The Ancients - Pyrrhus: Warlord of Ancient Greece

Episode Date: October 27, 2024

It’s 279 BC. On a large plain in Southern Italy near the town of Asculum, a famous Greek warlord likened to Alexander the Great faces down the legions of the Roman Republic. His name was Pyrrhus of Epirus. And the victory that he won at Asculum would come to define his legacy.In this instalment of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Dr. Louis Rawlings to dive into the cauldron of political intrigue and backstabbing that followed the death of Alexander the Great and talk through the story of Pyrrhus, his battles against Romans, Carthaginians, Sicilians, Greeks and how he managed to win the first ever 'Pyrrhic Victory'.Presented by Tristan Hughes. The producer is Joseph Knight, audio editor is Aidan Lonergan. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.The Ancients is a History Hit podcast.Enjoy unlimited access to award-winning original TV documentaries that are released weekly and AD-FREE podcasts. Sign up HERE for 50% off your first 3 months using code ‘ANCIENTS’. https://historyhit.com/subscriptionYou can take part in our listener survey here.

Hi, I'm Tristan Hughes, and if you would like the Ancient ad-free, get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to History Hit. With a History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries, including my recent documentary all about Petra and the Nabataeans, and enjoy a new release every week. Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com slash subscribe. 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 had 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. 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 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 Caeonians to the north and the Thesprotians to the south and sometime in the fourth century bc these three tribes became unified as the kind of kingdom of epirus under a dynasty of aakids yeah what aakids yes so named after a akides who was the first king but this name recurs so in fact some generations down the line pyrrhus's father is in fact aikidas 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 coin, 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 of the Macedonians. 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 Pyrrhus 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 you know 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 i said as you said is sort of northern western greece and southern

albania they're they're surrounded by the mastonians on on their east they have illyrian tribes and then 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 corsaira as it was known then as well so So this is their mini world, as it were. Their geography is quite awkward. Sorry, that's Corfu, isn't it? That ancient Corfu. The geography of Epirus is quite complex in the sense that there is a big mountain range,

the Pinarus Mountains to the east. But this creates a series of north- south folds and so 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 a pyrus and so the pirates benefit really from being quite secluded from the aggression of their neighbors it's interesting so if we go to the time of Pyrrhus' birth, first off, what does Zephyrus 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 and the macedonian alexander yes sorry master 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 and great wars of great generals that spread from from epirus all the way across to afghanistan these are the 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 Aikides 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 with you know it's swollen with flood water 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, know a savior 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 that was they claim they love mythological they love these 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 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 epirus that's right and the king is glaucus and there's another story that when the baby turns up you know glaucus is worried about cassandra but the the baby crawls out of his little robes and either comes up and tugs at Glaucus's costume at his throne. His robes, yeah. Yeah, his robes. Or he goes over to an altar and sort of supplicates a god. You know, this two-year-old's 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 hellenistic illyrian because illyrians normally seen as quite barbarian but they're also very war 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 civilized. 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, you know, Corinthians and Argives, those are sort of becoming less important in the grand scheme of things. Because these men are, these boys are raised to become leaders and kings of nations. You know, the Illyrians, they're a kingdom. The Epirus is a kingdom. Macedonia is a kingdom. These are different kind of structures to what the Greeks had experienced.

Oh, so-called like democracy or oligarchy. Yeah, exactly. 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 grows up 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 chat too 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 two isn't he yeah so he interestingly he's restored to his throne at the age of 11 by glaucus who moved moves and displaces neptolemus but six years later it's cassander who comes back and essentially throws pyrrhus out and he's forced to flee again and neptolemus is restored and pyrrhus then has to go and find something else to do or find somewhere else to be and pyrrhus then has to go and find something else to do, or find somewhere else to be. And Pyrrhus' dad, Iacodes, he's dead by this point. Well, he dies in 313.

So Iacodes has died in 313. So Pyrrhus is essentially an orphan. He's relying 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.

