neoptolemus to a party on a sacrifice day and just kill him at his house. So Pyrrhus overthrows Neoptolemus at that point having judged that the Epirus weren't in favour of their older king.
So he then seizes power and becomes absolute ruler of Epirus right down to his death in 272. So from 295, he's effectively an unchallenged king of Epirus.
It's a really interesting rise for this figure, isn't it? I mean, just highlighting a bit more that exile, well, being a hostage in Alexandria, of all places in Egypt, this new kind of growing capital. As you mentioned, you've got the opening stages, the very beginnings of the Library of Alexandria.
Toronbury's bringing all these philosophers and people in and Pyrrhus being interested in the military treaties and all of that. Sometimes we think of hostages being kept in a jail cell or somewhere dark and dingy.
But back in that time, yes, there were dangers if the deal broke down, but they would be in the court. court they would be with royal figures they had a good chance to try and impress themselves and evidently Pyrrhus really impressed himself because of then what you explained that lays the foundations for him to go back to be supported by an army that goes across the Mediterranean to Ropyrus in northwest Greece in states they're on the throne then he can overthrow his co-ruler.
And then he now has a strong army there, strong support. And it all stems from that time in exile, from that time when he's been away and now come back more powerful than ever.
Yeah, and absolutely. And you have to remember that hostages are given as guarantors of peace, but actually they're assets, they're political assets.
You take somebody off the board for one player and you you lend it to another player as it were and so it's often the case that you find that the hostages become more pro the captors as it were or they're you know the people who are now holding them than the people who originally they were serving and allied to and the romans do this don't they they take hostages from from various tribes and then they romanize them and they become you know therefore advocates for the romans when they go back to their communities so this is an old geopolitical game and we can see it at play here in the hellenistic period and then and they in the period of the successes there are lots of these people moving about hostages being given all over the place and people living in other people's courts. And it's amazing how Pyrrhus stays alive even to get to 17 because he's been thrown out twice from his own kingdom.
And either time he could have been killed and some of his supporters and friends are, but he's able to fall on his feet, landing with the Illyrians, then Demetrius, then Ptolemy. And his relationship with Ptolemy remains very strong throughout his reign, even in the shifting patterns of the geopolitics of the successor wars, where everyone turns on everyone else.
To a certain extent, that relationship between Ptolemy and Pyrrhus remains. In fact, his wife, the daughter of Berenice and Antigone, he even names a city after her and founds a polis, a sort of Greek-style city in a pyrrhus, and he names it after her as well.
So he's got this kind of affection, I think, for the Ptolemies and for his time in Egypt. Now, I want to get towards, I mean, quite quickly, I'd like to get towards Pyrrhus's war with Rome, because he fights a number of wars before that.
And let's briefly cover them now so as not to get into too much detail, because I know that they're quite a few in quick succession. They get quite complicated, don't they, in this kind of tail end of the successor wars.
But before we get to him on his great Italian venture, it seems that it's not long before he decides he needs to show his prowess in war once again. And there are opportunities there on the Greek mainland for him to do that.
Yeah. So he's fallen out with Demetrius, who, after a brief kind of moment, is able to seize the throne of Macedon.
And then Pyrrhus essentially wages war from about 294 down to about 288 with Demetrius. Now Demetrius is, Greece is just, and Macedon is just one of the things that he's involved in.
He's one of the really big players. So he's involved in wars in Asia and he gathers troops together for another big attempt to kind of unify Alexander's empire.
And so Epirus is a bit of an irritant, but he has to kind of keep facing off against Pyrrhus. By the time we get to 289, he's provoked Demetrius so much that Demetrius launches a major invasion with two columns into Epirus heading north from sort of the southern part of northern Greece.
So he's heading up one of the valleys that I mentioned into Epirus and Epirus is coming the other way to meet him but they go down a different valley and he in fact meets... Ships in the night.
Yeah exactly and he meets the other column of Demetrius's force in fact he kind of before that really got out of Achanania, this sort of Greek region. And so this guy Pantauches, who is one of the great generals of Demetrius's army, confronts Pyrrhus in battle.
And according to one story, they even meet and they seek each other out on the battlefield. And Pyrrhus and Pantauches fight sword against sword.
And Pyrrhus gets a wound and deals two wounds. He cuts him in the leg and then he cuts him across the throat.
Pantaukes actually survives and is taken away. But Pyrrhus wins the day and kills about 5,000 in this battle.
So this is a serious engagement. And so this demonstrates to Demetrius's army how amazing Pyrrhus is as a general and particularly as a warrior.
And they, rather than it being seen as a, you know, we've got to get that guy. He's horrible.
They really start to admire him. And they've stopped really admiring Demetrius.
He's kind of not won and achieved as much as he wanted to. And the troops start to drift more to Pyrrhus than

