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Tarentum was a Greek colony, part of Magna Graecia. The members of the leading faction in Tarentum, the democrats under Philocharis or Ainesias, were against Rome, because they knew that if the Romans entered Tarentum the Greeks would lose their independence. The Greeks in Tarentum had grown afraid of Roman expansion after the Third Samnite War. After the surrender of the Samnites in 290 BC, the Romans founded many colonies in Apulia and Lucania, the most important of which was Venusia. In 282 BC, after a battle against the Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians and Thurii, Roman troops entered the Italian Greek colonies of Croton, Lokroi, and Rhegium. Democrats from Tarentum knew that as soon as Rome finished its war with the Gauls, Lucanians, Etruscans, Samnites, and Bruttians, they would enter Tarentum. Another event that concerned the Tarentines was that the aristocratic faction of Thurii that had taken power had invited a Roman garrison into their city; the Tarentines, who had been the referents of all the Magna Graecia colonies, were deeply worried about this fact.
The second faction in Tarentum were the aristocrats, led by Agis, who did not oppose surrendering to Rome, as it would lead to the return of the aristocratic faction to power. The aristocrats, however, could not surrender directly and become unpopular with the population. In the autumn of 282 BC, Tarentum celebrated their festival of Dionysus; while in their theatre in front of sea, they saw ten Roman ships, with soldiers and supplies for the Roman garrison of Thurii, entering the Gulf of Taranto. According to Kęciek, the Tarentine aristocracy asked the Roman commanders Publius Cornelius and Lucius Valerius to arrest and execute the democrats and their followers, which would allow the aristocrats to surrender. The Tarentines were angry, because the Romans had signed an agreement not to sail into the Gulf of Taranto, and they prepared their navy to attack the Roman ships. A few of the ships were sunk, and one was captured.
The Tarentines knew that they had few chances of victory against Rome. They decided to call for help from Pyrrhus, King of Epirus. The army and fleet of Tarentum moved to Thurii and helped the democrats there exile the aristocrats. The Roman garrison placed in Thurii withdrew.
The Romans sent a diplomatic mission to settle the matter and take back the prisoners but the negotiations ended abruptly, so Rome declared war on Tarentum. In 281 BC, Roman legions under the command of Lucius Aemilius Barbula entered Tarentum and plundered it. Tarentum, with Samnite and Salentine reinforcements, then lost a battle against the Romans. After the battle the Greeks chose Agis to sign a truce and begin diplomatic talks. These talks were also broken off when 3,000 soldiers from Epirus under the command of Milon entered the town. The Roman consul withdrew and suffered losses from attacks by the Greek ships.
Pyrrhus decided to help Tarentum because he was in debt to them — they had earlier helped him conquer the island of Corcyra. He also believed that he could count on help from the Samnites, Lucanians, Etruscans, Umbrians, and Bruttians, and some Illyrian tribes, all peoples with a history of conflict with Rome. His ultimate goal was to re-conquer Macedon he had lost in 285 BC, but did not have enough money to recruit soldiers. He planned to help Tarentum, then go to Sicily and attack Carthage. After winning a war against Carthage and capturing south Italy he would have enough money to organise a strong army and capture Macedon.
Preparation
Before he left Epirus, Pyrrhus formed an alliance and borrowed soldiers and money from the pretender to the Macedonian throne, Ptolemy Keraunos. His long-time friend and ally Ptolemy II Philadelphus, king of Ptolemaic Egypt, also promised to send 9,000 soldiers and 50 war elephants. He also recruited cavalry from Thessaly and archers and slingers from Rhodes — as their rulers wanted to avoid a war with Epirus. In the spring of 280 BC Pyrrhus landed without losses in Italy.
After hearing of Pyrrhus' arrival in Italy the Romans mobilized eight legions with auxiliaries, totalling about 80,000 soldiers. They divided it into four armies:
One army under the command of Barbula, with orders to distract the Samnites and Lucanians so they could not join Pyrrhus' army. They were placed in Venusia.
A second army left behind to secure Rome.
A third army under the command of consul Tiberius Coruncanius marched against Etruscans, to avoid an alliance between them and Pyrrhus.
A fourth army under the command of Publius Valerius Laevinus marched to Tarentum. They also plundered Lucania.
Publius Laevinus moved towards Heraclea, a city founded by the Tarentines, with the intention of cutting Pyrrhus off from the Greek colonies of Calabria, thus avoiding their uprising against Rome.
Battle
The Battle of Heraclea depicted in "The Story of Rome" (ca. 1912).
