Pyrrhus’ exact line of march is not recorded, but within a short time his army entered Campania. The plain was the richest of Italy and its loss would have been felt severely by the Romans. As such, the Romans had taken measures to secure northern Campania under their control. The people of Capua, one of the wealthiest cities on the peninsula, had been integrated into the Roman citizen body in a fashion, while colonies of former Roman citizens had been established in the northern portions of the plain.30 Laevinius had been reinforced with two freshly raised legions while he fortified the defenses of Capua.31 Whether or not Pyrrhus hoped the Capuans would rebel against Rome, the consul’s presence and anti-Samnite sentiments precluded any such event.32 Pyrrhus apparently had no siege equipment and certainly would not have wanted to get bogged down in a long attack on a well-garrisoned city, and so he moved south instead.33 The Greek cities in the southern areas of the plain such as Neapolis and Nola had resisted Roman conquest, and may have seemed a ripe target for defection. But his efforts were for naught. All of Campania remained firmly under Roman control and so Pyrrhus turned north towards Rome itself.
The Roman response to these setbacks, first the loss at Heraclea and then the invasion of Campania, can be divided into two categories. The first was practical. Two new legions had been raised and dispatched to Laevinius. Rome boasted a large population and easily made up the losses suffered in battle. No doubt these citizen forces were bolstered with further allied levies as well. The second was a psychological response. According to Plutarch, Laevinius was derided in the Senate by Fabricius, the man who had temporarily returned Thurii to its Roman alliances and who would soon be sent to treat with Pyrrhus about the ransoming of prisoners.34 According to Fabricius, the Epirotes had not beaten the Romans; Pyrrhus had beaten Laevinius. It is said that strong language was used to discuss the war. According to Dio Cassius, the young men were inspired to volunteer for military service, fearing that the survival of the state depended on it.35 Such was the need for the Romans that they conscripted even the poorest citizens.
All of this clamor and tumult speaks to a rote literary response to defeat for the Romans. It immediately calls to mind their losses to Hannibal and Cannae in 216, when the surviving consul C. Terentius Varro was thanked for not despairing of the Republic (although he was subsequently relegated to insignificance), new armies were raised through extraordinary means (including the poor and slaves), and the Romans were united by a common sense of patriotism. The conscription of the poor also echoes the wars that took place during the Struggle of the Orders, when Romans had set aside political/social divides to face their enemies for the good of the community. The response to Rome’s various defeats informed and shaped one another. Nevertheless, the psychological response to the losses suffered early in the war with Pyrrhus speaks to the reason why, in the Roman mind, they ultimately came out victorious. While there was some political discord, there was no outbreak of the kind of turmoil that could have endangered the stability of the state. Laevinius was upbraided, but left in his position. The young men volunteered to defend their country, despite Pyrrhus’ now more fearsome reputation. And even the poorest citizens contributed to the defense of the city. This was a message of unity, determination, and strength that would see the Romans through the war.
Having met with little to no success in Campania, Pyrrhus marched his army into Latium. He chose the northern road, the Via Latina, a path which passed by the Latin colonies of Cales and Fregellae before moving into the territory of the Hernici, ancient Roman allies, and then dropping out of the foothills near the Latin cities of Praeneste and Tusculum.36 The Via Latina offered the easier invasion route as opposed to the Via Appia, which traveled along the coast but passed through chokepoints near Formiae and Fundi where the mountains nearly come down to the sea.37 The Samnites no doubt welcomed the chance to raid Fregellae as they had long resented the colony that sat in the strategic Liris river valley between Latium and Samnium.38 Pyrrhus made it at least as far as Anagnia, some 38 miles from Rome, and perhaps as far as Praeneste, only 20 miles from the city.39 However close Pyrrhus got, his presence was concerning to say the least. However, he could not have intended to actually invest the city. First, he lacked siege equipment and time for it. (He would run into the same problem at Lilybaeum in Sicily.) And second, his army was now dangerously exposed deep in Roman territory. Roman allies and colonies stood to every side. A siege would have taken months at the very least, inviting attacks on his forces and long supply lines. This was a campaign of intimidation rather than conquest.
