A History of the Pyrrhic War

by Patrick Alan Kent

  However, Pyrrhus could not assault Lilybaeum quite yet. The Carthaginians still held Eryx, a fortified site about 18 miles north of the city, and Panormus, a strategic city on the northern coast. From both positions, the Carthaginians could threaten not only a besieging force at Lilybaeum but also Pyrrhus’ holdings in the interior. They could also disrupt his supply lines.

  Eryx was located on the mountain of the same name, which was well fortified and overlooked the nearby port of Drepana. The mountain was tall with a flat summit, on which stood a temple to Astarte below which the city was located.42 The approach to the town was steep and difficult. Later, in the First Punic War, Hamilcar Barca held the site for two years against Roman attacks.43 Pyrrhus found the city protected by walls and a strong Carthaginian garrison, which supplemented the natural defenses of the site. Unable to convince the city to join him, no doubt due to the presence of the garrison and proximity to Lilybaeum, Pyrrhus decided upon an assault. He brought up siege engines against the walls, but the attack dragged on until Pyrrhus personally led the assault. Diodorus says that Pyrrhus sought to emulate Heracles, and Plutarch says that he vowed games to the demigod if victorious.44 Plutarch then describes a spectacular scene (echoed in a much more truncated form by Diodorus) in which Pyrrhus is said to have donned his armor, ordered the trumpets sounded and the ladders brought up, and then was the first to top the walls. The king then proceeded to kill many of the defenders personally, either with his sword or shoving them off the walls. Pyrrhus was victorious and, amazingly, suffered no wounds in his heroism. He then held the games he had promised and garrisoned Eryx.

  The image of Pyrrhus at Eryx is spectacular and clearly meant to evoke the deeds of great heroes. Pyrrhus’ imitation of Heracles reinforced his claims of descent from the hero, while simultaneously showing himself to be a worthy champion of the Sicilian Greeks.45 Plutarch strengthens these connections by referencing a line from Homer’s Iliad, again invoking heroic imagery but also obliquely making a connection to Alexander the Great. Alexander venerated the Iliad and Achilles in particular, he emulated Heracles from whom it was said he was descended, and also personally stormed the walls of the Malloi in the face of a difficult siege.46 (This action did not go as well for Alexander. His men broke the ladders in their haste to support him and, after jumping down into the city, he was severely wounded.) The siege of Eryx is a scene crafted to invoke these parallels to build up Pyrrhus’ own image. Pyrrhus may well have personally participated in the final assault into the city. Like his cousin he certainly did not shy from combat. But the embellishments of the surviving narratives cannot be accepted at face value. At the same time, this moment of triumphal glory presages Pyrrhus’ imminent fall. This was the peak of his efforts in the west, aided by a magnificent display of personal heroism. But he would soon fail to take Lilybaeum and the Sicilian Greeks would begin to turn against him, creating, as portrayed in the Roman narrative, a domino effect of collapse. So too Alexander’s siege of the Malloi, where he was wounded, represents the beginning of the end of his campaign. The reader is meant to recognize that no matter the accomplishments of great men, there is a limit to what can be accomplished alone. The collective might of Rome would succeed where Pyrrhus failed.

  Despite this narrative foreshadowing, Pyrrhus’ campaign did continue. Once Eryx was taken, he moved against Panormus to the east. The city of Iaetia, just to the south, served as a useful base from which to attack the city.47 Panormus commanded a spectacular harbor, from which it derived its Greek name, and was one of the largest cities on the island. As with Eryx, the Carthaginian garrison forced Pyrrhus to take the city by storm. Once it was secured the king then seized Mt. Hierkte, a fortified site that overlooked the city.48 Having taken control of the most important strategic sites in western Sicily, Pyrrhus could finally move against Lilybaeum itself.

