There are many individual Romans that make appearances in the narrative of the Pyrrhic War, but none of them appear as fleshed-out individuals. They each appear relatively briefly to fill narrative or ideological purposes. In part, this representation is a reflection of the fragmentary survival of sources. Beyond Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus, the conflict is a series of disjointed and often contradictory vignettes that give little space for character development. Aside from Pyrrhus, ancient writers portray the actors through ‘character viewpoints’, an external perspective that tends to be evaluative based on a moral assessment, rather than ‘personality viewpoints’, which provides a more sympathetic engagement from the point of view of the individual without explicit judgment.25 The two schemes are not mutually exclusive, as Plutarch mixes both in his Life.
The Romans of the Pyrrhic War are not individualized characters, but avatars for the community. They embody the largely mythical ideals of society imposed by later generations. Their individual personalities are defined by their actions and conformity to the ideal rather than a point of view perspective that lets the reader into their head. This is a stark contrast to Plutarch’s Pyrrhus (no doubt drawn from the Greek tradition), who stands out in the narrative as a recognizable and complex individual. We get a glimpse into Pyrrhus’ head as Cineas questions his plans. The king becomes troubled when his advisor points out the futility of conquest in realizing his stated end goal of relaxing in symposia. The Roman characters are held up as exempla who are both imitating their own past as well as being held up as models and critiques for later generations. The thoughts and feelings of men like Fabricius are left unexplored and unimportant. His persona is defined by his actions.
The communal strength of Roman values is defined by distinctions from other peoples. The Romans tended to stereotype others by defining characteristics that often contrasted with their own ‘superior’ values.26 Even fewer individual characters appear among the Italian peoples, Carthaginians, and western Greeks that crop up in the narrative. These peoples are distinguished by their communal features, as defined by the Romans, rather than as well-defined individuals.
With regards to the Italians, there is little distinction paid to the Romans versus their allies. Only a few exceptions to this general rule exist, which serve to enhance the image of Rome. At the battle of Ausculum, the allied Italians are individually listed by Dionysius in the line of battle, creating a catalogue of Roman power. In another instance, when a detachment of soldiers made up primarily of Campanians terrorized a city they were supposed to be garrisoning (Rhegium), a clear distinction is made in the way their actions violated Roman ideals.27 Even though they were a unit of Roman allies, they are clearly identified as non-Roman in terms of ethnicity and behavior. Indeed, this group of Oscans shares more in common with their Samnite cousins. The Samnites were long-standing Roman opponents but appear in the narrative of the Pyrrhic War as disreputable and largely inconsequential. Their moral failings when compared to the Romans are the reason why they had lost the preceding Samnite Wars and had been forced to turn to Pyrrhus for help. Those Campanians in Rhegium shared these characteristics and thus bolster the virtuous image of Rome, which is further reinforced by the eventual harsh punishment of the garrison.
Roman virtues are likewise showcased through the debauchery of the western Greeks in the later descriptions of events. In particular, it was the people of Taras who receive the worst characterizations, a view shared by Greeks as well as Romans who saw the city as a place of licentiousness, decadence, and instability.28 The city had seen a great deal of commercial success and enjoyed the fruits of its wealth, which is contrasted with the ideals of Roman austerity and serves as commentary on the effects of empire on the Late Republic.29 Polybius says that it was Tarentine pride in their own achievements that ultimately led to them calling for Pyrrhus’ help, and fits into his own wariness towards democracies.30 Indeed, when Pyrrhus arrived, the Tarentines balked at the discipline he enforced for their own good. The foolish actions of the Tarentines, from attacking the Romans unprovoked to mocking every slip of the subsequent Roman envoy’s Greek speech, are consistently linked with their democratic government, which was given to impulsiveness unlike the measured decisions of the Roman Senate. (Rome’s assemblies make no appearances.) Where the Romans acted calmly and methodically, Taras was inherently chaotic and perverse.