In the end, Pyrrhus’ lightning raid deep into Roman territory was a strategic failure. His attacks in Campania had yielded no lasting results beyond whatever booty he had found. Any hope of an Etruscan alliance was dashed when he learned that they had already made peace with the Romans and showed little interest in renewing the fighting.40 And now, with his army in Latium, Pyrrhus was exposed to counterattacks. The city of Rome was strongly garrisoned, the consul Coruncanius was marching towards him from the north, Laevinius had a strong force in Campania to the south, and Aemilius was still out and about (perhaps still in Samnium). Pyrrhus was in danger of being attacked from all sides. At the same time, by moving too far north Pyrrhus had left his allies vulnerable to attack by the more numerous forces of Rome.
As such, Pyrrhus led his army out of Latium and marched south. Both sides preferred to avoid another battle, and the king slipped past the Roman forces that were encircling him.41 Pyrrhus marched south to Taras, where he put his army into winter quarters.42 Negotiations between Pyrrhus and the Romans followed in which the Romans came near to making peace but ultimately resolved to continue to fight. Nevertheless, prisoners were released. On a proposal by Ap. Claudius Caecus, the soldiers who had been captured were demoted and ordered to camp outside the fortifications until they had made up for their humiliation.43 These men were meant to serve as both warning and inspiration for their fellow citizens in future fights. In order to reinforce Roman confidence, triumphs were celebrated by Coruncanius over the Etruscans and Aemilius over the Tarentines and Samnites.44 In the end, Pyrrhus had failed to inflict any significant damage on the Romans or secure an end to the war.
The battle of Ausculum (summer 279 BCE)
After the collapse of the negotiations that followed the Latium campaign, both Pyrrhus and the Romans prepared for continued fighting. The battle of Ausculum is far better attested than Heraclea in the ancient sources, but suffers from significant contradictions between them as well as the same tendency towards exaggeration. The Roman army, commanded by the consuls P. Sulpicius Saverrio and P. Decius Mus, performed far better than that under Laevinius. Nevertheless, Pyrrhus’ tactical skills once again proved decisive in a bloody fight that lasted two days.
For Pyrrhus, a second invasion into Campania and Latium was unlikely to produce any significant results when the first had failed to achieve anything. As such the king focused on solidifying his holdings in the south, which meant pushing the Romans out of Apulia. The Romans had expanded their alliances into the region in the Second and Third Samnite Wars, establishing Latin colonies at Luceria (in 314) and Venusia (in 291).45 With control of Apulia, the Romans had been able to penetrate the mountains of Samnium from all sides, while eliminating easy raiding opportunities into the plains by the Samnites. For the king, control of the region would alleviate pressure on the Samnites while providing greater protection to the Greek cities of the southern coast. Pyrrhus saw success through a skillful combination of force and diplomacy. He undermined local Roman control by taking the colony of Venusia and perhaps also Luceria.46 It was near the city of Ausculum, just north of Venusia, that the Romans faced Pyrrhus once more in battle.47 As at Heraclea, the two armies camped with a river (the Cerbalus this time) between them.
Pyrrhus’ success in Apulia, combined with the setbacks of the previous year, necessitated a stronger response from the Romans. Both of the consuls of 279, P. Sulpicius Saverrio and P. Decius Mus, were dispa
tched to confront the king with their combined armies.48 The makeup of both the Roman and Epirote armies are better attested at Ausculum than at Heraclea, which Frontinus puts at 40,000 apiece.49 The presence of both consuls meant that there were four legions totaling around 20,000 Roman citizens. The Romans were accompanied by a large number of allied forces, including Latins, Campanians, Sabines, Umbrians, Volsci, Marrucini, Peligni, Ferentani, and other unspecified peoples. This coalition represented most of central Italy stretching from Campania through Latium and across the saddle of the Apennines. Dionysius numbers these Italian allies at around 50,000, which is greatly exaggerated. The 20,000 that can be inferred from Frontinus is much more likely. The entire Roman force was around 40,000 men, about half Roman citizens and half allies. The Roman army is also said to have boasted an odd addition, 300 wagons, which were equipped with spiked poles, grapnels, and torches that could be swung back and forth. These wagons were meant to counter Pyrrhus’ elephants, and were accompanied by light infantry for protection. Each consul is said to have commanded half of the army during the battle, as had been done at Sentinum.