to Demetrius and so Demetrius has major desertion problems he's also then later killed in that year

and Pyrrhus is able to seize the throne of Macedon and becomes king of Macedon briefly. If you're a parent or share a fridge with someone, Instacart is about to make grocery shopping so much easier.
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Listen to Our Skin on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. he's very opportunistic isn't he so demetrius you know this once titanic figure kind of gets laid low by the end of his life pyrrhus has dealt this victory be seen one of his generals and then the throne of macedon is is free and pyrrhus because he's close he just kind of takes advantage to kind of go into macedon and add that to his collection that's quite interesting yeah but also don't forget he is part of the the macedonian royal family you know he is a second cousin of alexander the great and by all accounts you know he demonstrates a lot of alexander's military qualities and this is something that the macedonian elite really admire they like a good strong commander they even some some even say that he looked a bit like Alexander and whereas other kings affected Alexander's neck position and hairstyle and robes, Pyrrhus demonstrated Alexander's military demeanour.
There is another story though that Pyrrhus thought that he looked like Alexander and started wandering around a bit. And then this little old lady in one of the towns in Macedon said, oh, Pyrrhus says, don't you think I look like Alexander the Great? And she goes, no, you look more like, oh, what's his name? Batrachias, which basically means froggy or kermit, who is a local cook.
And that takes him down a peg. And there are lots of stories actually about Pyrrhus getting ahead of himself and having this sort of sense of self-importance and then being taken down a peg by his advisors or by common people.
And he tends to take these in incredibly good sport. There's one story that he encounters a bunch of youths who have been drinking a lot, and he hears that they've been insulting him.
And he comes, how dare you insult me? Would you keep insulting me now I'm here? And they replied, yes, if there was enough drink. And so he laughs and lets them, he goes on his merry way.
So there are lots of these stories of Pyrrhus thinking himself, puffing himself up to be like Alexander, but also then being taken down a peg by various things like that. Well, let's move on.
So it's interesting. So Pyrrhus kind of taken control of Macedon.
He's won these victories. I'm guessing there is more fighting to come.
But Louis, kind of summarise, by the time we get to, let's say, 281 BC, I think that is the magical date, the the magical number how powerful was Pyrrhus and his kingdom of Epirus by that date right so you know the best the high point is in king of Macedon but Lysimachus one of the other generals comes another successor successor who'd fought on the other the winning side at Ipsos he comes in with a monstrously big army and basically Pyrrhus from the throne. So Pyrrhus goes back to Epirus and he's left there and Lysimachus is in Macedon.
So by 281, Pyrrhus is looking for something else to do. He's interfered with Illyrian politics and got involved in some succession issues there and he's been campaigning there, but that's not really working out for him macedon itself interestingly is becoming again another sort of possibility lysimachus has gone and another ptolemy the son of ptolemy the first of egypt is now on the throne to ptolemy coraunus who is weak and relatively new to the job could pyrrhus go and knock him off well maybe but that would offend ptolemy the first so in fact they cut a deal and pyrrhus gathers some troops and money from ptolemy coraunus and gets money from ptolemy the first and just and ptolemy coraunus that means ptolemy the thunderbolt which is i mean what a name that is he's not a great figure but yeah yeah yeah it doesn't it doesn't end well for him he's he's gone in a couple of years he's killed by Gauls who suddenly appear on the map and start being a pain in Greece but that's by the by Tyrion by this time is being tempted west now this is what you want to ask me about I do so he's been tempted west he's cut a deal with Macedon so he's kind of secured that border anyway hasn't he yes At least until the Gauls come knocking, as you hinted out there.

In the West.

So I'm guessing we're talking Italy. What has been happening in Southern Italy at the same time as the lion's focus has been on Greece and the Titanic Wars, the successors? What has been going on in Italy? Which power has been rising and rising? It's Rome, isn't it? central Italian

major central Italian power

in the 350s BC

by the three rising and rising. It's Rome, isn't it? A central Italian, a major central Italian power in the 350s BC.
By the 330s, a swallowed up Campania is waging wars against the Samnite tribe. That's Naples area, isn't it? Yeah, so Campania is Naples, Capua, that kind of, that part of the world, south of Rome.
But Samnium is this great Apenine federation of tribes, really, that runs up the spine in the sort of central Italy into southern Italy. And then you've got the Lucanians, who are another tribe, and Brutians as well.
And there are Greek cities on the south coast as well. And one of those is Tarentum, a Spartan colony.
It's been there for centuries, thinks of itself as a regional power. And so it's under pressure because the Romans have expanded.
They've defeated the Samnites by the time of the 290s. They've won the last of the Samnite wars.
And the Samnites are now part of the Roman alliance system. And the Romans are starting to put pressure on Tarentum in various ways.
They've cut a deal in 300 and two not to interfere with each other's affairs. And the Romans have undertaken not to sail north of the Licinian Promontory.
Now, that's a bit confusing, but the Licinian Promontory is actually on the instep of Italy. If you think of Tarentum on the heel of Italy.
So that's Taranto, yes. Yeah, Taranto.
And then you've got Regium on the tip of the toe. Next to Sicily, Regio.
Yeah, that's right. Right across there.
So you've got Regium there. And then on the instep, you've got cities like Croton and Locris.
These are Greek cities. And the Licinian Promontory is a point along that instep, as it were, the southern coast.
So the Romans have come down the western coast of Italy and nipped around the edge and have now undertaken not to approach the Tarentians from the south, essentially. And from the north, again, there are Lucanians in the way, but they all part of another arrangement.
So that's the deal the Romans have.