Love him. 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, Epirus joins Demetrius his brother-in-law and the pair of them go off to fight in the success of wars and they fight the great battle of Ipsus in 301 where we don't know whether Epirus 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 this 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 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 skills either either in illyria or when he's growing up in a pyrus 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 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 you know a loyal ally of demetrius and holding and garrisoning greece when demetrius cuts a deal with one of the other successors, 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 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 the peace breaks down, these hostages are dealt with. 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. 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 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 like in later life so he 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 Berenike, who is the wife of Ptolemy. And she's so impressed that she actually proposes a marriage with her daughter by another husband. 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 try to get their support yeah yeah to restore him he he cuts a deal and they they co-rule for 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 aikidas pyrrhus's father when he was off on a campaign they just went right we've had enough of him he's really unpopular and so they just just got rid of him

and neoptolemus was kind of brought in by cassander and now neoptolemus is out of favor with the molossians and so at 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 pirates weren't in favor 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 the Pyramids. It's a really interesting rise for this figure, isn't it? And 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 like the opening stages, the very beginnings of the Library of Alexandria, Ptolemy's bringing all these philosophers and people in and pyrrhus being interested in the military treaties and all of that and sometimes we think of hostages being you know kept in a 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 they would be with royal figures they had a good chance to try and impress themselves and evidently pyrrhus really impressed himself because of them what you explained that lays the foundations for him to go back to be supported by an army that goes across the mediterranean to rapyrus in northwest greece

instates him 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 as guarantors of of peace but actually their assets their 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 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 in the period of the successors. 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, as 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.

the daughter of Berenike and Antigone, he even names a city after her and founds Apollos, a sort of Greek-style city in a pyrus, 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' war with Rome, because he fights a number of wars before that. Let's briefly cover them now so as not to get into too much detail, because I know that there are 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 Pyrrrhus and pyrrhus is coming the other way to meet him but they go down a different valley 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 acarnania it's at a greek region and so this guy pantaukes 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 pantalques 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 pantakis 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 they've stopped really admiring demetrius he's kind of not won and achieved as much as he 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. 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 beating one of his generals and then the throne of macedon is free and pyrrhus has dealt this victory, beating one of his generals. And then the throne of Macedon 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 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, you know, 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, 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 you insult me you know would you keep insulting you know would you keep insulting me now i'm here and they and they replied yes if there was enough drink and so even he laughs and and lets them you know 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 can have taken control of macedon he's won these victories i'm guessing there is more fighting to come but louis kind of summarize by the time we get to let's say 281 bc i think that is the magical date the magical number how powerful was pyrrhus and his kingdom of a pyrrhus by that date right so you know the best that the high point is in king of macedon but lysimachus one of the other generals comes in another successor successor who'd fought on the other the winning side at ipsus he comes in with a monstrously big army and basically drives pyrrhus from the throne so pyrrhus goes back to epirus and he's left there and lysimachus is in macedon so by 281 he's actually 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 I of Egypt, is now on the throne. Ptolemy Karounos, who is weak and relatively new to the job. Could Pyrrhus go and knock him off? Well, maybe, but that would offend Ptolemy I. So, in fact, they cut a deal and Pyrrhus gathers some troops and money from Ptolemy Karounos and gets money from Ptolemy I.

And Ptolemy Karounos, that means Ptolemy the Thunderbolt. I mean, what a name Thunderbolt. That's right. I mean, what a name that is. He's not a great figure, but yeah, yeah, yeah. It doesn't end well for him. 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 way. Pyrrhus, by this time, is being tempted west. Now, this is what you want to ask me about. I do. So he's being tempted west. He's cut 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 ghouls 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 successes what has been going on initially

which power has been rising and rising it's rome isn't it central a central italian major central italian power in the 350s bc by the 330s a swallowed up campania is waging wars against the samnite tribe that's na Naples area, isn't it? Yeah, so Campania is Naples, Capua, that part of the world south of Rome. But Samnium is this great Apennine federation of tribes, really, that runs up the spine in the central Italy into southern Italy. And then you've got the Lucanians, who are another tribe,