In a similar fashion, the Carthaginians are consistently stereotyped as duplicitous and conniving.31 The admiral Mago was sent to offer aid to the Romans, but also made diplomatic overtures to Pyrrhus, their enemy, attempting to play both sides. Indeed, the Carthaginians tried to bribe Pyrrhus to go back to Italy and fight the Romans instead of continuing his attacks on them in spite of their treaty with Rome. The Tarentines may have mocked the supposed barbarousness of the Romans, but it is the Carthaginians who are the real barbarians according to the Roman narrative. The Punic faith of the Carthaginians undermines any agreement they make and they cannot be trusted. The reader is left anxious when they appear, aware of the Carthaginian attempts to backstab the Romans who are dealing with them in good faith. Their betrayal, constantly on the horizon, never comes, but not through a lack of trying. Treachery is inevitable and that Carthaginian duplicitousness would play out fully in the Punic Wars that followed only a short time later. The Carthaginians in the Pyrrhic War may have been fighting Pyrrhus like the Romans, but they are not portrayed as really being on the same side and certainly not as allies.
The Pyrrhic War stands as a supposed first major interaction of the Romans and Greeks beyond Italy. Of course, the two peoples had long been in contact both directly and indirectly by the early third century. But here the two are depicted as entering into a war largely ignorant of one another, which creates a tragedy in which the Greeks (or at least those Greeks with characteristics the Romans can admire) and Romans fight unnecessarily. The relationship of the two peoples is complicated by the political reality of Roman imperialism and contemporary importance of Greek culture at the time when the surviving sources were written. For Dionysius, the Romans were Greek. In his history, Rome was founded as a Greek city in Italy and the Pyrrhic War is the point at which that heritage comes full circle with ‘modern’ Romans and Greeks rediscovering one another. As such, Pyrrhus’ recognition of Roman values is recognition of Roman Greekness.32 For Plutarch, writing during the Second Sophistic, the Romans were neither Greek nor barbarian, inhabiting a unique liminal space between the two.33 Pyrrhus’ time in the west is an argument that the Greeks were better off under the Romans than the despotic Hellenistic monarchs, as well as a manifestation of the cultural imperialism of the later Greeks within the Roman empire.34
Pyrrhus as Alexander
In Plutarch’s Life of Pyrrhus, the king sat down with his trusted advisor Cineas to discuss his upcoming expedition to the west. While the conversation is far from historical, serving to demonstrate Pyrrhus’ hubris, it encapsulates how his campaign was depicted in the Roman tradition. The immediate target of the campaign is assumed to be Rome itself before Cineas even begins speaking. From there he asks, “It is said, O Pyrrhus, that the Romans are skilled at war and rule many warlike peoples; if the gods permit us to conquer these men, how are we to make use of the victory?”35 Pyrrhus responds saying that the answer was obvious, all of Italy would quickly fall as well. And after that? “Sicily is near at hand.”36 And then? “Who then could keep away from Libya and Carthage when the city happens to be so attainable …?”37 After all of this is over, Pyrrhus says, he and Cineas can enjoy themselves in good wine and discussion. When Cineas pointed out that they could have wine and talk now, Pyrrhus was troubled but nonetheless remained committed to his plans. Pyrrhus’ campaign goals were nothing short of rivalling in the west the deeds of his cousin Alexander the Great in the east, and the linchpin to the entire endeavor was Rome. This characterization underlies the Roman tradition as well as modern analysis. Lévêque says that the king “dreamed of a grand Greek Empire of the we
st” and pursued this goal in a planned-out manner similar to his cousin.38 More critically, Lefkowitz has suggested that “the whole history of his campaigns indicates that [Pyrrhus] acted on impulse rather than on any consistent policy.”39 But this characterization too is one that reflects a disorganized interpretation of Alexander’s campaign. Alexander’s shadow weighs heavily on Pyrrhus’ activities in Italy and Sicily.
