Pyrrhus' Tale

Pyrrhus was orphaned as a infant when his father was deposed as king of Epirus, the outcome of an uprising by a rival. He was rescued by and raised in the court of a neighboring kingdom. At 12 years old, this benefactor overthrew the usurper and put Pyrrhus on Epirus' throne. Unfortunately his reign was a short one lasting only 5 years whereon he too was deposed. He fled to the protection of his brother-in-law, Demetrius, a man of some power and influence. Subsequently Pyrrhus was sent to Egypt as a guarantor of an agreement between Demetrius and the Egyptian king.. There he married the kings stepdaughter, was able to raised an army and set sail to reclaim his crown on his own.

He arrived back at Epirus but rather than fight a war, about the only time he was so inclined, he entered a power sharing agreement with the then king. As is usually the case when two ambitious rulers get together, the arrangement didn't last long and Pyrrhus killed his rival and claimed the entire kingdom for his own. He and by then his ex-brother in law, Demetrius, were asked to support one faction in a fratricidal civil war taking place in Macedonia. Pyrrhus entered the fray first and was successful in conquering a large swath territory. In a bit of a double cross Demetrius killed the king he had come to support and became king of the part of Macedonia not under Pyrrhus' control. Following the principle stated above Pyrrhus and Demetrius soon had a falling out and went to war against one another. Pyrrhus won a major victory and defeated Demetrius' champion in hand-to-hand combat. He and Demetrius entered a brief peace accord.

The peace was broken when Demetrius' invasion of Epirus. However, unfortunately for Demetrius, his army decided to defected to Pyrrhus. Demetrius hit the road and Pyrrhus was declared the King of all Macedonia. Shortly thereafter Pyrrhus became embroiled in an conflict with another neighboring king. He invaded. This time and his army deserted him and Pyrrhus was forced to flee Macedonia back to Epirus.

He resided there in relative peace until representatives of several Greek cities in Italy paid him a visit to solicit his help in resiting the Romans who had the military advantage and were pressing them hard. Pyrrhus agreed and after a difficult crossing arrived in Italy. He won a major victory against the Romans at the river Siris and marched within 30 miles of Rome itself. Feeling that he had the upper hand Pyrrhus sent a peace delegation to Rome. However the Romans would have no part of any agreement while they were threatened. A second battle took place which resulted in a draw and each army withdrew. The land settled into an uneasy peace.

Things did not remaining quite for long, as a group of Greeks from Sicily paid Pyrrhus a visit asking for his aid and support in their conflicts with various of the island's competing groups, mainly Carthaginians. After some thought he agreed and set sail. He secured a major victory at the town of Eryx. Being a bit over extended, Pyrrhus didn't push his advantage and things here too settled into an uneasy peace. During the lull he became a bit heavy handed with the Sicilian Greeks, he quickly lost their favor and his position began to deteriorate.

As “luck” would have it, about that time representatives from the Italian Greeks reappeared and told him that things there had deteriorated and he needed to return. Seeing that there was little hope of any real progress in Sicily he set sail once again for Italy. The Carthaginians pressed him hard as he left which made the passage difficult and costly. He did however arrive with the large part of his army intact. He immediately joined battle with the Romans only to be soundly defeated at Beneventum. He fled with what remained of his army back to Epirus.

However you can't keep a good man down. He augmented his army with some marauding Gauls and once again invaded Macedonia. There he faced the son of his old memisis Demetrius, Antigous (his nephew?? Plutarch doesn't say). As he did to his father, Pyrrhus was able to convince Antigous' army to defect and won the war without firing a shot.

As he was reflecting in the glory of his latest conquest a nobleman from Sparta approached him and ask for his support in an attack on Sparta. I suppose anxious for more glory/conquest he agreed and moved south. A bitter battle took place in front of Sparta which ended in a stalemate.

Pyrrhus then heard that Anitgous was active raising an army at the city of Argos. He withdrew his army from Sparta and marched to confront Anitgous. The passage was difficult with the Spartans, employing guerrilla tactics, harassed him along the way. Through stealth he was able to gain access to the city of Argos but the timely arrival of reinforcements turned the tide and his army was defeated. During the chaos of battle Pyrrhus was knocked unconscious with a roof tile thrown by an old woman. He was dragged to a door way and beheaded in a rather gruesome fashion. His body was cremated by Antigous with “all due solemnity”.

So ends the tale of Pyrrhus.

Proposal

On a whim I began to read “The Lives of the Notable Grecian and Romans” Dryden Translation. The book had popped up in a couple of bios I'd read, so it seemed an interesting subject to explore in a bit of detail. At first blush it's wasn't a particularly easy tome to engage. It's long, 50 individual chronicles. The translation is a bit archaic and difficult to follow. It's not a book that you sit down and read cover to cover. But I quickly became enthralled. The people, stories, events had everything you could want in a good yarn: intrigue, war, sex, power politics, bigger than life protagonist along with fascinating insights by the author into his subject's life and times. So much so that I began to jot notes in the margins. Something I haven't done since my days at school. This blog is a valiant effort to address all 50 but it is as much an effort to organize those notes and help make them a bit more memorable.

The musings seem to organize themselves into four categorizes which I'll use as rough outline for each commentary.

1. What was the character like? What motivated him? What were his primary personality characteristics.
2. What is his story? What was the era like? How did he impact his time and place.
3. Interesting asides. Observations about people, places and events tangential to the primary story.
4. What life lessons can we deduce from the character and his story. Things and issues that resonate still today.
   

In the past classic such as this were often part of a school's basic curriculum. Not so today. Seem a bit of a shame. As the old adage goes “ those who don't heed history are doomed to repeat it”.

Since I'm about have way through the book, I'll start there and swing around at catch the first half later. First up is a Greek named Pyrrhus.

This post won't be regular since this isn't my full time job. Speaking of jobs, I'm not a historian by trade so these comments should not be taken a last word. If anyone bothers to read this, I welcome any comments, observations, suggestions and/or corrections.