But they are clearly the major power.

They're cutting a deal with the Carthaginians. They've made an alliance in 306 with the Carthaginians, who are an African hegemony that stretches across a lot of Western Mediterranean and Western Sicily.
So this is the geopolitical situation that Alexander the Molossian had inserted himself into on the invitation of the Tarentines in the 330s originally. So the Tarentines had already become under pressure from the wars of the Romans and the Samnites.
And the Lucanians had taken an opportunity while the Samnites were distracted to kind of attack Tarentum. And so Alexander the Molossian was asked by the Tarentians to come in and help.
And he does, but he's killed in battle. So the Tarentians have a track record of looking to Epirus for help.
And they're starting to think about help. In fact, they'd offered help to Pyrrhus to capture Corfu, Osiris, which Pyrrhus had actually owned through marriage.

He'd had a second wife, whose name was Lanasa, who was the daughter of Agathocles, the tyrant

of Syracuse in Sicily, a very powerful Sicilian tyrant.

Another powerful king.

Another powerful king.

So they've made a marriage arrangement, and Pyrrhus has basically got, therefore, a marriage

relationship with the powers in eastern Sicily, Syracuse in particular. And when Lanasa left him for Demetrius, I know she got fed up with the other wives that Pyrrhus had acquired, she left him and she gave Corfu to Demetrius.
And so to recover Corfu which wasn't really his it was her dowry to give to whoever

she wanted he nevertheless enlists a fleet from tarentum so in a way he owes the tarentines a bit of you know he's in debt to the tarentines yeah who who who have helped him who have reached out across the adriatic already in the 288 And so they come calling to Pyrrhus for help, as they did with one of Pyrrhus's much earlier relatives, Alexander the Molochian, the other Alexander, several decades earlier. And Alexander the Molochian had ultimately failed and died.
But they go to Pyrrhus and ask him, hey, you're powerful. You owe us something as well.
You're on good terms now with Macedon and in the East. We're worried about the Romans.
Come over here to Italy. And I'm guessing he accepts.
Well, kind of. Yes, he says yes.
And he sends an advance guard. But he's kind of taking his time gathering support from amongst the successor kings.
In fact, he manages to get money out of people. He gets elephants from Ptolemy Coranus.
Indian elephants. They probably are Indian elephants.
So they are decent weapons of war. And, you know, Pyrrhus isn't resplendent with elephants.
So this is a real asset to him. He gets 20 of those.
And he portrays himself as the liberator of the Greeks against the barbarians. So, you know, as Alexander the Molossian may have posed as a liberator of Greeks against the Lucanian barbarians, now Pyrrhus is posing as a sort of succour to the Greeks in the south against the Romans, who have fallen out very big time with the Tarentines.
There's been an accident with some ships that had sailed north of the Licinian commentary and ended up in the Tarentine port.

Bit of a Roman provocation there, I think. Well, the Tarentines see it as a provocation.
They treat the crews badly. They sink some of the ships.
The Romans come with an army and start devastating Tarentine territory. And it's at that point that Pyrrhus is called in to help.
and they also acquire, the Tarentines also managed to get the Lucanians who have been subdued by the Romans and indeed the Samnites who are still resentful of the Roman conquest to kind of promise troops as well. In fact, they promised an outlandish amount.
They promised 350,000 men, which is is outrageous and then these guys never materialized

but nevertheless pyrrhus that that persuades pyrrhus and indeed his the coine of the pirates

to agree together that they can send a major expedition to italy and that expedition takes

20 000 men out of epirusus, 20,000 infantry.

There are 2,000 archers, 500 slingers, and 3,000 cavalry, and the 20 elephants.

All of these are drawn from Epirus and also from mercenaries that Epirus,

he's allowed to hire mercenaries, but the pirates have to mint the coins for him to do that.

But that always feels like, so that 20,000, that's the core, that's his elite troops, his kind of the Macedonian equivalents.