  Throughout Pyrrhus’ methodical campaign, the sources are remarkably silent about what the Carthaginians were doing to oppose him. The only mention of Carthaginian military forces is garrisons. To some degree it is not surprising that Greek sources would minimize their activities, and the survival bias of sources should be taken into account. But the supposed 50,000 men that had besieged Syracuse the previous year are markedly missing. Perhaps they were withdrawn back to Lilybaeum or scattered to serve as garrisons. There can be little doubt that Carthaginian commanders orchestrated some sort of counterattacks as well as harassing actions against Pyrrhus, which have fallen out of the surviving narrative. But just as clearly, the Carthaginians were focused on a defensive strategy.49 Such a stance was reasonable enough, as similar Greek gains in previous wars had been ephemeral. Carthaginian commanders may have been looking beyond the immediate campaign, planning to maintain control of strategic sites in the face of the campaign of 277 before counterattacking when Pyrrhus withdrew back east. However, Pyrrhus’ aggressiveness combined with his quick successes likely came as a surprise. Whatever the Carthaginians were doing militarily, their efforts did little to slow the king’s advance. Whoever was in overall command of Carthaginian forces was unwilling to take the risk of battle. The harsh punishments meted out to unsuccessful Carthaginian commanders would have reinforced a cautious approach.

  But armies were not the only ways that the Carthaginians contended with the Greeks. In addition to their military efforts, the Carthaginians also pursued diplomatic means of halting Pyrrhus and preserving something of their Sicilian holdings. However, these efforts are tainted with Roman bias influenced by their own subsequent conflicts with the Carthaginians. As with Mago’s mission in Italy, the Carthaginians here are depicted as duplicitous and back-stabbing. During Pyrrhus’ preparations to lay siege to Lilybaeum, the Carthaginians sent envoys to meet with the king.50 They offered him money in exchange for retention of their last stronghold on Sicily. Plutarch also mentions that they offered him ships, which could logically only have been useful against the Romans and would have violated their treaty terms.51 However, Plutarch’s narrative of the end of the campaign suffers from a literary reshaping of events to reinforce Pyrrhus’ failings and the ‘Punic faith’ of the Carthaginians. A negotiated end to the war would have been in Carthage’s advantage and it would not be surprising if money was offered as part of the deal. But there is no reason to believe that they offered him ships or were actively conspiring against the Romans. They simply did not need to incite war; the Romans were already attacking the king’s Italian allies. Events in Italy would pull Pyrrhus’ attention there before long, opening the door for Carthaginian resurgence in Sicily.

  Pyrrhus was urged by some of his advisors to accept the Carthaginian offer, which would effectively end the war on the island with the Greeks in control of most of it. However, his friends and the leaders of the Sicilian Greeks insisted that he press on and seize Lilybaeum in order to drive the Carthaginians completely from the island. They feared that the city would serve as a toehold for renewed Carthaginian efforts in the future; a point of view no doubt influenced by decades of back-and-forth wars. According to Diodorus, they claimed that the sea would be a much more effective boundary, an idea that Plutarch has Pyrrhus voice. It would have only been a matter of time before the Carthaginians betrayed the peace, in their mind. Alexander the Great’s own refusal to accept the peace offered by king Darius comes to mind.52 Alexander refused Darius’ offers of money, land, and alliance in the face of his own unparalleled accomplishments. The Macedonian king had subsequently gone on to conquer all of the Persian Empire. For Pyrrhus, driving the Carthaginians off Sicily was a real possibility. His successes, combined with the advice he received, all but precluded his acceptance of the Carthaginian offer. But Pyrrhus was no Alexander.

  Having rejected the offer of peace, Pyrrhus laid siege to Lilybaeum in the fall of 277 or perhaps early 276.53 The city was the linchpin of Carthaginian territory on Sicily and Pyrrhus had by now managed to isolate it. However, the Carthaginian negotiations had allowed time enough to place more troops in the city and prepare its fort
ifications for assault.54 The garrison also prepared and massed missile throwers on the tops of the walls. The size of the Carthaginian forces are not mentioned, but were substantial and able to effectively defend the city. Pyrrhus had few options. Starving Lilybaeum out was impractical as the garrison could be resupplied from the sea thanks to the Carthaginian navy. An assault was necessary. Pyrrhus brought up siege equipment from Syracuse and constructed more on site. He launched assaults on the walls while also attempting to undermine them. But the Carthaginian defenders countered these efforts and inflicted heavy casualties. It is interesting to note that Pyrrhus’ personal heroics displayed at Eryx were not repeated in this more difficult attack. Aggression and daring, which had seen such success against other Carthaginian sites, were not effective here. The defenses of the city proved insurmountable, forcing Pyrrhus to break off his efforts.