In terms of martial skill and character, Pyrrhus is portrayed as a man near his famous cousin. Plutarch says that Pyrrhus elicited a great deal of respect among his contemporaries with many comparisons to Alexander. Antigonus, he and Dionysius say, described Pyrrhus as the greatest general of his generation, followed by Hannibal and then himself.40 Elsewhere, when describing an apocryphal meeting between Scipio and Hannibal in Ephesus, Plutarch and Livy have the Carthaginian rank Pyrrhus among all generals as second only to Alexander (followed by himself in third).41 Appian follows suit, but specifies that both Pyrrhus and Alexander shared the quality of being greatly daring (μεγαλότολμος).42 It is this risk-taking and striving for the spectacular backed up with innate skill that allowed Alexander to conquer much of the known world and Pyrrhus to dream of the same. That daring nature also came with drawbacks. Pyrrhus’ identity, like those of Achilles and Alexander, was rooted in his martial skill; in the political arena he often came up short.43 So too, in Plutarch’s Moralia, Pyrrhus’ two sons are said to have asked him which of them would inherit his kingdom. Pyrrhus responds, “To whichever of you has the sharpest dagger,” paralleling Alexander’s own deathbed answer to a similar question by his generals.44 While apocryphal, their imagined answers ensured violence in the succession and potential destruction of everything they had gained, suggesting a lack of foresight and long-term planning on their part. Even when Pyrrhus’ character is assigned negative attributes, such as his despotic actions in Syracuse and looting of the temple in Locris, it is along the same model of Alexander, the good king gone bad.
Pyrrhus was certainly a skilled general, but he does not quite come off so well in the Greek tradition as in the Roman.45 Hieronymus’ now-lost account appears more balanced in this regard with Pyrrhus both winning successes and suffering defeats against Lysimachus, Demetrius, and Antigonus. Pyrrhus becomes an agent of hubris-fueled chaos against the order imposed by the future Antigonid dynasty that would rule Macedonia. Pyrrhus played the role of disruptive antagonist in Hieronymus’ narrative, skilled at war but far from unmatched among his contemporaries. He would repeatedly fail to forge a lasting political legacy, sowing only disorder in Macedonia and Greece. Later Greek writers would fill out Pyrrhus’ personality beyond the outline of Hieronymus, but ironically none would do so as favorably as his Roman rivals. Certainly, no Greek sources offered a ranking of generals like the Roman historians. The Romans forged Pyrrhus into a figure of renown, using Alexander as a framework.
For the Romans, Alexander was a man to be revered for his deeds. Caesar was said to have wept when comparing his own early career achievements with those of Alexander. Pompey obtained Alexander’s cloak on his own grand tour/conquest of the eastern Mediterranean. And Septimius Severus closed Alexander’s tomb to ensure that no one after him would see the great king’s preserved body. Most of the surviving histories of Alexander come from the Roman era, and here he became the embodiment of a Roman hero. He achieved unparalleled military glory, often personally fought in battle, and unified diverse peoples under a vast empire. Even as he was admired, historians like Q. Curtius Rufus used him as a vehicle to criticize the excesses of the worst Roman emperors. Ultimate power corrupted Alexander, who killed his friends, ruled the Greeks and Macedonians imperiously, and named himself a god. In the Roman historical tradition, Alexander serves as an exemplary lesson, often good but sometimes bad.
At times, Roman writers enjoyed some more imaginary flights of fancy with regards to the Macedonian king. Livy tackles the burning question of who would win in a fight, Alexander or the Romans, in a digression within his narrative of the Second Samnite War.46 Not only was Roman virtue superior and Roman soldiers more capable than the Macedonians, he argues, but there were many very capable Romans like Q. Fabius Rullianus and L. Papirius Cursor compared to the singular skill of Alexander. It would be a difficult fight against him, but in the end the Romans would come out ahead and Alexander would be forced to retreat. This ‘what if’ scenario foreshadows Pyrrhus’ own supposed attempts to conquer Rome, his failure to overcome the resiliency of the Roman people, and his eventual withdrawal. In both cases the Roman community would prove superior to the singular conqueror. But the Romans, despite their boasts, would never have the opportunity to defeat Alexander. They could insist that he had intended to attack them next after he had returned from India, but his death ended any such possibilities.47
Ap. Claudius Caecus, in his famous speech before the Roman Senate when they were on the verge of accepting Pyrrhus’ peace offer, uses Alexander as a major part of his argument.48 He berates his fellow senators for even considering such a shameful action, asking how they could surrender to Pyrrhus, who had himself been defeated by Alexander’s lieutenant Lysimachus, when they boasted that their fathers would have sent the Macedonian king himself running had he come to Italy. Claudius’ rhetoric takes a different approach given his immediate situation. Rather than building up Pyrrhus as a masterful general, he attempts to inspire his fellow Romans by denigrating the king. Nevertheless, it is Alexander who serves as the model.
