A Pyrrhic Victory
The ancient Greek King knew victory had cost his army more than it could afford to lose.
279 BC
The ancient Greek King knew victory had cost his army more than it could afford to lose.
279 BC
In 279 BC, forty-two years after his illustrious predecessor Alexander the Great died, Pyrrhus, King of Epirus and Macedonia, halted the advance of the Roman Republic at Asculum (Ascoli Satriano) in Apulia, southern Italy. The cost to his army was so great that he famously declared that another such victory would utterly ruin him - a ‘Pyrrhic victory’ indeed.
by Plutarch (AD 46-120) Translated from the Greek by John Dryden (1631-1700)
AFTER they had fought till sunset, both armies were unwillingly separated by the night, Pyrrhus being wounded by a javelin in the arm, and his baggage plundered by the Samnites; in all there died of Pyrrhus’s men and the Romans above fifteen thousand.
The armies separated; and, it is said, Pyrrhus replied to one that gave him joy of his victory, that one other such would utterly undo him. For he had lost a great part of the forces he brought with him, and almost all his particular friends and principal commanders; there were no others there to make recruits, and he found the confederates in Italy backward.
On the other hand, as from a fountain continually flowing out of the city, the Roman camp was quickly and plentifully filled up with fresh men, not at all abating in courage for the losses they sustained, but even from their very anger gaining new force and resolution to go on with the war.*
by Plutarch (AD 46-120) Translated from the Greek by John Dryden (1631-1700)
The Pyrrhic War (280–275 BC) was a struggle for control of southern Italy and Sicily, historically a Greek-culture region named Magna Graeca, which the Roman Republic sought to control. After Asculum, the Romans allied with Carthage; and Pyrrhus, suffering from chronic recruitment problems still, was defeated at the Battle of Beneventum in 275 BC.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
How had Pyrrhus himself fared in the battle?
He had been wounded in the arm.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Pyrrhus defeated the Romans at Asculum. He found it hard to recruit new soldiers. The Romans found it easy.