Dusmanul la Poarta!-Partea-7!

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“When Pyrrhus and those with him had ascended along with the elephants, and the Romans became aware of it, they wounded an elephant calf, which caused great confusion and flight among the Greeks. The Romans killed two elephants, and hemming eight others in a place that had no outlet, took them alive when the Indian mahouts surrendered them; and they wrought great slaughter among the soldiers.” (Dionysus of Halicarnassus)

“A young elephant had been wounded, and shaking off its riders, wandered about in search of its mother, whereupon the latter became excited and the other elephants grew turbulent, so that everything was thrown into dire confusion. Finally, the Romans won the day, killing many men and capturing eight elephants, and they occupied the enemy's entrenchments.” (Cassius Dio)

The Greek King Pyrrhus split his forces into two divisions as he looked to stamp down the authority of Epirus over Magna Graecia (southern Italy) against the Roman Republican legions. He sent one force against the Consul Cornelius, and another against his co-Consul Dentatus at The Battle of Beneventum. Dentatus was awaiting the arrival of his consular colleague to reinforce him, and thus Pyrrhus was in a rush to engage and defeat him before his legions swelled in size. However his soldiers lost their way and fell behind because Pyrrhus took an unfamiliar route through woodland, using long trails that were not even used by people but were mere goat-paths through woods and crags, would keep no order and, even before the enemy came in sight, would be weakened in body by thirst and fatigue.”

Come dawn Pyrrhus was in full view of the legions as he advanced on them from the heights, and Dentatus quickly led his legions out of their camp to attack Pyrrhus’ rear-guard before he could form up his army, capturing some elephants that were not being used. This initially success forced Pyrrhus to hurry down to the plain, where to two sides could clash on level ground. Dentatus routed some of the initial Greek lines, but was then thrown back by an elephant charge which broke his legions. Pyrrhus’ third battle against the legions of Rome looked like he was going to make it a hat-trick of victories as his elephants pushed the legionaries back to their camp, though the quick-thinking Dentatus had the camp guards descend from the ramparts and bombard the unwieldy elephants with javelins, forcing them to turn and charge back into the Greek lines. Having slain two of the elephants, the cries of a wounded elephant calf then caused further fear amongst the beasts of war, and sent them charging back through Pyrrhus’ ranks. In the disarray that followed, the legionaries were able to rally and drive the Greeks from the field. Rome had finally scored a victory over the Greek invader, though at great cost – some 9,000 Romans lay dead at Beneventum, along with some 11,000 Greeks.

The Roman victory at Beneventum finally brought to an end the Pyrrhic Wars. The Roman Republic had for the first time pitted itself against a foreign power, and though the battles had not gone well for Rome, the city had shown a belligerence and stubbornness in not admitting defeat, preferring a war of annihilation over submission to a foreign power. The “Pyrrhic victories” of the Greeks had done nothing to advance the cause of Epirus, and served only to weaken the Greek armies attacking a Roman hydra which could keep replenishing its forces from a vast pool of manpower. With the return of Pyrrhus to Epirus, the south of Italy now stood at Rome’s mercy, the chief defender of Magna Graecia having abandoned it.

Pyrrhus may well have intended to return to his campaigns in Italy and Sicily, but he never had the opportunity. Back in Greece his warmongering continued as he went to war with Macedon, deposing the King Antigonus II and briefly ruling both Macedon and Thessaly. In 272 BC he supported the claim of Cleonymus to the Spartan throne, besieging the legendary city that had long since fallen from former glories in an attempt to bring the Peloponnese under his control. When he again suffered heavy losses, this time in the street-to-street fighting of the unwalled city, he abandoned this plan. Pyrrhus became embroiled in another street battle in Argos when called there to settle a dispute. While there, an embittered elderly woman hurled a roof tile down from her window, disabling him. One of the enemy soldiers then found the wounded king, and decapitated him.

Pyrrhus was a true warrior king, who spent his life looking to expand his realm and bring other territories under his vassalage. His success was limited though, with his failure to score decisive victories or leave a lasting change marring his Italian and Sicilian campaigns. He began campaigns that were left unfinished, abandoning them when war became a slog rather than a blitz. Far from unifying the disparate collection of eclectic city states in Magna Graecia and Sicily, the tyranny and despotism of Pyrrhus had merely turned them against him and continued to stoke the fires of their divisions, leaving them weakened in the face of continued aggression from the two major powers – Rome in Italy, and Carthage in Sicily. Those powers could not continue to exist in isolation though, and soon their expansion would bring them into conflict with one another, igniting an epic series of wars that would last for a decade to determine which power would be the master of the Mediterranean.