  The events surrounding the siege of Lilybaeum are shaped in such a way as to foreshadow the collapse of Pyrrhus’ efforts. It is here that the ancient writers reiterate Pyrrhus’ supposed goals to not only conquer Sicily, but also Carthage itself in Africa. During Carthage’s diplomatic mission, Pyrrhus is found espousing his desire to conquer Libya, as he had told Cineas before crossing to Italy. Pyrrhus is at his greatest power, having beaten the Romans in battle, won over the western Greeks, personally assaulted Eryx, and nearly driven the Carthaginians from Sicily. His hubris is also at its maximum, anticipating the imminent arrival of nemesis. The supposed desire to invade Africa echoes the invasions of Agathocles earlier in 310 and M. Atilius Regulus later in 256. Both of those campaigns, the reader knows, ended in failure. Agathocles barely managed to escape and had been forced to leave his army behind, while Regulus ultimately perished with his men. Pyrrhus is portrayed as striving for the impossible. Throughout the Life of Pyrrhus Plutarch emphasizes Pyrrhus’ lofty and unrealistic intentions, and it is here that things begin to spin out of control. The decision to risk what has already been gained in the hope of gaining more is a foolish act by a man unable to perceive of his own limitations. It is a morality play.

  As with his campaign in Italy, Pyrrhus’ goals in Sicily were more limited than Plutarch and others insist. Pyrrhus conducted a systematic and well-planned operation aimed at isolating Lilybaeum before launching a final assault on the city, which would have all but ended Carthaginian influence in Sicily. Establishing the sea as a boundary was a logical goal, as opposed to the conquest of Carthage itself. To suddenly take such a massive risk by invading Africa was out of character for Pyrrhus based on the pragmatic actions he had taken up to this point. The failure at Lilybaeum was certainly a setback, but hardly catastrophic since Pyrrhus maintained control of large swaths of the island and he could always try again. His Sicilian alliances would have been further cemented by the impressive scope of his success even without taking the city. The invasion of Africa should be set aside as literary fantasy.

  Because Plutarch was more interested in his portrayal of Pyrrhus’ character, his chronology for the end of the campaign is vague. After the heroics at Eryx but before the Carthaginian peace proposal and subsequent siege of Lilybaeum, he mentions a campaign against the Mamertines in which Pyrrhus seized several cities and ended raiding by the former mercenaries.55 But there hardly seems time for such an action during the campaigning season of 277 alongside the rest of the campaign. Messana sits at the far northeastern tip of the island, more than 120 miles from Panormus and 175 miles from Lilybaeum through mountainous terrain. As such, it is possible that the attack on Lilybaeum occurred in early 276. This would also allow for some time for the negotiations between the Carthaginians and Pyrrhus. The king’s successive attempts to expand his fleet and consolidate his power in Syracuse would then take place sometime in the late summer. It is also possible that the campaign against the Mamertines is out of place and that it took place in 276, while the siege of Lilybaeum was part of the campaign the previous year. Unfortunately Plutarch’s narrative does not allow for a definitive statement on the course of events. No other sources mention a campaign against the Mamertines. Whatever the exact timing, the Mamertines retreated in the face of Pyrrhus’ attacks.

  Despite the disappointment at Lilybaeum, Pyrrhus had seen great success. He had marched a circuit around the island, subduing nearly the entirety of it. He now controlled southern Italy and most of Sicily. Triumphant, Pyrrhus sought to use this success as a foundation for expanding his own power over his allies.

  Consolidation and collapse (276 BCE)

  After his campaign in 277, Pyrrhus was in a strong position in Sicily with regards to both his allies and enemies. Plutarch and Appian assert that now Pyrrhus planned to conquer the city of Carthage in Africa, fulfilling the statements he had made to Cineas upon being invited to Italy.56 Pyrrhus began to gather more ships, more sailors to man them, and more money to pay for it all from his Sicilian allies, putting a great deal of pressure on them to meet his demands. But the conquest of Carthage itself was unrealistic. Invading Africa was a massive gamble that threatened to undermine Pyrrhus’ control of Sicily. Agathocles’ own invasion would have served as a tale of warning, not encouragement. These efforts should instead be seen as linked to his efforts against the still Carthaginian-held Lilybaeum. Pyrrhus was preparing for a final push to drive the Carthaginians from their last stronghold in Sicily. Without the city Carthaginian power on the island would have been all but eliminated, giving Pyrrhus control of all of the island’s resources.

