In Italy too Agathocles’ death in 289 had had severe consequences. In the mid-280s the Brettians again took Hipponium (Strab. VI 1,5, p. 256), and the Lucanians attacked Thurii. The Thurians, as expected, required help from another power only this time the appeal went neither to Sicily nor to mainland Greece, but to Rome. In 282 a Roman army under C. Fabricius defeated the Thurians’ enemies (Pliny, NH XXXIV 32; Dion. Hal. Rom. Ant. XIX 13; Liv. Per. XI) and placed a Roman garrison in Thurii itself (App. Samn. 15). Rhegium and Locri Epizephyrii, caught as they were between the Mamertines’ Scylla and the Brettians’ Charybdis, also saw their best hope for survival in a Roman garrison. Both cities duly received one; that in Rhegium was composed of Campanians, i. e., countrymen of the Mamertines on the other side of the strait (Dion. Hal. Rom. Ant. XX 4; Just. XVIII 1). In addition to all that, ten Roman ships sailed past Cape Lacinium in distinct violation of the treaty with Taras. This rapid Roman expansion perhaps highlights best Agathocles’ accomplishment in retaining Greek control of the region.
The furious Tarantines in any case sank four of the offending Roman ships, marched on Thurii, and forced the Roman garrison there to capitulate (App. Samn. VII). With full-scale war with Rome looming, the Tarantines again looked for a protector. This time it was Pyrrhus, the King of Epirus. He had just ceded Macedonia to Lysimachus, the King of Thrace (see chap. 21), and, thwarted in one direction, now sought a new outlet for his energies in the West. In the spring of 280 Pyrrhus landed in Taras with 20,000 foot soldiers, 3,000 cavalrymen, 2,500 light troops, and - a novelty in the West - twenty elephants. At Heracleia, on the coast between Thurii and Taras, Pyrrhus defeated the Romans under P. Valerius Laevinus (Plut. Pyrrh. 15-17). The elephants were decisive as the Roman cavalry fled before them. The Romans lost some 7,000 men, but Pyrrhus’ losses too were high - some 4,000 (Hieronymus, BNJ 154, Fr. 11). Italian tribes such as the Brettians, Lucanians, and Samnites now joined Pyrrhus (Plut. Pyrrh. 17), as did the Epizephyrian Locri-ans who even delivered their Roman garrison into his hands (Just. XVIII 1). The Campanian garrison in Rhegium, evidently fearing the same fate, seized control of the city after slaying or driving out the inhabitants (Dion. Hal. Rom. Ant. XX 4; App. Samn. 19). Pyrrhus for his part followed up his victory at Heracleia with a march on Rome itself (he came within forty miles of the city - App. Samn. 24; Plut. Pyrrh. 17), but since the Romans’ allies in central Italy stayed loyal, Pyrrhus gave up any thought of attacking the city and withdrew to winter quarters.
In 279, with support from his new Italian allies, he marched into Apulia on the Adriatic coast. There he met the Romans in a second battle in which he won another dearly bought victory. The Romans lost some 6,000 and Pyrrhus, according to his own notebooks, exactly 3,505 (Hieronymus of Cardia, BNJ 154, Fr. 12). This was the famous “Pyrrhic victory” after which Pyrrhus, contemplating his losses, allegedly remarked, “one more such victory will ruin me” (Plut. Pyrrh. 21). Negotiations between Pyrrhus and the Romans began, and for a moment it appeared as though the Greeks in southern Italy might find security from Roman encroachment.
At this juncture events in Sicily supervened. The Carthaginians were besieging Syracuse, and the Syracusans desperately needed help. The Galatians had just invaded Macedonia and Greece (see chap. 21), so no help could possibly come from that quarter; as things stood, Pyrrhus alone could bring aid. For Pyrrhus, who, like Demetrius Poliorcetes, was just a useless adventurer, this promised a new stage for even grander displays of valor, so he prepared to go to Sicily. The Carthaginians and the Romans thereupon made an alliance against their common enemy (Pol. III 25), and that alliance sealed the fate of the Greeks in Italy.
Pyrrhus landed at Tauromenium late in 278 with about 10,000 troops. The Carthaginians withdrew from Syracuse, and Thoenon and So(si)stratus handed it over to Pyrrhus. He received the support of the various other tyrants (Diod. XXII 8) and was proclaimed King of Sicily (Pol. VII 4).
In 277 Pyrrhus, at the head of some 30,000 infantry plus cavalry, marched westwards and captured all Carthaginian Sicily with the exception of the heavily fortified Lilybaeum. Carthage offered peace on the basis of the status quo, but Pyrrhus demanded the surrender of Lilybaeum also. At that the Carthaginians balked, so Pyrrhus began a siege which, however, given the city’s strength he gave up within two months (Diod. XXII 10; Plut. Pyrrh. 22). Meanwhile, the Romans were making headway against Pyrrhus’ Italian allies, and late in 276 Pyrrhus returned to Italy. He marched against Rhegium, but the Carthaginian fleet sailed against his, and in the strait it won a decisive victory: 70 of Pyrrhus’ 110 ships were lost. (App. Samn. 29).
This cut Pyrrhus off from Sicily, and the Greek cities there hastened to make their peace with Carthage (Just. XXIII 3). Pyrrhus for his part gave up the attack on Rhegium, fought his way through an army which the Mamertines had sent to southern Italy, and returned to Taras for the winter (Plut. Pyrrh. 24). In 275 he fought against the Romans one last time in Lucania (Plut. Pyrrh. 25). The result was a draw (Pol. XVIII 28, whose opinion trumps all others’), but by now Pyrrhus was out of money and in any case weary of an “adventure” which was proving far too much hard work. He returned to Epirus in 275 (Plut. Pyrrh. 26) and in the next year went to war against Antigonus Gonatas, the new King of Macedonia (see chap. 23) from whom he hoped to win glory more easily.
However, Pyrrhus had left some troops in Italy under the command of his son Helenus, who evidently managed to hold the Romans back for well over a year until his father recalled him to Greece in 273 (Just. XXV 3). In 272 Pyrrhus died fighting in Argos (see chap. 23), and his son Alexander, who succeeded him in Epirus, had no interest in western adventures.
Taras now bowed to the inevitable and came to terms with Rome. The other Greek cities in southern Italy, also made their peace with Rome at this time (Liv. Per. 15; Zonaras, VIII 6).
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