By the time the annalists wrote their histories in the first century, the Romans had beaten the Etruscans, the Samnites, the Carthaginians, the Hellenistic kingdoms, and dozens of others in battle, but the greatest general of all time remained beyond their reach. They would defeat another commander of renown in the form of Hannibal, but he, like all Carthaginians in Roman eyes, was a despicable man, cruel and perfidious. Alexander was a (mostly) admirable man to be emulated. Thanks to Pyrrhus’ position on the edge of Roman historical memory, his reputation, goals, and achievements were malleable enough that he was transformed into a second Alexander, one that the Romans could and would defeat.
While Pyrrhus served as the main antagonist of the war, it was the Tarentines who were the true villains. (The Carthaginians too are always lurking evilly in the shadows.) Pyrrhus is, ultimately, a misguided figure who expresses regret about fighting the Romans at all. Agency for the conflict is shifted from Pyrrhus to the Tarentines. It was their arrogance that initiated violence, depravity that demanded a Roman response, degeneracy that undermined their ability to fight on their own, cowardice that led them to call for help from Pyrrhus, and deceptiveness that tricked him into accepting. It is Pyrrhus’ later recognition of Tarentine faults that spurs him to seek peace according to some Roman sources, as well as contributing to his decision to shift his efforts to Sicily. Pyrrhus proves his superiority and elicits sympathy when he attempts to enforce martial discipline in the midst of Tarentine debauchery.
Building up Pyrrhus as a great conqueror also introduced a fundamental conflict among Roman writers in the Late Republic versus imperial eras. As Lévêque noted, “once Rome was master of the entire Mediterranean Basin, one could no longer imagine that she had been so severely threatened that she had to defend her very existence against Pyrrhos,” which led to a less sympathetic image over time.49 For example, early in the first century BCE Valerius Antius described the battle of Ausculum as a victory for Pyrrhus, reinforcing the dire threat he represented, creating tension for the reader, and emphasizing Roman virtues through their eventual victory. But the epitomizers of Livy and Dio Cassius insist that Ausculum and sometimes Heraclea were Roman victories. It was absurd that a king from a backwater like Epirus, no matter his skill, could defeat the might of Rome. It is these same later sources, especially Dio/Zonaras, which place greater emphasis on Pyrrhus’ negative attributes. Dio says that Pyrrhus’ reputation was indeed highly touted by everyone, but that it was inflated beyond its reality.50 Pyrrhus and his eponymous war remain
ed flexible enough that they could continue to be modified to fit the narratives of Roman writers as needed. He still represented a serious threat, but not quite so severe as earlier generations insisted.
Regardless, for later Roman writers it was almost inconceivable that Pyrrhus, as the great general he was built up to be, would not want to conquer Rome. Why else would he possibly have come to Italy if not to fight the greatest city on the peninsula, a city on the verge of greatness? Inflation of Pyrrhus’ goals served to strengthen his comparison to Alexander and transform the war into one of survival for the Romans. The war became an epic contest between two honorable adversaries, tragically forced into their roles. Ennius made the Pyrrhic War into a kind of miniature epic within his larger work. Other characters, Tarentines, Samnites, and Carthaginians, fall into supporting positions in the narrative. In the end, the Romans got their war against an Alexander, if not the Alexander, against whom they could prove themselves superior. Through victory, they took up Alexander’s mantle as successors to his accomplishments. Where Pyrrhus failed to live up to the deeds of his cousin, the Romans would succeed.
Italy and beyond
By late 280, Pyrrhus had defeated the Romans in battle at Heraclea and briefly invaded Latium, coming within sight of Rome itself. Inspired by Ap. Claudius’ speech to reject an offer of peace from the king, a reply by the Senate was sent to Pyrrhus that the Romans were willing to discuss peace but first he must “leave Italy.”51 In the Roman narrative of the war, Italy is characterized as Roman space into which Pyrrhus was an outside invader. Italy was rightfully subordinate to their will. Polybius says that the Pyrrhic War was the first time the Romans treated Italy not as a foreign land but as theirs by right.52 In the aftermath, he continues, they made real their claim to control of the peninsula.
A History of the Pyrrhic War Page 3