and Brutians as well. And there greek cities on the south coast as well who and one of those is tarentum a spartan colony has 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 by the time of the 290s. They've won the last of the Samnite wars. 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 the bit confusing, but the Licinian promontory is actually on the instep of Italy. If you think of Tarentum on the heel of Italy. So it'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 lochus 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 tarentines from the south essentially and from the not to approach the Torrentians from the South, essentially. And from the North, again, there are Lucanians in the way, but they're 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 Tarentines to come in and help and he does but he's killed in battle so the Tarentines have have a track record of looking to Epirus for help and they're starting to think about how in fact they'd offered help to pyrus to capture corfu or syra which alex and pyrus had actually owned through marriage he'd he'd had a second wife whose name was lanasa who was the daughter of agathocles the tyrant of syracuse in sicily and 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 Lannasa left him for Demetrius, I know, she got fed up with the other wives that Pyrrhus had acquired. She left him and 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, consideration. He's in debt to the Tarentines a bit of consideration. He's in debt to the Tarentines. Yeah, who have helped him, who have reached out across the Adriatic already in the 280s. And so they come calling to Pyrrhus for help, as they did with one of Pyrrhus' much earlier relatives, Alexander the Molossian, the other Alexander, several decades earlier. And Alexander the Molossian had ultimately failed and died but they go to paris and ask him hey you're powerful you owe us something as well you 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 in from amongst the successor kings. In fact, he manages to get money out of people. He gets elephants from Ptolemy Kourounis. 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 sucker 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 promontory 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 manage to get the lucanians who have been subdued by the romans and indeed the samnites who are still resentful of rome of the roman conquest to kind of promise troops as well. In fact, they promised an outlandish amount.

They promised 350,000 men. Wow. Yes, that's quite a lot. Which is outrageous. And then these guys never materialized, but nevertheless, Pyrrhus, that persuades Pyrrhus and indeed 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 epirus 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 pyrrhus he's allowed to hire mercenaries, but the Epirus 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. He's kind of the Macedonian equivalents. I mean, you know, 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 Italy, 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? No one's ever really heard of them. Well, they have, but they've not been tested against a proper

decent Hellenistic king. Yeah, the successors 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 in and in he's just had these recent success he says that defections from beatrice's forces he knows that he's adored by his army he's'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, 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 venusia 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 they obviously maybe hoplites rather than phalangites so we the greeks use the word phalanx for basically any kind of dense formation of heavy infantry traditionally greeks had hoplites who were sort of spear arms shielded individuals but they wielded their spear with one hand it's a two meter long spear yeah it's basically two to three meters about eight eight foot or so in old money and alexander the great armies and the successor armies predominantly rely on balances 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's army facing the romans briefly and 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 fourth 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 or peltasts or some other kind of intermediate force so he comes with this this army he offers peace to the romans and the offer is essentially to leave the tarentines alone and become a friend of me and that 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. All right. 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 get 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 sign. 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 is able to drive them off now the casualties on on 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 either 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 piece, this victorious piece. And in that, it's a bit harsher because he's expecting to be joined by the Samnites and 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 brutians which would essentially break up the roman federation in the south that they've spent 20 stopping roman expansion yeah exactly and and mulching 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 they actually they are wavering the senate wavers and they listen they listen to pyrrhus's ambassador kineas a thessalian but a good general and a philosopher and and hangs out with pyrrhus a lot and gives him lots of sage advice kineas finds out that the the Romans eventually are swayed by the oratory of one particular famous old Roman who was a grizzled veteran of the Samnite 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 Kineas comes back having seen the romans raising more legions to replace all the losses and he says to to pyrrhus okay we're in a bit of this is 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 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' victory, but this is 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. 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 thought these things bleed amazing so they started to develop tactics and then one outlandish tactic that they appear to have used at Asculum 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 pyrrhus 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's army do prevail in this battle at asculum but what's the big thing from this battle? The thing we remember him for? Yeah, well, this is it. So the losses are so severe on both sides

that as he's being congratulated by his 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, one more victory 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 you can't continue you know that you you take such a

a heavy blow from it that it's it's almost like a poison chalice to win this battle or even fight it the pyrrhic victory the pyrrhic so that's the origins of the phrase the pyrrhic victory the battle of asculum so what happens next come on so what oh yeah well so this is it pyrrhus realizes 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 caranus 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 his daughter had married pyrrhus well agathocles was long gone and sicily was in a state of turmoil and the tyrant of syracuse thurinon he was sort of out of favor 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 Syracusans turn to Pyrrhus and say, come and help us. Please come and help us. And Pyrrhus sees an opportunity because he is, you know, 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 been tempted to go to sicily he says once again it's opportunistic purist 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 autocrator, which means commander in chief or generalissimo of the Syracusans. They love him. There's hats in the air and everything. So he takes over absolute control of Syracuse, his first step to being recognised as king of the Syracusans as well. So essentially he's cemented his position there. He draws in other Greeksks 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

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 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 playing on these echoes of mythological things. So makes these great games to hercules at erics 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 it's marcella today 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 syracusans 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 favor 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 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 and he's a bit harsh. He's a bit strict and they just don't like it.