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the, the, the, the, the, the the macedonian infantry of alexander the great equivalents that is the core heavy infantry the phalanx infantry the heavy cavalry very much like an alexander the great army but with elephants as well and he's presuming he's going to it's the thinking that it's going to be supplemented by these, not tens, but hundreds of thousands of allied troops that are going to come running to him, kind of worshipping him as their saviour from the Romans. And he's going to plough forward with this humongous force to take on the Romans.
Is that what he's thinking? Yeah, absolutely. And who are these Romans anyway? And no one's ever really heard of them you know well they have but you know they've not been tested against a proper decent hellenistic king not the much yeah the the successes of alexander the people who think themselves the greatest military forces in the world basically and pyrrhus thinks of himself as not one which shy of any of those great kings.
So, you know, and he's just had these recent successes. He's had defections from Demetrius's forces.
He knows that he's adored by his army. He's great at inspiring his soldiers in particular.
So they've got great Alain and great Esprit de Corps. So when he comes across, they're veterans of the conflict.
There are obviously all these mercenaries as well who are trained specialists. He thinks he's going to have a reasonable impact on Southern Italy, at least, and possibly pinching the Romans right back.
So he arrives and approaches the Romans. The Romans muster an army.
And the army that had been raiding Tarentum had retreated to Venucia, which is one of the Roman colonies in southern Italy. And another consular army, when they hear of Pyrrhus' advance, they are on the march as well.
So there are these two Roman armies, probably around about 30,000, 40,000 men assembling against Pyrrhus. And Pyrrhus has come with about 25,000 men and some elephants.
He recruits from Tarentum. He recruits mercenaries.
He gets a unit called the White Shields. No idea what they are.
They are obviously maybe hoplites rather than phalangites. So the Greeks used the word phalanx for basically any kind of dense formation of heavy infantry.
Traditionally, Greeks had hoplites who were sort of spear-armed, shielded individuals, but they wielded their spear with one hand. It's a two-metre-long spear.
Yeah, it's basically two to three metres, about eight foot or so in old money. And Alexander the Great's armies and the successor armies predominantly rely on phalanxes of pikemen so the pike is much longer at least 12 foot probably 15 to 18 foot six meters yeah so it gets longer over time so we can't quite be sure how long pyrrhus's spears were and we think that pyrrhus has got pikemen, lots of pikemen, because Polybius suggests that, Polybius, a Greek historian, writing in the second century BC, talks about Pyrrhus' army facing the Romans briefly and implies that they are pikemen.
But that's the only source ever says that they are really pikemen. We get this sort of generic word phalanx.
And everyone wonders how many actual Macedonian-style pikemen the pirates actually have. You know, it's given that it's a military tradition of Macedon rather than the pirates.
So I'm just a little bit cautious about saying that the whole of those 20,000 men, pikemen, I would say a large, maybe 12,000, I was just guessing, but that's a kind of standard block that you kind of find in

a lot of Macedonian successor armies, 12,000, 16,000, they come in 4,000 blocks, mathematically quite simple for the formations they use. So maybe there's 12,000, maybe there's 16,000 of these are pikemen, and then some others, you know, who are light infantry or peltasts or some other kind of intermediate force.
So he comes with this army. He offers peace to the Romans.
And the offer is essentially to leave the Torentines alone and become a friend of me. And that's all he asked for, really.
So that's his opening gamut. So rather than this whole idea of conquering the whole of Italy, the terms that we hear are actually quite modest.
After the battle, there's another. After the battle.
After the battle. We'll come to the battle.
But after the battle, there is another offer. That offer is a bit more harsh to the Romans.
We'll come to that maybe in a second. So the Romans refuse and the Battle of Heraclea happens.
Okay, so at the Battle of Heraclea, Pyrrhus' phalanx engages the Romans and there's a vicious fight between the Roman legionaries and the phalanx. The cavalry seems to be evenly matched, but the battle is turned by the elephants who freak the Romans out somewhat drastically.
Because they've never seen them. They've never seen them and their horses panic.
They don't like the smell of them and the trumpeting, the cider. They're just really intimidated.
So these just 20 animals make this huge impact on 40,000 Romans. And Pyrrhus is able to drive them off.
Now, the casualties on both sides are quite heavy, but Pyrrhus seems to have inflicted about twice as many casualties on the Romans. They may have lost in the region 7,000 or 15,000, depending on the ancient source that you believe.
And Pyrrhus loses sort of half that amount on the other side. So he wins this battle, drives off the Romans, who then retreat back towards Campania and then into Rome.
And Pyrrhus thinks that he's kind of offers this next peace, this victorious peace. And in that, it's a bit harsher because he's expecting to be joined by the Samnites

and the Lucanians. They hadn't quite made it to the battle,

but they were on their way.

