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
censor Appius 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. Two main accounts of the battle survive. Plutarch describes a two-day battle where Pyrrhus attacked the Romans on the first day over rough terrain before on the second day Pyrrhus secured flat terrain which allowed his elephantry and cavalry to defeat the Romans. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, followed by Dio and Zonaras, instead presents a single-day battle in which Roman forces break through the Epirote centre, producing an inconclusive engagement that ended in the night. Plutarch's narrative however is the more reliable. A third variant tradition, rather than marking a Epirote victory or indecision, instead reports that the Romans won; the historian Patrick Kent dismisses these claims as products of patriotic Roman historiography, attributing them to the poet
Ennius and later Roman historians' biases. It is not clear how, in Plutarch's version, Pyrrhus was able to get the Romans onto flat terrain: it is possible that Pyrrhus' poor performance on the first day caused the Romans to be overconfident or that Pyrrhus lured Romans off the rough ground they had occupied. Either way, after the battle – though sources are not even themselves unanimous as to whether the Epirotes had won – Pyrrhus probably reported that he lost 3,605 men while the Romans had lost some 6,000. Despite the victory and the Romans' greater losses, Pyrrhus is said to have exclaimed "Another such victory and we are lost!" due to the irreplaceability of his elite hoplites, which has given rise to the modern phrase
Pyrrhic victory. However, scholars such as
Pierre Lévêque have doubted whether Pyrrhus actually said such a phrase, attributing the phrase instead to Roman attempts to paint their defeats more positively.
Sicily (278–276 BC) in 278 BC. The obverse depicts a veiled head of
Phtia with oak wreath. The reverse depicts a
thunderbolt and the inscription ΒΑΣΙΛΕΩΣ ΠΥΡΡΟΥ ("of King Pyrrhus"). The claim of kingship did not necessarily imply rule over Sicily itself. At the end of the campaign in Italy, while Pyrrhus had lost some several thousand men, he had achieved his immediate goal of displacing the Romans in peninsular Magna Graecia and establishing his own hegemony over it. Meanwhile, Carthage, expanding eastward in Sicily following the death of
Agathocles of Syracuse in 289 BC, out of caution renewed its treaty of friendship with Rome. Late in the year, the Carthaginian admiral Mago arrived at
Ostia at the mouth of the river
Tiber with 120 ships. Rome and Carthage agreed to aid each other militarily and refrain from any separate peace. Shortly thereafter, Pyrrhus received an invitation from Syracuse to take command of its war against
Carthage. Although a Celtic threat in Macedonia presented another opportunity to seize that kingdom, he opted for Sicily, likely influenced by promises of local support and dim prospects in Macedon. The ongoing Carthaginian siege of Syracuse, if successful, would also have dealt a great blow to Pyrrhus' reputation, which was entwined with his stated war goal of freeing the western Greeks from barbarian domination. Access to Sicily was constrained by Roman and Carthaginian control of the
Messine strait and the flanking ports of Rhegium and Messana. Evading the Carthaginian fleet, he crossed from
Locri to
Tauromenium, ruled by the
tyrant Tyndarion, before advancing on Syracuse. His arrival forced the
Carthaginians to abandon the siege and he entered the city in late 278 BC as a liberator. He quickly reconciled the rival Syracusan leaders
Sosistratos and
Theonon before buttressing his army with Sicilian allies to some 30,000 men and 2,500 horse. At the outset of the campaigning season of 277 BC, Carthaginian forces withdrew west toward
Lilybaeum, while Pyrrhus captured numerous towns in central Sicily, including the fortress at
Mount Eryx on the northwestern coast. He then subdued the Mamertines in the northeast, reducing the Carthaginian position on the island to Lilybaeum and its environs. The Carthaginians, fighting defensively, were unable to do much to check Pyrrhus' advance. When Pyrrhus besieged Lilybaeum itself, they offered him money to withdraw. Declining the offer, Pyrrhus
besieged Lilybaeum in autumn 277 or spring 276 but was unable to make any progress: the city was constantly resupplied by Carthage's essentially unchallenged navy and the defenders were able to repel his attempts at assault. After two months, Pyrrhus withdrew to build ships to support another attempt. His attempts build up forces required him to assert political authority over the Sicilians. Such actions, however, alienated them. Redistributing the land that previously belonged to the tyrant Agathocles and his allies to supporters, Pyrrhus also appointed magistrates to administer justice and divert resources for his war effort. The later historian Justin claims that this was in effort to establish a permanent kingdom in Sicily for his dynasty. The Syracusan leaders who invited Pyrrhus to the island, Sosistratos and Theonon, are alleged to have conspired against Pyrrhus' attempts to make his hegemony over the island permanent; the former went into exile while the latter was executed. But with Carthaginian reinforcements arriving from Africa, defections among his Sicilian allies, and Roman advances in Italy threatening his communications along the Calabrian peninsula, Pyrrhus' position became increasingly precarious. Recognising this and fearing that his ability to withdraw by sea was closing, he heeded calls for aid from Magna Graecia and thereto withdrew.