So although he gets the fleet, he realises the game's up really. And he's also having appeals from the Tararentines and sunlight 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 route they're almost at the door of tarentum again so he realizes the 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 he had constructed but he gets away with his own transports, with the troops on the transports. 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. There are 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 tries to attack the Romans. Look, 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 8 000 men this is the epitome of how not to do a night march isn't it kind of thing when it all goes horribly wrong and how bad it can be if you're caught out in the open when the sun rises marching pikemen through a forest is crazy and cavalry and elephants it just it's just the worst thing you could possibly do in fact at asculum he'd got on the way 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 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 the Romans win this battle. Well, luck had helped Pyrrhus 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 means bad but then i see it's called beneventum so the romans changed 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 Epirus he's gone

he's gone he can't help them anymore kind of thing yeah he's burned out his force had enough really but he's got opportunities

in Greece but he is the last and it feels 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. and they succeed. They beat this figure who the Romans portray very much so as like the greatest of Alexander the Great's successors.

So the closest they come to facing Alexander the Great himself. Yeah, indeed. And he's often invoked in later speeches, you know, when the Romans are trying to gee themselves up for fighting the Macedonian king Philip V in the third century,

in the second century BC, they sort of say, oh, look, you know, Pyrrhus was, you know,, 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 the 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 Lavinius and people like that, who are kind of not all that famous. They're the generals who lose yeah who are who are not all that famous you know and not all that successful no we had you know people like happiest claudius caicus 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've defeated this

Hellenistic army and they really remember and really sort of big up, I think, Pyrrhus' abilities 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 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 to 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. He's the son of Demetrius, isn't he? Yes. Yeah. And so they fall fall out and initially

pyrrhus's 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 the Spartans with their pants down. The city is almost in garrison and undefended. No walls. Yeah, no walls. Maybe not. Maybe not.

No walls. 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 a 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 actual 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 hees 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's reaction so we talked about his martial prowess in this engagement pyrrhus goes absolutely nuts he really gets really angry covered in blood he put charges personally into the spartans taking on their commander taking on the guy who's killed ptolemy and so is this is his sparse or is this the mammoth titans that this is yeah yeah no I forgot to mention the mammoth titans when we'll come back to that but yeah so he he kills loads of them and just sort of demonstrates his powers he just kills loads of them and he he stabs a guy called Evalkus through the chest with his spear Evalkus had nearly cut his hand off but had cut the reins of his horse instead and Pyrr the chest with his spear. And Valkus 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 Mamertine ambush. When he gets back to Italy, the Mamertine- A few years earlier, yes.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is, yeah, just before the Battle of Beneventum. He's actually harassed by Mamertines 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 Mamertine 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. Unseemed 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 Mamertines 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 of occasions get personally involved and fight

the 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 definitely 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 kings do 14 out of 18 seleucid kings die in battle it's incredible the the death rate of these these commanders is huge so pyrrhus is a 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 maneuver. He does okay. 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'

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 roof tile throws it down into the street and it hits pyrrhus on the head and it stuns 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 zapyrus 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 pirates are ejected from the city. Antigonus Gennatus 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 off 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's 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 ancient, 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 it. 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 successors 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 Kineas, his wise general, and he says, you know, this is great and we're destined for great things. And Kineas says, well, what are you going to do in Tarentum? He well we're going to humble the romans and when we've conquered the romans we'll be really super powerful and kineas 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 kineas says what next well then we'll have enough power to challenge the diadocs, 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 Kineas 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,

you know, 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 purist 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 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. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Ancients. Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. And don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com slash subscribe. As a special gift, you can also get 50% off your first three months

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