He makes an offer, which is

the original two terms that I mentioned,

but also in addition that the Romans have

to give up all of the land that they've

taken from the Lucanians, the Samnites,

the Buteans, which would essentially

break up the Roman federation

in the south that they've spent 20 years. Stopping Roman expansion.
Yeah, exactly. And molting the Roman state, essentially.
Pegging it right back to sort of 330s position. And that is impossible for the Romans to consider.
And so they, although actually they are wavering, the Senate wavers, and they listen to Pyrrhus' ambassador Kineas, a Thessalian, but a good general and a philosopher, and hangs out with Pyrrhus a lot and gives him lots of sage advice. Kineas finds out that the Romans eventually are swayed by the oratory of one particular famous old Roman who was a brizzled veteran of the Sunlight Wars, Appius Claudius Caicus, the blind, because he's losing his sight.
He stands up and makes a fantastic speech in the Senate, and that persuades the Senate to carry on fighting. And Kinius comes back, having seen the Romans raising more legions to replace all the losses.
And he says to Pyrrhus, OK, we're in a bit of, this is a a proper fight we're in the roman senate is like a senate of kings and the people are like the lernaean hydra in other words you chop off one head and two spring up and so he makes this point about the idea that the the romans have got plenty more where they came from loads and loads of soldiers left to throw at pyrrhus and so what happens next so the romans launch another campaign and pyrrhus wades in and fights another battle at asculum again it's pyrrhus's victory but this is a you know heavy casualties on both sides again the elephants play a role our roman sources our pro-roman sources are starting to sort of play down the impact of elephants and starting to say, well, in this battle, a couple of the elephants started to panic and this created some confusion because the Romans in the first battle had learned that the elephants were not indestructible.

one of their soldiers a hostatus one of the young men in the front line of the battle had chopped the trunk off one of the elephants and they went these things bleed amazing so they

started to develop tactics and then one outlandish tactic that they appear to have used at Asculin was to create wagons that they sort of sunk into the ground and then put grapnels and other weird things and flaming pivot on the top to kind of freak the elephants out and try and address the elephants. Well, what does Pervis do? He sort of keeps his elephants away after a couple of minutes and throws in some light infantry, which just clear the wagons.
So it's a nice idea, but it doesn't really work for them. And eventually the elephants and Pyrrhus' army do prevail in this battle at Asculum.
But what's the big thing from this battle? The thing we remember him from? Yeah, well, this is it. So the losses are so severe on both sides that as he's being congratulated by his officers officers and he loses many of his generals and his officers in this battle as well as best men they say well you know this is it you know i won more victory and you and you've won this war and he says if we have another victory like that we're done for you know and this is the famous pyrrhic victory that we that where you win but the losses are so great that can't continue, you know, that you take such a heavy blow from it that it's almost like a poison chalice to win this battle or even fight it.
The Pyrrhic victory. There you go.
So that's the origins of the phrase, the Pyrrhic victory, the battle of Asculum. So what happens next? Come on.
Oh yeah, well, so this is it. Pyrrhus realises that he can't fight this war against the Romans successfully.
People are beginning to get fed up with the fact that he's not winning the war. The Tarentines are beginning to grumble and so on.
He has another offer. In fact, he has two other offers.
Coralus has died, and there's a possibility that he could head back and take over the throne of Macedon. The other possibility, though, is in Sicily, where you remember that connection with Agathocles.
Agathocles's daughter had married Pyrrhus. Well, Agathocles was long gone and Sicily was in a state of turmoil.
And the tyrant of Syracuse, Theronon, he was sort of out of favour with the populace. And the Carthaginians, remember them, they've made an alliance with the Romans.
In fact, they make another alliance with the Romans to face off against Pyrrhus. And so they are actively collaborating, have marched on Syracuse and besieged it.
And Syracuse has turned to Pyrrhus and say, come and help us. Please come and help us.
And Pyrrhus sees an opportunity because he is legitimately a successor to Agathocles and could basically become king of Syracuse here. And it seems like an opportunity with the Samnites being able to kind of maybe hold the Romans off for a bit, to take on and conquer Sicily and then maybe even go all the far and do what Alexander had perhaps dreamed of doing, Alexander the Great, which was to attack and conquer the Carthaginians and their empire in Africa.
So he is tempted and he goes. need it? It could be if it was in a Wealthfront cash account.
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Fairfield Subaru, where love meets the road. So he's been tempted to go to Sicily.
So once again, it's opportunistic period, isn't he? See what opportunity one after another to prove his military mettle and he goes to syracuse is it a success what happens he's immediately made strategos altocrator which means commander-in-chief or generalissimo of the of the syracusans they they love him you know there's the hats in the air everything so he takes over absolute control of Syracuse his first step

to being recognized as king of the Syracusans as well so essentially he's cemented his position there he draws in other Greeks the Carthaginians retreat in the face of his his force and he then wages a campaign against the Carthaginians for the next three years eventually he drives across the island most of the greek cities join him he he he captures the fortress of erics which is in the in the far west and celebrates lavish games to hercules by this time he's making associations with hercules we've heard about the hydra of the romans you can see how hercules the great sl slayer of Hydras, you know, he's beginning to play

that game as well as the Achilles connection as well, and that Alexander the Great had had as

well. So he's got, he's playing on these echoes of mythological things.
So he makes these great games

to Hercules at Eryx, which is also a shrine to Aphrodite or Venus, as the Romans would call it.

