He was viewed by Hannibal as one of the greatest commanders the world has ever seen, second only to Alexander the Great. It was his campaign against Rome that almost changed the shape of history and the Classical Period as we know it.

A post-Alexander world

The classical world of 280 BC was one of autocratic warlords. Alexander the Great had died almost half a century earlier, and his former generals had carved up his empire into their own personal kingdoms.

A second cousin of the infamous Macedonian, Alexander, and descending from the famed Molossian dynasty, Pyrrhus had the name and the nobility to put himself on the world stage. By 280 BC, he had acquired the traits of an outstanding fighter and he had also shown himself a sound tactician and politician. These were all markings of a remarkable Hellenistic king.

Despite being sometimes brutal, such as having his co-ruler murdered, he had an overall good reputation. He had proven that he could fight, negotiate and rule and had put the Kingdom of Epirus, nowadays the area bordering Albania and north-western Greece, on the map. Having burnished his reputation with campaigns in Macedonia, Pyrrhus sought further opportunities in the Greek world.

Enter Rome

At the time Rome was a small republic in central Italy. Its rise over the next 200 years would be unprecedented, but even in 280 BC the ambition of this growing city was apparent. Rome looked south to the rich, cultured and civilised Greek cities, especially Tarentum. Things came to a head in 282 BC.

Following an apparent break of a treaty, the Tarentines destroyed Roman ships stationed in their harbour. They then forced their fellow Greek cities in the region to remove remaining pro-Roman allegiance. In response, the Romans invaded southern Italy and Tarentum sent a plea to the Greek world for aid.

Explaining the Pyrrhic War

Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus is often referenced for an overview of the Pyrrhic War. But although we do have a few ancient sources surviving which tell us about the war, most are from a Roman perspective; either from a Roman themselves or a Greek (like Plutarch) writing much later during the Roman period. Despite various sources telling us about the Pyrrhic War, disagreements over how the war enfolded means it is rather difficult campaign to write about with complete accuracy. In her 1959 essay, Mary R. Lefkowitz writes that “No sure reconstruction is possible […] we will never know exactly what happened.”

Pyrrhus in Italy

Pyrrhus fought three battles against the Romans. Although the first he won decisively at Heraclea in 280 BC, the second, at Ausculum the following year, was by far his most famous victory. Unfortunately, it was for all the wrong reasons. The term ‘Pyrrhic victory’ refers to a victory in battle but at too great a cost to make it worthwhile. This is what happened at Ausculum. The final battle occurred four years later in 275 BC at Beneventum, where the Romans soundly defeated Pyrrhus and his allies. Rome had won the war.

What is forgotten is the period between the first two battles at Heraclea and Asculum, the time when (although Roman sources refute this) Pyrrhus may have been in a position of great strength. This was when the speech of one elderly Roman senator spoiled Pyrrhus from achieving fame and victory. it was also a speech that kept Rome on track to becoming the next great superpower.

The negotiations

Following Heraclea, all sources tend to agree that Pyrrhus’ best negotiator and friend Cineas was sent to Rome with terms of peace for the Romans. We do not know exactly what the peace terms were that Pyrrhus proposed; there is simply too much disagreement among our surviving sources. All sources agree, however, that the Romans were very close to accepting them.

The terms were most likely quite harsh. Appian records them as stating that the Romans had to recognise the independence of Pyrrhus’ allied Greek cities in southern Italy. Furthermore, the terms would forbid Rome from ever declaring war on these cities again. The terms may also have included demanding tribute from Rome, that tribute being either in troops or money. We know from Plutarch that Pyrrhus’ ambitions stretched further than just mainland Italy. A demand for tribute to aid his future campaigns therefore does not seem a huge unlikelihood to me.

Pyrrhus had decisively won the previous encounter at Heraclea and soon afterwards came very close to Rome itself; 300 stades (54km) according to Plutarch, bringing with him a replenished army from various cities in southern Italy. Following Heraclea, it’s plausible that Pyrrhus had all the cards. Whatever the peace terms, all sources agree that the Romans nearly accepted them.