Pyrrhus' return to Italy While Pyrrhus was in Sicily, the Romans had not been idle: they advanced consistently against Pyrrhus' allies, their northern zone of operations in Etruria remaining quiescent. A triumph was celebrated over the Lucanians, Bruttians, Tarentines, and Samnites by Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, who was again consul in 278 BC. Moreover, the Romans reconsolidated their foothold in southern Italy, negotiating a generous treaty with Heraclea. A campaign continued under the new consuls for 277,
Publius Cornelius Rufinus and
Gaius Junius Bubulcus Brutus, though the details of joint operations in Samnium breaking down amid mutual recriminations reported by Zonaras are likely unreliable. The two men were successful enough – Brutus celebrated a triumph over the Lucanians and Bruttians; Rufinus took Croton and Locri – and had taken much of what is now
Calabria from Pyrrhus and his allies. Pyrrhus crossed back into peninsular Italy in early 276 BC. With the Carthaginian navy again patrolling the seas and hostile forces occupying much of Calabria, he set sail with some 110 ships. Intercepted by Carthaginian ships, he
suffered some losses but was able to land at Locri. He then marched on Rhegium but was repulsed. Afterwards, as he withdrew, he was harassed by
Mamertine mercenaries under their employ, and returned to Locri. Needing money, Pyrrhus had his men plunder the Locrian temple to Persephone. The sources report that ships carrying the proceeds back to Tarendum were wrecked and, after the treasure washed up on shore near Locri, Pyrrhus had them returned to plead divine forgiveness. Whether the shipwrecks or Pyrrhus' return of the sacrilegious plunder are historical is disputed. In Rome, a plague had struck the previous year, the population was war-weary, and the omens were poor: a bolt of lightning had struck the head off a statue of Jupiter on the Capitoline, suggesting an end to Roman hegemony. The population had also fallen, if census records are to believed, by 5.5% (from 287,222 in 280 BC to 271,224 in 275). Resistance to the levy was such that one of the consuls,
Manius Curius Dentatus, threatened to sell any citizen who refused the call to arms into slavery and confiscate their property.
Beneventum (275 BC) Dentatus' army was deployed to
Beneventum, then called Maleventum, on which Pyrrhus advanced. Sources dispute how many Pyrrhus commanded. Plutarch places him at around 20,000; on the other hand, Orosius and Dionysius have him hugely outnumbering the Romans. He likely entered southern Italy with some 40,000 men in total and marched, according to modern historians, on Dentatus with some 20,000 or 25,000. The other forces sought to pin down Dentatus' co-consul,
Lucius Cornelius Lentulus, in Lucania to set up the two consuls for a
defeat in detail. The sources for the battle of Beneventum are especially poor, and also tainted by a literary fixture on Pyrrhus' elephants as the cause of his own defeat. The only complete narrative is that of Plutarch. When he arrived to Beneventum, Dentatus signalled for aid from Lentulus, who may have moved quickly to his colleague. Seeking to circumvent the Roman advantage in rough terrain and force a battle before Lentulus' arrival, Pyrrhus had a detachment of his men occupy high ground behind the Roman camp. But lost in the night, they were caught in the dawn by Dentatus' forces and withdrew hastily. Buoyed by the success, Dentatus ordered an assault on Pyrrhus' army over open ground. Pyrrhus then had his elephants attack the Roman forces, driving them into disorder. After reinforcements from the Roman camp drove the elephants back with javelins, many ancient sources say that the elephants then trampled much of Pyrrhus' army underfoot, leading to their defeat. The figures reported, 23,000 or 33,000, for Pyrrhus' casualties are not reliable. Modern historians have debated whether Pyrrhus actually lost the battle: some have argued that it was a draw; Zonaras, who claims Pyrrhus fled the field with but a few horsemen, certainly exaggerates. Draw or loss, it was no great victory for Rome: Pyrrhus still commanded a substantial force, but was forced onto the defensive. By this time, Pyrrhus' financial resources were strained, something evident in surviving coinage from Magna Graecia. Pyrrhus may have sought support from
Antigonus II Gonatas of
Macedonia. If he did, it was evidently refused. Pyrrhus, seeing that his control of southern Italy was failing, decided to return home. Exactly when he did so is not clear, though autumn 275 and early 274 have been suggested. He took some 8,000 men and 500 horse, which was the core of the army with which he had landed in Sicily. == Aftermath ==