He then captures Panormus, Palermo, and he only got one position left to take before he scraped the Carthaginians off the island and that's the city fortress of Lillibium in the far west to Marcella today yes but the Carthaginians are tough and this is a tough city to take and after two months he's getting nowhere the Carthaginians keep sailing supplies and troops in they control the sea and so he has to try and build a fleet he has made himself unpopular with the syracuseans and other greek cities with the enlistment of troops and some of the troops are not so voluntary enlistments and so he starts to fall out of favour with the Sicilian

cities. The creation of the fleet is kind of a straw on the camel's back of the Sicilian cities.
And they think, well, actually, this guy is actually not the man that we thought he was. He's too much of a tyrant.
He's too much of a tyrant in the bad way, rather than sort of neutral term, meaning just unelected commander or leader. So he acts tyrannically towards them.
He's a bit harsh he's a bit strict and they just don't like it so although he gets the fleet he realizes the game's up really and he's also having appeals from the torrentines and sun knights saying we can't hold on much longer the romans have come back the romans have come back the romans are hammering they've conquered most of samnium they're really they're really dealing with things in the event they're almost at the door of Tarentum again so he realizes that game's up really even though he looks like he's won he even has to abandon plans to sell to Africa with this fleet he can't even finish the siege of Lillibium cities start going over to the Carthaginians and the Mamertines who are a bunch of mercenaries in Masana ex-Agathocles mercenaries who are Italian warriors who call themselves the Son of Mars, the Mamertines. He has to fight them as well.
And so there are all these problems in Sicily. So he decides, I'm getting out now.
On his way, as he's sailing to Italy with his army, he's attacked by a Carthaginian fleet and he loses 70 out of the 110 warships constructed but he gets away with his own transports with the with the troops on the transport so although the war fleet is more or less annihilated the actual troops that he's going to rely on for his land campaign escape and so he's able to land in southern italy and march north to confront the romans at a place called malventum so two roman consuls two armies pyrrhus has to send some of his force to face off against one of the roman consuls who is based in lucania but malventum is the army that he chooses to attack and so at malventum he engages he tries to attack the romans no actually what he tries to do is gain high ground but he has to go through a wood through night and apparently all his torches the route is so circuitous that the torches will burn down and they can't find their way in the dark and so they will get lost and by the time the dawn arises the romans seize on the opportunity and the disarray and the tiredness of Pyrrhus's army to launch an attack. And Pyrrhus is, in fact, defeated.
His elephants panic and cause chaos as well. And so finally, Pyrrhus is driven back to Tarentum with only about 8000 men.
This is the epitome of how not to do a night march, isn't it? When it all goes horribly wrong and how bad it can be if you're caught out in the open when the sun rises.

A marching pikemen through a forest is also crazy.

And cavalry and elephants.

It's just the worst thing you could possibly do.

In fact, at Asculum, he'd gotten away with it.

Apparently there was a forest there that he'd managed to fight.

But he had a rough time and it was a two-day battle.

