The king made his way to Tarentum, where he lay low for a time. Although immediately appointed commander-in-chief with unlimited powers, he did nothing that might alarm his hosts, until his damaged fleet limped into port and disgorged the Epirote army. Surprisingly, all his elephants survived the passage, although how a nervous animal weighing five tons was kept calm on board a twenty-meter-long galley in stormy seas must remain a mystery. Then Pyrrhus ran up his true colors. He believed, so Plutarch puts it, that “the mass of people were incapable, unless under strict discipline, of either saving themselves or saving anyone else, but were inclined to let him do their fighting for them while they remained at home in the enjoyment of their baths and social festivities.”
This was not his idea of how to run a war. He occupied the acropolis, or citadel, with his own troops and billeted his officers in citizens’ houses. Military conscription was introduced for the Tarentine youth. All theatrical performances were banned, the gymnasiums were closed (people met there not only for exercise but also for conversation during which “they fought out their country’s battles”), and the men’s communal messes (an institution peculiar to the communal lifestyle of Sparta, Tarentum’s founder) were prohibited. The city’s loungers and layabouts were shocked, and some of them managed to evade Pyrrhus’s guards and left town. The king’s popularity fell, and opponents of the ruling democracy tried to stir up trouble. They were quickly rounded up and sent to Epirus or simply put to death. Tarentum was no longer its own master.
THE NEWS OF Pyrrhus’s arrival on Italian soil caused consternation in Rome. A joint Celtic and Etruscan army had only recently been defeated in the north, and what the Republic needed was a period of recuperation. The heavy casualties in the third and last Samnite War were still a painful memory. However, there was nothing for it; another immense effort was required if the threat posed by Pyrrhus was to be met. Fresh troops were levied, even (apparently) from those citizens, the proletarii, who owned no property and so were usually exempt from military service. Such a step was taken only when there was a tumultus maximus, an extreme military emergency. Rome was garrisoned and an army in the north was tasked to prevent the Molossian king from making common cause with the Etruscans.
One of the consuls for 280, Publius Valerius Laevinus, marched a force of about thirty thousand men southward toward Tarentum. At this point, Pyrrhus intervened with a peace proposal. Although his highest value was prowess on the battlefield, he was not a warmonger. Throughout his career, he would always deploy diplomacy to win an argument before resorting to arms, and he recommended this policy in his well-known (but now lost) book on military tactics. If we can trust Cassius Dio, he wrote to the consul in the following terms:
King Pyrrhus to Laevinus, Greeting. I understand that you are leading an army against Tarentum. Send it away and come to me yourself with a few attendants. For I will judge between you, if you have any charge to bring against each other, and I will compel the party at fault, however unwilling, to deal justly.
This was the first direct dealing the king had had with representatives of the Republic, so it is hard to assess whether he expected a favorable reply. He certainly did not receive one. The consul asked, “What use have I got for trash and rubbish, when I can stand trial in the court of Mars, our forefather?”
Pyrrhus was slightly outnumbered by the Romans, for he had to leave a garrison behind in Tarentum. He was encamped on one side of a river near Heraclea, a town a little inland from the Gulf of Tarentum. The consul approached and made his camp on the other. He captured one of the king’s scouts and, rather than execute him, Laevinus drew up his army in battle formation and showed the man around. He asked him to report faithfully to his master what he had seen. Pyrrhus himself rode up to the river to get a view of them. When he had observed their good order, impressive drill, and the efficient arrangement of their camp, he remarked, “The discipline of these barbarians is not barbarous.”
He was now less confident of victory and tried to avoid being forced into battle until reinforcements arrived. He prevented the Romans from crossing the river. Laevinus, in the light of his numerical superiority, was eager for a fight. The consul took a leaf out of Alexander’s book at Granicus and sent his cavalry off to ride along the river and cross where they were unopposed. When the legions appeared unexpectedly in their rear, the Greeks guarding the riverbank pulled back and Laevinus’s infantry was able to begin crossing the river.
It is difficult to make sense of the surviving accounts of the battle, which opened messily. What exactly happened was probably confusing to those taking part. But it appears that Pyrrhus, much alarmed, rode with three thousand Epirote horsemen to meet the Roman cavalry and hold them up, giving time for his phalanx and the rest of his army to form themselves into order of battle. Unfortunately, he was unhorsed and severely shaken.
In an echo of the Achilles and Patroclus story, and presumably to give him a breathing space in which to recover, the king handed over his richly ornamented armor and purple cloak shot through with gold to one of his companions, a certain Megacles, to wear in his place, for his disappearance would be fatal for his soldiers’ morale. For the time being, he stayed in the rear. Unfortunately, Megacles was killed. Pyrrhus mounted another horse and rode along the line with his head bare to show that he was alive, both by his appearance and his voice.
The king’s tactics were similar to those of Alexander, who combined an unbreakable phalanx with a flanking cavalry charge. The Epirote phalanx, with its bristling pikes, was to hold or push back the Roman infantry. Elephants were usually deployed about fifteen to thirty meters apart along the front of an army, but Pyrrhus had too few of them to do this. So he placed his band of twenty as a reserve to be brought forward at an appropriate moment in the battle. His cavalry were on the wings, with instructions to rout the enemy’s horse and attack its infantry from the flanks. Although the legions, armed with short swords and throwing javelins, had some difficulty engaging with the phalanx, they stood their ground. The battle became a stalemate.
Pyrrhus decided to bring on his elephants, which thoroughly unnerved the Roman cavalry. Horses bolted and threw their riders. Men in the howdahs shot down many foot soldiers, and others were trampled. Disheartened, the legions pulled back and left the field. They managed to cross the river and retreated to Venusia (joining the Roman force that had originally appeared before Tarentum and ravaged the city’s territory). More than seven thousand men had fallen and eighteen hundred been captured.
But success was sour, for Pyrrhus had lost about four thousand men, including friends and officers whom he knew well and trusted. As we have seen, Rome commanded a very substantial reservoir of men of fighting age, and had no difficulty in quickly reinforcing the consul. However, the king would struggle to raise more troops. When congratulations were offered him, he replied gloomily, “Another victory like this, and I am done for!” (Hence the modern phrase a “Pyrrhic victory.”)
Nevertheless, he made the most of a good public-relations opportunity. Captured enemy weapons were sent to Dodona as a votive trophy. A small bronze tablet marking the gift has survived: “King Pyrrhus and the Epirotes and the Tarentines to Zeus Naios from the Romans and their allies.” The Tarentines sent offerings to Athens to celebrate this triumph over barbarians, and the armor the king wore during the battle, or at least part of it, was sent to a Temple of Athena on the island of Rhodes. The underlying message was simple and clear: the Hellenic world would soon be hearing no more of the upstart Italian Republic.