Pyrrhus’ army was similarly sized and included large numbers of allies as well. Dionysius gives a total number of 70,000 men for Pyrrhus, but Frontinus’ figure of 40,000 is again more reasonable.50 The core of the army was his phalanx armed and arrayed in the Macedonian style, numbering around 16,000 Greeks. The rest of the army was made up of Tarentines, known as the ‘White Shields’ who were deployed in a phalanx, the Italian Samnites, Bruttians, and Lucanians, as well as peoples drawn from Greece including Thessalians, Macedonians, Thesprotians, Chaonians, Aetolians, Acarnanians, Athamanians, and Ambracians. The Italians and northwest Greeks fought with spears but in looser formations than phalanxes, with some of them serving as light infantry. Pyrrhus’ army also contained a cavalry force slightly larger than the Romans, perhaps 5,000–6,000 when accounting for Dionysius’ inflated numbers, and was a mixture of Italians and Greeks. About 2,000 of these horsemen made up the king’s personal guard, the agema. In addition, Pyrrhus still had 19 elephants. The two armies at Ausculum were larger than they had been at Heraclea the year before, but were still similar in size.
For several days neither side pushed for battle, instead facing off across the open ground that stood between them. We are told that it was during this time that the consul Decius began to consider something spectacular. He was planning to perform a ritual known as a devotio, which involved consecrating himself and the enemy army to the gods of the underworld in exchange for a Roman victory.51 We are told that Decius planned to die to ensure that his army would triumph through the ultimate sacrifice of the individual for the community. This intended action was said to have inspired fear among Pyrrhus’ own men such that he took special care to issue orders to his men to capture Decius rather than kill him and complete the ritual. Some sources claim that Decius was thus foiled, while others insist that he died in the fighting.52 The consul got the idea, we are told, from the similar sacrifices of his father and grandfather (both Decii Mures) at the battles of Veseris in 340 and Sentinum in 295 respectively. Their two deaths had ensured the Romans’ victory in two tightly fought battles over the Latins on the one hand and the coalition of Italian peoples on the other.
However, there are serious problems with Decius’ devotio at Ausculum that make it unlikely to be historical. First is the fact that the story is replicated three times in the Roman tradition, with the first two being almost identical.53 Families were expected to act certain ways, and here we see a tradition of self-sacrifice attached to the Decii Mures being replicated in a period long before the advent of a native Roman historical tradition. Then there are the specific problems associated with Decius’ devotio in 279. Dio and Zonaras indicate that Decius survived, which is perhaps supported by the subsequent mention of a Decius Mus in 265.54 Even Cicero is vague as to how exactly Decius supposedly died at Ausculum as he does not specifically link it to the devotio. In addition, it has been suggested based on a restoration of the Fasti Capitolini for 279 that Decius’ father was in fact named Decimus rather than Publius.55 This would mean that the consul of 279 was not the son of Publius Decius Mus, the consul of 295 who had sacrificed himself at Sentinum, as Cicero and Zonaras assert. Finally, the devotio does not appear in Dionysius’ narrative of the battle, which is the most detailed that survives.
It is unlikely that any such ritual was successfully completed at Ausculum, or even attempted. The devotio of Decius in 279 is a later fabrication modeled on earlier episodes and then attached to Ausculum to introduce a divine element, adding to the spectacular nature of the battle’s narrative. The Romans always beseeched the gods before battle, but the devotio represents something far more visceral.56 The ritual itself invokes dread amongst Rome’s enemies in the narrative as well as the reader. The past sacrifices of the Decii in the Roman tradition marked decisive moments in the expansion of Roman power, which the planned sacrifice at Ausculum would mirror. At Veseris the Romans secured control of Latium and Campania. Sentinum was the last major collective resistance of the peoples of Italy. Pyrrhus is portrayed as the first extra-Italian threat to Rome and the culmination of the conquest of Italy. The consul of 279 became the focus of this tale by a coincidence of a shared name that created an opportunity to expand the narrative of the battle.
