N. Lewis and M. Reinhold, Roman Civilization Sourcebook I: The Republic
18. THE WAR WITH PYRRHUS, 280-279 B.C.
When, after the Samnite War, Roman armies remained in southern Italy and began to extend Roman domination there, Tarentum, the leading Greek city of the region, invoked the aid of King Pyrrhus of Epirus, a relative of Alexander the Great, to repel the Roman threat to her independence. Pyrrhus, who dreamed of conquests in the West to rival those of Alexander in the East, seized upon the Tarentine appeal with alacrity. In 280 B.C. he landed at Tarentum with a large army and a contingent of 20 elephants. The ensuing battle, fought near Heraclea in Lucania, marked the first occasion on which the Romans faced these pachydermous “tanks of ancient warfare.”
Appian, Roman History III. Fragment 10 (abridged); Translation from Loeb Classical Library
Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, having gained a victory over the Romans and desiring to recuperate after the severe engagement, and expecting that the Romans would then be particularly desirous of coming to terms, sent to the city Cineas, a Thessalian, who was so renowned for eloquence that he had been compared to Demosthenes. When he was admitted to the senate chamber, Cineas extolled the king for a variety of reasons, laying stress on his moderation after the victory, in that he had neither marched directly against the city nor attacked the camp of the vanquished. He offered them peace, friendship, and an alliance with Pyrrhus, provided they included the Tarentines in the same treaty, left the other Greeks dwelling in Italy free under their own laws, and restored to the Lucanians, Samnites, Daunians, and Bruttians whatever they had taken from them in war. If they would do this, he said that Pyrrhus would restore all his prisoners without ransom.
The Romans hesitated a long time, being much intimidated by the prestige of Pyrrhus and by the calamity that had befallen them. Finally Appius Claudius, surnamed the Blind (because he had lost his eyesight from old age), commanded his sons to lead him into the senate chamber, where he said: “I was grieved at the loss of my sight; now I regret that I did not lose my hearing also, for never did I expect to see or hear deliberations of this kind from you. Has a single misfortune made you all at once so forget yourselves as to take the man who brought it upon you, and those who called him hither, for friends instead of enemies, and to give the heritage of your fathers to the Lucanians and Bruttians? What is this but making the Romans servants of the Macedonians? And some of you dare to call this peace instead of servitude!” Many other things in the like sense did Appius urge to arouse their spirit. If Pyrrhus wanted the friendship and alliance of the Romans, let him withdraw from Italy and then send his embassy. As long as he remained, let him be considered neither friend nor ally, neither judge nor arbiter of the Romans.
The senate made answer to Cineas in the very words of Appius. They decreed the levying of two new legions for Laevinus and made proclamation that whoever would volunteer in place of those who had been lost should put his name on the army roll. Cineas, who was still present and saw the multitude jostling each other in their eagerness to be enrolled, is reported to have said to Pyrrhus on his return: “We are waging war against a hydra. . . .”
Plutarch, Lifeof Pyrrhus xxi. 5-10
Pyrrhus thus found himself obliged to fight another battle. After refreshing his army he decamped and engaged the Romans about the city of Asculum. There he was forced onto ground disadvantageous for his horse and over to a swift river with wooded banks, so that his elephants could not charge and engage the Roman infantry. After many had been wounded and many killed, night put an end to the engagement. Next day, his strategy being to do battle on level ground and get his elephants among the ranks of the enemy, he first had a detachment seize the unfavorable ground; then, mixing many slingers and archers among the elephants, he led a close and well-ordered force in a mighty attack. The Romans, unable to maneuver backward and forward as on the previous day, were obliged to fight man to man on level ground; and being anxious to drive back the infantry before the elephants could come up, they fought fiercely with swords among the Macedonian spears, not sparing themselves and looking only to wound and kill, without regard to what they suffered. It is reported that the Romans first yielded ground, after long fighting, in the sector where Pyrrhus himself was leading the attack. But the greatest rout was effected by the overwhelming force of the elephants, since the Romans, unable to make use of their valor, deemed it imperative to give way as if before an advancing flood or a crushing earthquake and not to stand their ground and die in vain, suffering all that is most grievous without gaining the least advantage.
After a short flight they reached their camp. Hieronymus says that 6,000 of the Romans died and that Pyrrhus in his royal memoirs reported 3,505 of his men killed. Dionysius, however, tells neither of two engagements at Asculum nor of an admitted reverse of the Romans, but says that they fought but once, till sunset, when they separated; that Pyrrhus was wounded in the arm by a javelin and that his baggage was plundered by the Samnites [1]; and that there died on each side more than 15,000 men.
The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one who rejoiced with him in his victory, “If we win one more battle against the Romans, we shall be completely ruined.” [2] For he had lost a great part of the force he had brought with him and almost all his friends and commanders. There were no others he could summon from home, and he saw his allies in Italy losing their enthusiasm while, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman army was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men who did not lose courage because of their defeats, but who even from their very anger gained new force and resolution to go on with the war.
[1]. Dionysius of Halicarnassus' text (xx. iii) reads “Daunians. "
[2]. This is, of course, the famous statement of the “Pyrrhic victory,” one of the best known epigrams from Roman history.