The senator’s speech

But in the end the Romans did not accept the terms. Why? Referred to in all sources and a powerful Roman anecdote for centuries to come, it was the speech of an elderly, blind, but respected senator, Appius Claudius , which swayed the result. Appius Claudius Caecus had a reputation: earlier in his career he had led military campaigns. He had also commissioned Rome’s first aqueduct, the Aqua Appia, and the Appian Way, the first major Roman road.

Appius Claudius Caecus is led into the Curia Hostilia by his sons. 19th century painting by Cesare Maccari.

Image Credit: Public Domain

In Plutarch’s description, by the time of Pyrrhus’ invasion, Appius did not usually go to the senate house for debates but stayed at home due to his old age. He made this exception, however, because of the seriousness of the situation and his complete opposition to accepting the terms. The gist of the speech is that he was ashamed that the Romans could even consider submitting to Pyrrhus, a man he viewed only as an Alexander wannabe.

The speech is also the reputed source of the saying “every man is the architect of his own fortune” (quisque faber suae fortunae in Latin). It was this speech that apparently caused the Romans to change their mind, reject the terms and keep fighting. Indeed what would follow after Appius’ speech was a complete change in fortune for the Romans. Too big a cost at Ausculum the following year and then a clear defeat at Beneventum in 275 BC left Pyrrhus’ campaign in tatters. The Romans meanwhile, were now clear to occupy southern Italy.

An Epirote empire?

Ancient sources, especially the ones from a Roman perspective, big up the virtues of this elderly senator; his heroic reputation, rhetoric and patriotism for Rome. If the Roman decision really came down to Appius Claudius – and it does have the ring of wishful thinking on behalf of proud Romans – what might have happened if he had not made that passionate speech in 280 BC? Perhaps if he had not visited the senate house that day, Rome would have accepted the peace terms, Pyrrhus might have conquered Italy, and followed his ambitions beyond it to Carthage, Macedon and Greece.

Here are 5 key battles that paved the way for Rome’s rise to become the hegemonic power of the eastern Mediterranean.

1. The Battle of Beneventum (275 BC)

A bust of King Pyrrhus.

The Battle of Beneventum proved to be the final battle of the Pyrrhic War, fought between King Pyrrhus and the Roman Republic.

Having returned to Italy’s shores in 276 BC after an opportunistic and disastrous Sicilian campaign, Pyrrhus aimed to curb Rome’s recent resurgence into Lucania and Samnium.

The two forces met near the town of Malventum (later Beneventum). Hoping to surprise his foe, Pyrrhus decided to send a portion of his army along mountain trails to circumnavigate the Roman force. But the Epirote soldiers soon lost their way – their guides and lights proving inadequate.

Unable to deploy the attack in time the Romans reacted to the new threat at dawn the next day, drawing their men up for the following clash. The Romans won the day. Though not a decisive defeat for Pyrrhus numbers-wise, its result decided the rest of his venture.

Rather than continue fighting Pyrrhus returned to Tarentum and sailed home to Epirus. Within 3 years of his departure, Tarentum had fallen and Rome was now the dominant power in southern Italy, paving its way for future incursions to the east.

2. The Battle of Cynoscephalae (197 BC)

Following the defeat of Hannibal and Rome’s victory in the Second Punic War, the new dominant power in the Western Mediterranean had turned their gaze eastward, to mainland Greece and the Hellenistic kingdom of Macedon.

By 200 BC the Romans and the Macedonians had already come to blows in the First Macedonian War, after Philip V of Macedon had contemplated an alliance with Hannibal against Rome.

That year war broke out again between the two powers, after Rome accepted a plea from the Rhodians and the Hellenistic Attalid kingdom (situated in western Anatolia) for aid against Philip and his imperial ambitions.

The decisive battle was fought among the Cynoscephalae (meaning dog’s head) hills in ancient Thessaly in 197 BC. Philip V’s Macedonian phalanx opposed by the Roman Polybian legion.

A 256-strong Macedonian phalanx.

Despite having the hill advantage and initial success pushing back the Roman legions, Philip’s left flank was caught out of position. Titus Flamininus, the Roman commander, took full advantage. The Romans engaged the flank and routed the force.