So he should have known better. But he went for the big objective, which was to gain the better ground, because he was regarded as one of those generals who had the best eye for the disposition of forces and would go that extra mile to get into the right places at the right time.
So it was a risk he needed to take, but obviously here it just goes badly wrong. And so luck sort of helps theans win this well like luck had helped here so many times in the past and alexander it's only about time that your luck runs out and it did for pyrrhus then and it's interesting so it's called malventum at the time which means bad but then i see it's called beneventum so did the romans change the name almost indeed to celebrate their victory at the bad place or the bad coming point they then changed it to beneventum which means the good place the good coming point and so thereafter beneventum is known as that and the Romans are good at changing things like that just to celebrate victories so yeah so Pyrrhus leaves a garrison in Tarentum but decides he needs to go back to the pirates he's gone he's gone he can't help them anymore kind of thing yeah he's burned out his his had enough really but he's got opportunities in greece but he is the and it feels i mean very briefly to highlight isn't it pyrrhus is one of he is that last major figure to challenge rome's dominance in italy as it's expanding in that initial expanding when it's just growing and growing and growing.
Pyrrhus is that last big hurdle that the Romans had to face and they succeed they beat this figure who the Romans portray very much so is like the greatest of Alexander the Great's successes so the closest they come to facing Alexander the Great himself yeah indeed and that is often invoked in later speeches you know when the Romans are trying to G themselves up for fighting the Macedonian king, Philip V in the third century and the second century BC. They sort of say, oh, look, you know, Pyrrhus was, you know, we managed to beat Pyrrhus.
We can easily beat this other guy who's not at all like Pyrrhus. He's the closest they come.
And there are sort of what ifs in some of the sources, you know. what if Alexander great himself had come to italy well it wouldn't have been the kind of losers that we've got in the in the 280s like like vinius and people like that who are kind of not about all the generals who yeah yeah who are who are not that all that famous you know and not all that successful no we had you know people like happiest claudius caikus and all these other dudes and they would have made short work of alexander you know so there's livy has this sort of gloating sort of schoolboy analysis of what the what if counterfactual history thing that he just loves to write about so yeah the romans really celebrate the fact that they they've defeated this hellenistic army and they really remember and really sort of big up i think pyrr as well.
And that, of course, influences some of the sources that we have. And so sometimes separating the man from the myth is quite difficult because of these things.
We have testimony from others about his greatness. So Hannibal is asked about Pyrrhus's greatness and says that he was the greatest general after Alexander the Great.
And then he puts himself third, precisely because of these things like disposition and stratagem and bravery in combat. So Pyrrhus, you know, even though he's defeated at Beneventum, that's his only really major defeat in the field.
And he comes back greece and to epirus and again gets interfering in the affairs of macedon and in greece for the next few years so he's back in 275 bc and by the time of his death in 272 he's got himself involved in a conflict with the new Macedonian king, a guy called Antigonus Granatus. Who's the son of Demetrius, isn't he? Yes.
Yeah. And so they fall out.
And initially, Pyrrhus' first move is against Sparta. One of his mercenary captains is also an heir to the Spartan throne.
And so he decides to try and install him in sparta and they go to sparta and according to the narratives they catch the spartans with their pants down almost the city is almost on garrison and undefended but no walls no and well yeah maybe not maybe no walls and then he but pyrrhus delays a day because he sort of arrives in the evening. He does want a night attack for obvious reasons.
Last time he lost the battle was at night, so he doesn't want to attack the city at night. He waits for the day, by which time the Spartans have assembled a scratch force.
They've dug a ditch in front of the city, which makes it very difficult for his pikemen to get across in the actual assault. And in the assault he is basically driven off he fails and by the following day reinforcements from out of the city have arrived and it becomes harder and harder for him to take the city so he marches off on his way out he's heading for argos so we're now in 272 bc on his way out he's attacked by spartan harassment forces and one of his three sons, a guy called Ptolemy, who is obviously named after his original sponsor, is killed.
And what's really interesting is Pyrrhus' reaction. So we talked about his martial prowess.
In this engagement, Pyrrhus goes absolutely nuts. He really gets really angry.
Covered in blood, he charges personally into the Spartans, taking on their commander, taking on the guy who's killed Ptolemy. So is this Sparta, or is this the Mammoth Titans? No, this is Sparta.
I forgot to mention the Mammoth Titans one. We'll come back to that.
But yeah, so he kills loads of them. It just sort of demonstrates his powers.
He just kills loads of them. And he stabs a guy called Evalcus through the chest with his spear.
Evalcus had nearly cut his hand off, but had cut the reins of his horse instead. And Pyrrhus then drives his spear through him.
So the Spartans are completely overawed by this and then withdraw and run away. This is one example of his powerful prowess.
You mentioned this Mamatine ambush. When he gets back to Italy, the Mamatine- A few years earlier, yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is, yeah, just before the Battle of Beneventum.
He's actually harassed by Mamatines who are actually in the Italian mainland, as well as that they are based in Sicily, but they've sent troops over to help the Romans. And one Mamatine challenges him to single combat.
And Pyrrhus gets a little bit frustrated, rides over to him and then chops him in half with one blow with his sword. Unseamed from chaps to knave to reverse Shakespeare's Macbeth.
He's literally cut in half and falls into two halves in front of them. Anyway, this forces the Mamatines to kind of give up.
It's a conspicuous display of the prowess of Pyrrhus. And we've seen him on a number of occasions get personally involved and fight.