  Taking Lilybaeum would require not only a siege from land, but a blockade from the sea to cut off supplies and reinforcements. Even then, the effort would be extremely difficult as the Romans would later find out in their own failed attempt at it.57 Such an effort would require a considerable fleet. He already commanded some 200 warships, but they would be hard pressed to take on the large Carthaginian navy and still provide some protection to Sicily from raiding elsewhere. As such, the king began gathering money, ships, and men, making heavy demands of the Sicilian Greeks.58 With a fleet to complement his army, Pyrrhus could reasonably expect to drive the Carthaginians from Lilybaeum, secure his domination of Sicily, and then be able to turn his attention elsewhere with the island’s resources at his beck and call.

  Pyrrhus also began to consolidate his authority over the Sicilian Greeks. His hegemony was fragile, but his success against the Carthaginians seemed to give new opportunities to expand his power. In particular, this meant establishing a firmer base of support in Syracuse. It is Dionysius who sheds light on the king’s actions.59 Pyrrhus seized land that had belonged to the friends and family of Agathocles, reassigning it to his friends. He placed his own men in magisterial positions in several cities, as well as garrisons. And he increasingly inserted himself in deciding judicial cases and civil administration. Justin says that Pyrrhus was organizing Sicily as a kingdom for his son Alexander (and Italy for Helenus).60 Pyrrhus envisioned maintaining long-term control of the Sicilian Greeks, much to the chagrin of those that had invited him there. This dynastic system would maintain his authority even after he had returned to Epirus and Greece.

  Pyrrhus’ increasing assertion of his own power is also seen in the bronze coins issued during his time in Sicily.61 When the king had first arrived, Pyrrhus’ presence is secondary while Syracusan iconography remains dominant. The final issue, bearing the head of Heracles and Athena Promachos, is heavily indicative of Pyrrhus’ imagery. Pyrrhus’ ambitions were reflected here as with his actions in the political sphere. But these coins also indicate the financial pressure being placed on Syracuse in funding the campaign against the Carthaginians. Over time the bronze issues decrease in weight, a pattern that would be reflected in the coins produced in Taras and southern Italy after Pyrrhus’ return there. Prosecution of the war was coming at the cost of its political autonomy and financial stability.

  Pyrrhus’ success had created the opportunity to truly unite Sicily under a system of amalgamated leadership with himself at its head. But the Sicilian Greeks in general and t
he Syracusans in particular were not so keen on having a strong king. Many had resented the leadership and power of the Dionysii and Agathocles before him. Within the city the leadership of Syracuse had long been divided into competing factions, whom Pyrrhus had deftly risen above. But this also meant that he had no single group that he could count on for support. Other leaders who had been invited to Sicily had faced similar challenges. Unlike Pyrrhus, Agathocles had been a Sicilian with strong roots in Syracuse and had forged strong support among various factions within the city over the course of years that allowed him to make heavy exactions when he seized power. Pyrrhus was not established well enough to push his leadership as far as he attempted. Furthermore, he had little interest in actually remaining in Syracuse or Sicily, instead desiring the resources of the island for his plans in the Hellenistic east.

  Conspiracies sprouted amongst the Sicilian Greeks with the most significant led by Sosistratos and Theonon, men who had been instrumental in inviting Pyrrhus to the island.62 What exactly they were up to is left intentionally unclear. Dionysius specifically calls Pyrrhus’ subsequent allegations of conspiracy false while Plutarch prefers to merely imply such. Both authors use these events to emphasize the king’s growing despotism. Dio manages to denigrate both Pyrrhus as well as the Sicilian Greeks. Sosistratos got wind of Pyrrhus’ suspicions and slipped out of the city ahead of the headsman’s axe, perhaps finding refuge in Acragas. Theonon, whom Dionysius is careful to point out was one of Pyrrhus’ strongest early supporters, was not so lucky and was executed. The king’s efforts are similar to those of Alexander after he had defeated Darius, attempting to force the Macedonians and Greeks to obey him like an eastern despot. This desire for personal power poisoned the efforts of both Pyrrhus and Alexander in the moral narratives of later writers.