One tribune then peeled off a contingent of soldiers to charge down the hill and attack the engaged Macedonian phalanx from behind.

Philip watched on as his phalanx shattered under this two-pronged assault.

The battle resulted in the end of Philip V’s imperial ambitions – the subsequent peace treaty reducing his territory to within the borders of ancient Macedonia. Rome was the new dominant force in Greece.

3. The Battle of Magnesia (190 BC)

Cynoscephalae marked the end of the Second Macedonian War, but within 7 years Rome found itself fighting the other great Hellenistic warlord that dominated the eastern Mediterranean.

This was King Antiochus III, ruler of the rejuvenated Seleucid Empire that spanned from the borders of India to Thrace in Europe.

After a failed invasion of Greece, Antiochus was forced to retreat to Asia Minor. The Romans went in pursuit, sending an army across the Hellespont into Asia for the first time in their history.

Antiochus III, King of the Seleucid Empire.

Following a brief period of manoeuvring, counter-manoeuvring and failed negotiations, the two sides made camp near the town of Magnesia in Lydia.

At the battle that ensued the Romans were victorious. This was thanks largely to the initiative of King Eumenes II, the allied Attalid king of Pergamum.

Spotting confusion amid Antiochus’ right wing after successfully repelling a chariot attack, Eumenes had charged his cavalry into the disorganised flank and triggered a mass rout.

Antiochus, himself caught up in the thrill of a cavalry chase, returned to the battlefield to see his army routed.

Following the victory, Rome forced Antiochus to give up all his possessions west of the Taurus Mountains, placing it in the hands of loyal Roman allies.

The Treaty of Apamea, that saw Rome’s allies become dominant in Asia Minor.

4. The Battle of Pydna (168 BC)

Following his defeat at Cynoscephalae, Philip V and the Kingdom of Macedonia remained nominally subservient to the Roman Republic until the end of Philip’s reign.

Yet during his final years, Philip’s relations with Rome had soured. The king had expanded Macedon’s influence beyond the borders of his homeland into the north and was once again contemplating fighting Rome.

It was only during the reign of Perseus, Philip’s son and successor, that tensions reached a climax. Perseus and his revived military soon found themselves at war with the legions of Rome, culminating in the decisive showdown at Pydna on 22 June 168 BC.

Tetradrachm of Perseus, minted between 179–172 BC at Pella or Amphipolis (Credit: Classical Numismatic Group / CC).

Sparked by a small skirmish between auxiliary forces, the battle was one that highlighted a great weakness of the Macedonian phalanx. Poor on rough terrain, the heavy footmen’s formation began to fragment, exploited by the more flexible Roman maniples.

Perseus’ army was routed. The king surrendered and was placed in exile at Alba Fucens. The Macedonian kingdom was dissolved and turned into a Roman province, ending one of antiquity’s most remarkable kingdoms.

5. The Battle of Chaeronea (86 BC)

Mithridates VI of Pontus, the Hellenistic king of Pontus.

King Mithridates VI of Pontus was the last great Hellenistic opponent of Rome in the east. In response to a Roman-backed invasion of Pontus by the neighbouring king of Bithynia, Mithridates had invaded the Roman province of Asia in 88 BC.

By 87 BC, the Pontic king had forced the Romans out of Asia in one devastating campaign. In its midst, Mithridates had initiated the Asian Vespers – the order for the massacre of all Roman and Italian citizens in Asia Minor.

He subsequently launched an expedition to Greece at Athens’ request, declaring that he would liberate the Greek cities from the Roman yolk.

But he soon suffered setbacks. The Romans dispatched 5 legions, under the command of Lucius Cornelius Sulla, to contest the Pontic presence in mainland Greece.

Following a brutal (and successful) siege of Athens, Sulla’s army faced down the Pontic army of Archelaus (Mithridates’ chief subordinate) at Chaeronea.

Sulla won a crushing victory, successfully-countering all the manoeuvres Archaelaus attempted to throw at him during the battle with his combined army of phalangites, chariots and mercenaries.