Pyrrhus did not march against the Romans while he was waiting for his allies' reinforcements. When he understood that reinforcements were not coming, he decided to fight the Romans on a plain near the river Siris (modern Sinni), between Pandosia and Heraclea. Pyrrhus took up position there and waited. Before the fight he sent diplomats to the Roman consul, proposing that he could arbitrate the conflicts between Rome and the population of southern Italy. He asserted that his allies recognised him as a judge and demanded the same recognition from the Romans. The Romans denied his request, and entered the plain on the right of the Siris river, where they set up camp.
It is unknown how many troops Pyrrhus had left in Tarentum, it is estimated he had about 25–35,000 troops with him at Heraclea. He took up position on the left bank of the Siris, hoping that the Romans would have difficulty crossing the river, which would allow him more time to prepare his attack. He set up some light infantry units near the river to let him know when the Romans began to cross, and planned first to attack them with his cavalry and elephants. Valerius Laevinus had about 42,000 soldiers under his command, including cavalry, velites, and spearmen. It would be the first time in history that two very different juggernauts of war clashed: the Roman Legion and the Macedonian Phalanx.
At dawn, the Romans started to cross the river Siris. On the flanks the Roman cavalry attacked the scouts and light infantry, who were forced to flee.
When Pyrrhus learned that the Romans had begun crossing the river, he led his Macedonian and Thessalian cavalry to attack the Roman cavalry. His infantry, with peltasts and archers and heavy infantry, began their march as well. The Epirote cavalry successfully disrupted the Roman battle formation and then withdrew. Pyrrhus' peltasts, slingers, and archers began to shoot and his sarissa-wielding phalanxes began to attack. The infantry line was near equal to the Romans' in length as, although Pyrrhus had a small advantage in number, the phalanx was by design deeper than the legion.
The phalanxes made seven attacks, but failed to pierce the legion. It had met a foe that was stronger than any it had ever encountered. The Romans made seven attacks, yet they could not break the phalanx, and the battle hung in the air. At one point, the battle became so pitched that Pyrrhus—realizing that if he were to fall in combat, his soldiers would lose heart and run—switched armor with one of his bodyguards. This bodyguard was subsequently killed, and word spread through the ranks that Pyrrhus had fallen. His force began to waver, and the Romans gave a thunderous cheer at the turn of events. Grasping the magnitude of the situation, Pyrrhus rode forward, bare-headed, along the lines of his men to show he was still living. This show of bravery strengthened their resolve. A massive cheer went up from the Greek line, and the battle raged on.
Unable to make any significant gains in action, Pyrrhus deployed his war elephants, held in reserve until now. The Roman cavalry was threatening his flank too strongly. Aghast at the sight of these strange and brooding creatures which none had seen before, the horses galloped away and threw the Roman legion into rout. (The Romans subsequently called elephants Lūca bōs, 'Lucanian ox', after the location of this first encounter.). Pyrrhus then launched his Thessalian cavalry among the disorganized legions, which completed the Romans' defeat. The Romans fell back across the river and Pyrrhus held the field.
In the opinion of Dionysius, the Romans lost 15,000 soldiers and had thousands taken prisoner; Hieronymus states 7,000. Dionysius totalled Pyrrhus' losses at around 11,000 soldiers, 3,000 according to Hieronymus. Either way, this could be considered the earliest of his Pyrrhic victories against Rome.
After the battle, reinforcements from south Italy joined Pyrrhus. The Greeks of Rhegium who wanted to join him were massacred by Roman soldiers under the command of Decius Vibelius, who was proclaimed ruler of the town. Pyrrhus then began to march towards Rome. He captured many small towns in Campania, and his forces plundered Latium. His march was stopped in Anagni, two days from Rome, when he met the other Roman consular army under Tiberius Coruncanius. Pyrrhus was afraid that he did not have enough soldiers to fight, and knew Laevinus and Barbula were probably marching behind him. Instead he withdrew and the Romans did not follow him.
Thurii, called also by some Latin writers Thūrium, and later in Roman times also Cōpia and Cōpiae, was an ancient Greek city situated on the Gulf of Taranto, near or on the site of the great renowned city of Sybaris, whose place it may be considered as having taken. The ruins of the city can be found in the Sybaris archaeological park near Sibari in the Province of Cosenza, Calabria, Italy.
Pyrrhus was a Greek king and statesman of the Hellenistic period. He was king of the Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house, and later he became king of Epirus. He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome, and had been regarded as one of the greatest generals of antiquity. Several of his victorious battles caused him unacceptably heavy losses, from which the phrase "Pyrrhic victory" was coined.