Both battle lines were made up of a diverse number of peoples that created irregular deployments.57 The Roman line was fairly straightforward. The army comprised four legions. On the left wing, facing Pyrrhus’ right wing, was the first legion, followed down the line by the third, fourth, and then the second on the far right. The Romans’ various Italian allies were divided into four groups (μέρη), which were interspersed within the line. These allied groupings were not well-organized units (alae) as would accompany Roman legions in later periods, but were merely convenient amalgamations of men drawn from a number of different communities.58 There is no indication that they acted as unified groups during the battle. Instead, they retained their native organization under their own commanders, as suggested by Oblacus Volsinius at Heraclea. The cavalry, made up of both Romans and Italian peoples, was evenly divided between the two flanks. The light infantry and anti-elephant wagons were placed with the cavalry. The Roman battle plan was relatively simple: their heavy infantry would engage Pyrrhus’ infantry while the combined forces of the cavalry, light infantry, and wagons engaged with Pyrrhus’ cavalry, light infantry, and elephants.
On the other side of the battlefield, Pyrrhus placed the core of his forces, his Macedonian-style phalanx, on the right, which was the position of most importance. To their left were Italiote Greek mercenaries, then the phalanx of the Tarentines, followed by the Bruttians and Lucanians. The center comprised the Thesprotians and Chaonians. To their left were the mercenaries from northwest Greece (Aetolians, Acarnanians, and Athamanians), and then making up the left wing were the Samnites.59 The cavalry of the Samnites, Thessalians, Bruttians, and Italiote Greeks were on the right flank, while the Ambraciot, Lucanian, Tarentines, and Greek mercenary horsemen made up the left. Pyrrhus placed his light infantry and elephants, divided into two groups, behind his cavalry wings. The light infantry served as protection for the elephants without hindering them. The king, with his accompanying 2,000 horsemen, took up a position behind the main battle line to provide support where needed as he had at Heraclea. Polybius says that Pyrrhus intentionally placed units that fought in looser formations in between units of his phalanx, which would have given greater flexibility and mobility to the stiff formations of the phalanx while preventing gaps in the line from forming.60 As such, Pyrrhus’ heavy infantry would be better able to maintain coherence while his elephants disrupted and dispersed the Roman cavalry. One of Pyrrhus’ greatest strengths, shared with Hannibal, was his ability to coordinate diverse forces in an effective manner. The influence of Greek culture, more specifically the Greek language, in southern Italy no doubt played a significant role in facilitating communicati
on and cooperation.
There are two major versions concerning the battle of Ausculum. The first is the one preserved in Plutarch, which describes a battle that took place over two days.61 On the first day, Pyrrhus attacked the Romans, but the effectiveness of his cavalry and elephants was disrupted due to Roman seizure of advantageous terrain. On the second day, Pyrrhus drew the Romans onto open ground, seized the high ground for himself, and defeated the Romans through the use of his cavalry and elephants. The second tradition is described by Dionysius and (more briefly) Dio/Zonaras.62 Here the battle only lasted a single day, was initiated by the Romans, and ended up being indecisive. During the fighting, the Romans made good use of their anti-elephant wagons for a time, although they were eventually destroyed. Two legions managed to break through the center of Pyrrhus’ line and scatter the Lucanians and Bruttians opposing them. And Pyrrhus’ camp was sacked by Roman allies who arrived at the battle late. Pyrrhus was also said to have been wounded in the fighting and took severe losses overall. The fighting was only ended by the advent of nightfall. Plutarch’s narrative is the more reliable, as that of Dionysius depends heavily on tropes meant to create a pro-Roman picture while also incorporating incredible happenings. The battle wagons, sacking of Pyrrhus’ camp, and the king’s wound are all wonderful tales, but cannot be reconciled with the version found in Plutarch.63
A History of the Pyrrhic War Page 9