Only 10,000 Pontic troops escaped the battlefield – Roman sources claim (disputably) 110,000 soldiers were killed, Sulla’s army losing only 12 men…

Twinned with Sulla’s subsequent, second victory over Archaelaus at Orchomenos a year later, Chaeronea marked a key turning point in the Mithridatic Wars.

In the end, it was these risks paying off that ensured their names became immortalised in the history books.

Greek historian Herodotus was well aware of the risks involved in military outcomes. .

Yet of all these remarkable ancient generals one could argue that Alexander the Great risked his life the most.

Leading from the front

One of the most defining characteristics of Alexander the Great’s leadership was that he fought in the heat of battle at all his engagements, personally leading the decisive attack in several battles.

Usually Alexander initiated the decisive attack with his Companions, his elite Macedonian shock cavalry. At the Battles of the Granicus and Gaugamela, it was Alexander and his Companion Cavalry that inflicted the decisive blow.

The famous Alexander Mosaic from Pompeii, depicting Alexander charging at a fleeing King Darius.

During sieges and strong point assaults – where using cavalry proved impractical – Alexander similarly led from the front dismounted and led his army’s elite infantry force (this usually included his royal hypaspists, the Agrianian javelinmen and the Cretan archers).

The man epitomised the art of charismatic leadership, fighting amid the front ranks of his men.

Injuries

Alexander’s leadership style proved highly risky and he did not come away from it unscathed. In a speech to his grumbling Macedonian veterans in 324 BC, Alexander noted the various wounds he had suffered:

“My body is covered in scars of every weapon you can think of. Stones, arrows, stones, clubs.”

Alexander gambled with death continually and on several occasions these dices nearly did not pay off:

In 334 BC, during the Battle of the Granicus, Alexander was saved from certain death when Cleitus ‘the Black’, one of his highest subordinates, slashed off the arm of a Persian noble who was about to slash his scimitar down on Alexander’s exposed head.

Five years later in 329 BC, when Alexander was leading his elite infantry in a sneak assault on the city of Cyropolis, he suffered a heavy blow to his head and neck from a stone shot from a catapult.

Alexander the Great at the Siege of Cyropolis. Credit: Шухрат Саъдиев / Commons.

The blow knocked Alexander unconscious and, according to Plutarch and Curtius, left the Macedonian king almost blind for several days. His speech also became slurred temporarily.

Alexander suffered another similarly severe injury four years later, in India during another city assault. While leading an attack on the citadel of the Malli tribe, the Macedonian scaling ladder snapped in half behind him and Alexander and a few companions found themselves stranded inside the fortress.

As the small band defended themselves against hundreds of assailants, and the Macedonians desperately attempted to force their way into the stronghold, an Indian arrow pierced the king’s armour, puncturing his lung and causing him to faint.

Although Alexander was rescued and did recover (albeit perhaps temporarily, as some believe this wound contributed to his early death), he was later chided by his fellow officers for his needless risk-taking.

Alexander the Great leads the storming of the Malli capital in India. It was during this attack that he was struck by an arrow and had one of his lungs pierced.

The world might look a very different place today had one of his risks not paid off. Yet none of them led to Alexander’s death (in the short term, at least) and instead resulted in the Macedonian gaining an aura unlike any other seen in antiquity.

Unmatched charisma

Alexander’s “leading from the front” style of leadership was highly-risky, but it was also key to why his men were willing to follow him to the edges of the known world – and then further.

In Alexander, the Macedonian soldiers saw a man under whom they could never lose a battle. He also appeared to be favoured by the gods – a man who shared in the risks of battle repeatedly and seemed to always escape death.

To Alexander’s men and those that came after him, they viewed the Macedonian king as a man blessed by the gods, a semi-divine figure who went to take his place among the gods following his death.

The elaborate funeral carriage of Alexander the Great. His Successors shaped it like a temple to emphasise Alexander’s divine qualities.

Emulating Alexander

For those ambitious warlords who came after him, Alexander’s charismatic leadership was legendary. Several attempted to emulate his style of leading from the front with varying levels of success.