He's a great warrior covered in wounds and that sort of thing. And so, I mean, it's another great story.
We kind of did a bit tangent there, but I think it was deserved because, you know, that is that one kind of personal courage and fighting ability of Pyrrhus that is it's it's brought up to the next level in the surviving literature that survives about him as this great heroic figure but still there must be some elements of truth in it as well yeah but how does it all end well this is the thing because macedonian kings risk themselves alexander the great had gone into battle at the head of his cavalry pyrrhus does the same all the successor the successor kings do. 14 out of 18 Seleucid kings die in battle.
It's incredible. The death rate of these commanders is huge.
So Pyrrhus is a man who commits himself. So he goes to Argos, which is neutral, and Antigonus Gonatus is operating in the vicinity as well.
And they're about to face off for a battle, but Pyrrhus decides to try and take Argos to get a strategic advantage. And the city is betrayed.
The gates are opened. And so he takes a night adventure and he tries to get his army inside the city.
He gets to the center of Argos, the marketplace, the Agora, with his pikemen, with some of his cavalry. But he's trying to get his elephants in through the gate and they clog it up and slow it down.
The Argives hear about this and they wake up and the assembler are forced to fight him. While he's in the Agora, he's got room to manoeuvre.
He does OK. But as they get gradually ejected from this, because his whole force isn't in there and there's confusion behind him he starts being pushed into the streets one of the elephants whose name is Nikon he's the only elephant that is named in Pyrrhus's army loses its mahout loses the rider that guides it and Nikon tries to grab the mahout and so turns around and goes back causing chaos in the streets trying to pick his mahout up And this means that the reinforcements are all crushed and everyone's getting compressed and the confusion is rife.
And in that moment, Pyrrhus is involved intimately in the street fighting. He's cleaving left and right and killing people.
And he kills a certain Greek soldier, Argive soldier, whose mother apparently is watching from the rooftops she sees this and gets very very annoyed obviously and picks up a rooftop throws it down into the street and it hits pyrrhus on the head and it stunts him so he collapses and he's he's quivering and trembling by all accounts and before he's able to recover another soldier by the name of Zephyrus, I think it is, tries to chop off his head. He's not very accurate, hits him in the face a couple of times, but eventually he chops his head off.
And that's the end of Pyrrhus. And that's the end of essentially the adventure.
The Pyrrhus are injected from the city. Antigonus Ganatus gets the body of Pyrrhus and honours it as a brave warrior and gives him a proper funeral, as you would give a member of the Macedonian royal family, which Pyrrhus essentially is a kind of splinter of.
Well, I mean, we've gone from beginnings to death of Pyrrhus and it feels right to end here, isn't it, with the fact that you mentioned adventure? Because I think Pyrrhus' life is almost the epitome of an adventure in ancient history in the fact that we remember him today as this this venturing military commander who has this incredible legacy however overshadowed by the pyrrhic victory label that is the one thing that everyone thinks first and foremost with him and yet the ancients particularly commanders they viewed him as one of the greatest generals of ancient history. I mean, that has sadly been overshadowed, but he was this great venturing military commander who fought in so many different theatres of war, won so many victories, and became almost the closest to Alexander the Great in the ancient imagination.
Absolutely. I think this is the important thing to remember.
He's been to Asia Minor, he's been to Egypt, he's been to Sicily. He's one of the most well-travelled of the Hellenistic kings and a restless spirit, I think, is the way to kind of think of him.
You know, he never seems to stop to rest on his laurels. He's always seeking for more, which is kind of at the core of the identity of these Hellenistic kings, these successes to Alexander.
Alexander himself, you know, tried to get to the ends of the earth. Even when he returned, he was thinking about Carthage.
You know, there's this idea that these kings are always grasping for more. They are never satisfied.
I want to leave you with this wonderful anecdote. Just before Pyrrhus sets sail for Tarentum, he is having a party and he talks to Kinias, his wise general, and says, you know, this is great and we're destined for great things.
And Kinias says, well, what are you going to do in Tarentum? He said, well, we're going to humble the Romans and when we've conquered the Romans, we'll be really super powerful. And Kinias says, what next? Well, then we can use the Romans, we can use all our conquests to attack Sicily and then take on the Carthaginians and conquer them.
Kinias says, what next? Well, then we'll have enough power to challenge the diadokes, the successors. And I can go east and recapture Macedon and then go to Asia Minor and then become the most powerful ruler in the world.
We will rule the world. And Kinias says, and then what next? He said, then we will party like there's no tomorrow.
And we'll drink and we'll carouse at our leisure. And Kineas says, but that's what we're doing anyway.
But it sums up this whole idea of Pyrrhus never wanting to be restful, always grasping for more, greater and greater things, even when they don't pay off at all. It just goes on to the next best thing.
It does. I mean, Louis, I'm so grateful that you said yes when I asked you to do this interview and said Pyrrhus was someone I did my undergraduate, my dissertation on so many, many years ago, but he's a figure close to my heart.
And I'm so glad we could now finally, after so many years so many years do him justice with a detailed podcast episode on his life from rise to reign to ultimately demise to Louis it just goes for me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come back on the podcast you're very welcome well there you go there was Dr Louis Rawlings talking through the story of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, one of my favourite figures from ancient history. And I'm so happy that we've finally been able to record an episode all about this extraordinary ancient warlord who challenged Rome and ventured all across the ancient Mediterranean in those decades following Alexander the Great's death, the beginning of the Hellenistic period.
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