Lucania was a historical region of Southern Italy, corresponding to the modern-day region of Basilicata. It was the land of the Lucani, an Oscan people. It extended from the Tyrrhenian Sea to the Gulf of Taranto. It bordered with Samnium and Campania in the north, Apulia in the east, and Bruttium in the south-west, and was at the tip of the peninsula which is now called Calabria. It comprised almost all the modern region of Basilicata, the southern part of the Province of Salerno, the western part of Province of Taranto and a northern portion of the Province of Cosenza.
The Battle of Asculum was a poorly documented battle that took place near Asculum in 279 BC, and was thought to have lasted either one or two days, between the Roman Republic under the command of the consuls Publius Decius Mus and Publius Sulpicius Saverrio, and the forces of King Pyrrhus of Epirus. The battle took place during the Pyrrhic War, after the Battle of Heraclea of 280 BC, which was the first battle of the war. There currently exists accounts of this battle only by three ancient historians: Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Plutarch, and Cassius Dio, although these historians in turn reference other historians whose work is now lost. Asculum was in Lucanian territory, in southern Italy. The Battle of Asculum was the original "Pyrrhic victory". The result of the battle is not definitively known, with Plutarch stating that it was a pyrrhic Greek victory, Cassius Dio recording it as a Roman victory. The constituents of both armies are also poorly known, with each historian offering largely divergent estimates for the strength of the armies or the length of the battle.
Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, son of Gaius, was said to have been the first of the Fabricii to move to ancient Rome, his family originating from Aletrium.
The Pyrrhic War was largely fought between the Roman Republic and Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had been asked by the people of the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy to help them in their war against the Romans.
The Battle of Beneventum was the last battle of the Pyrrhic War. It was fought near Beneventum, in southern Italy, between the forces of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus in Greece, and the Romans, led by consul Manius Curius Dentatus. The result was a Roman victory and Pyrrhus was forced to return to Tarentum, and later to Epirus.
The Battle of Pandosia was fought in 331 BC between a Greek force led by Alexander I of Epirus against the Lucanians and Bruttians, two southern Italic tribes. The Italic army soundly defeated the invading Greeks and killed Alexander I of Epirus during the battle.
The Lucanians were an Italic tribe living in Lucania, in what is now southern Italy, who spoke an Oscan language, a member of the Italic languages. Today, the inhabitants of the Basilicata region are still called Lucani, and so is their dialect.
The origin of the city of Taranto dates from the 8th century BC when it was founded as a Greek colony, known as Taras.
Heraclea, also Heracleia or Herakleia, was an ancient city. It was situated on the Gulf of Taranto between the rivers Aciris and Siris. The ruins of the city are located in the modern comune of Policoro in the Province of Matera, Basilicata, Italy.
The Hellenistic armies is a term that refers to the various armies of the successor kingdoms to the Hellenistic period, emerging soon after the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, when the Macedonian empire was split between his successors, known as the Diadochi.
The naval Battle of Thurii was fought between Ancient Rome and the Greek colony of Tarentum
The socii or foederati were confederates of Rome and formed one of the three legal denominations in Roman Italy (Italia) along with the core Roman citizens and the extended Latini. The Latini, who were simultaneously special confederates and semi-citizens, derived their name from the Italic people of which Rome was part but did not coincide with the region of Latium in central Italy as they were located in colonies throughout the peninsula. This tripartite organisation lasted from the Roman expansion in Italy to the Social War, when all peninsular inhabitants south of the Po river were awarded Roman citizenship.
The Battle of the Cranita Hills was fought in 277 BC between a Roman and a Samnite army during the Pyrrhic War. The Samnite people allied with King Pyrrhus of Epirus against the Roman Republic to regain the independence that they had lost during the Roman Samnite wars, but when Pyrrhus left Italy in 278 BC for Sicily, Pyrrhus' Italian allies were left to defend against the Romans on their own.
Lucius Postumius Megellus was a politician and general during the middle years of the Roman Republic. Reportedly an arrogant and overbearing man, he was elected consul in 305 BC. The Second Samnite War was ongoing, and as consul he led troops against the Samnites. He defeated them at the Battle of Bovianum and took the town of Bovianum, which caused the Samnites to sue for peace, ending the war. Megellus was awarded a triumph.
The Iapygian–Tarentine wars were a set of conflicts and wars between the Greek colony of Taras and the three Iapygian peoples, the Messapians, Peucetians and Daunians.
The Battle of Eryx was one of the battles in the Pyrrhic War. It was held between the Kingdom of Epirus and the Magna Graecia of the Empire of Carthage, as part of the Sicilian Front in the Pyrrhic War. It ended in an Epirote victory.
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