Pyrrhus, king of the most powerful tribe in Epirus and famous for his war against Rome, perhaps had the most success in emulating Alexander.

Like Alexander, Pyrrhus led his troops from the front in both pitched battles and city assaults, regularly putting himself in great danger and suffering several wounds.

It was this similar leadership style that led contemporary Hellenistic historians and later Roman writers to describe Pyrrhus as the general who most-resembled Alexander the Great.

A bust of King Pyrrhus.

Featured image credit: Alexander Sarcophagus, illustration showing Alexander in the battle of Issus (333 BC). Ronald Slabke / Commons.

It refers to a military success that is gained at such a high price that the victory proved too costly to be worthwhile. Various battles throughout the ages have come to be defined as Pyrrhic victories – perhaps most famously the Battle of Bunker Hill during the American War of Independence.

But where did the term originate? For that answer we need to go back more than 2,000 years – to the aftermath of Alexander the Great’s death and a time when powerful warlords ruled much of the Central Mediterranean.

King Pyrrhus

King Pyrrhus was the king of the most powerful tribe in Epirus (a region now split between north-west Greece and Southern Albania) and reigned intermittently between 306 and 272 BC.

Although he had a turbulent accession to the throne, he soon forged a powerful empire stretching from Epidamnus (the modern-day city of Durrës in Albania) in the north, to Ambracia (the modern-day city of Arta in Greece) in the south. At times, he was also King of Macedonia.

Pyrrhus’ domain stretched from Epidamnus to Ambracia.

Many sources describe Pyrrhus as the greatest of Alexander the Great’s successors. Of all the powerful individuals who emerged following Alexander’s death, Pyrrhus was certainly the man who most closely resembled Alexander both in his military ability and charisma. Although it does not survive today, Pyrrhus also wrote a manual on warfare that became widely used by generals throughout antiquity.

He was widely respected in the military world, with Hannibal Barca even rating the Epirote as one of the greatest generals the world had known – second only to Alexander the Great.

The campaign against Rome

In 282 BC, a conflict erupted between Rome and the Greek city of Tarentum (modern-day Taranto) in southern Italy – a city the Romans depict as a centre of decadence and vice. Realising their cause was doomed without aid, the Tarentines sent a plea for help from the Greek mainland.

It was this plea that reached the ears of Pyrrhus in Epirus. Ever hungry for further conquest and glory, Pyrrhus quickly accepted the offer.

Pyrrhus landed in southern Italy in 281 BC with a large Hellenistic army. It consisted mainly of phalangites (pikemen trained to form a Macedonian phalanx), powerful heavy cavalry and war elephants. For the Romans, their ensuing fight with Pyrrhus would be the first time they had ever faced these unpredictable tanks of ancient warfare on the battlefield.

By 279 BC, Pyrrhus had achieved two victories against the Romans: one at Heraclea in 280 and another at Ausculum in 279. Both successes were widely lauded for Pyrrhus’ military ability. At Heraclea, Pyrrhus had been significantly outnumbered.

At both battles, the Epirote also inspired his men with his charismatic leadership. Not only did he encourage his men throughout the battlefield, but he also fought with them in the thickest of the action. It is not surprising that the Romans later depicted their war with Pyrrhus as the closest they ever came to fighting Alexander the Great himself.

The Pyrrhic victory

However, these victories were also costly for Pyrrhus. The king’s battle-hardened Epirotes – not only his best soldiers but also the men who most believed in his cause – suffered heavily on both occasions. Furthermore, reinforcements from home were in short supply. For Pyrrhus, every Epirote was thus irreplaceable.

Following his victory at Ausculum, Pyrrhus found himself without many of the key officers and soldiers who had ventured with him from Epirus barely two years earlier – men whose quality could not be matched by his allies in southern Italy. When Pyrrhus’s comrades congratulated him on his victory, the Epirote king sombrely replied:

“Another such victory and we shall be utterly ruined.”

Thus originated the term “Pyrrhic victory” – a victory won, but at a crippling price.

The aftermath

Unable to replenish his Epirote losses, Pyrrhus soon left southern Italy without any permanent gains against Rome. For the next two years he campaigned in Sicily, aiding the Sicilian-Greeks against the Carthaginians.

Pyrrhus, the King of the Molossians in Epirus.

The campaign started with tremendous success. Yet Pyrrhus ultimately failed to completely expel the Carthaginian presence from the island and soon after lost the faith of his Sicilian-Greek allies.

In 276 BC, Pyrrhus returned to southern Italy once again and fought one final battle against Rome at Beneventum the following year. But the Epirote king was once again unable to make a significant breakthrough, and the result proved inconclusive (although later Roman writers claim it was a Roman victory).

Pyrrhus retreated to Tarentum, boarded most of his forces onto ships and headed home to Epirus.

For three more years, Pyrrhus waged war on the Greek mainland – fighting various foes such as Macedonia, Sparta and Argos. Yet in 272 BC, he was unceremoniously killed in a street fight in Argos when he was hit on the head by a roof tile thrown by the mother of a soldier he was about to strike down.

Although Pyrrhus’s contemporaries widely considered him one of the most formidable military commanders ever seen, his legacy has become attached to his costly campaign against Rome and the Pyrrhic victory he gained that fateful day at Ausculum.

Such power, expansion and military conquest does not come without significant struggles, including numerous losses. Julius Caesar famously said, Veni, Vidi, Vici or ‘I came, I saw, I conquered’, but that was not always the case.

What follows is a list of some of Rome’s greatest enemies, who lead mighty forces in battle against the army of the Roman Republic and Empire, sometimes triumphing.

1. Pyrrhus of Epirus (319 – 272 BC)

King Pyrrhus.

Pyrrhus was king of Epirus and Macedon and a distant relative of Alexander the Great. The Pyrrhic War (280 – 275 BC) saw him defeat the Romans in battle, but at such cost he wasn’t able to capitalise. When they met, both Hannibal and Scipio named Pyrrhus as one of the greatest generals of their age.

2. Arminius (19 BC – 19 AD)

Photo by shakko via Wikimedia Commons.

In his short life, Arminius was both a Roman and one of the Empire’s greatest opponents. A successful career in the Roman military ended in disgust at Roman oppression and revolt. He lured his former military colleagues into a brilliant ambush in the Teutoburger Forest, wiping out three legions and stopping Rome’s expansion at the Rhine.

3. King Shapur I (210 – 272 AD)

Photo by Jastrow via Wikimedia Commons.

Persia was one power Rome could not defeat. Shapur strengthened Persia, as the Sasanian Empire, and then pushed the Romans back west in three great victories. In 252 AD he sacked Antioch, Rome’s eastern capital, and in 260 AD captured the Emperor Valerian, who was to die a prisoner. Shapur had the dead emperor stuffed.

4. Alaric the Goth (360 – 410 AD)

Alaric is most famous for the 410 AD sacking of Rome, yet what he wanted above all was to be accepted into the Empire. The Visigoths he ruled had come into Roman territory by agreement in 376 AD. In 378 AD they inflicted a crushing defeat, killing Emperor Valens at Hadrianople.

He was never defeated by the Romans, usually fighting in response to what he saw as broken promises for settlement lands and rights. Even the sacking of Rome was reluctant and restrained – he sat outside the city for nearly two years.

5. Hannibal of Carthage

Perhaps Rome’s greatest enemy of all and a constant thorn in the side of the burgeoning power throughout his life, Hannibal bested the Romans on multiple occasions.

His attack on Saguntum in what is now northern Spain, lead to the start of the Second Punic War. The most legendary of Hannibal’s achievements, however, was his crossing from Hispania through both the Pyrenees and the Alps with a massive army – including elephants, which must have terrorised his foes – to invade northern Italy in 218 BC and subsequently defeat the Roman Army.

Though he never brought Rome down wholesale, victories such as the one above and a near coup de grâce at Cannae gave Hannibal a legendary status in Roman society, leading to the use of the phrase Hannibal ad portas or ‘Hannibal at the gates’, used to signify a coming crisis as well as to scare children into behaving.