However, the Pyrrhic War and the rebellion of the major Magna Græcia cities under Pyrrhus of Epirus in the south brought unrest.

In 272 BC Pyrrhus of Epirus with 25, 000 foot soldiers, 2, 000 cavalry, and 24 elephants marched into Laconia on the false pretense of “ set free the cities which were subject to Antigonus ” and “ to send his younger sons to Sparta, if nothing prevented, to be brought up in the Lacedaemonian customs ”.

However it has been suggested that the thureos was brought to Greece after Pyrrhus of Epirus ' campaigns in Italy, as his Oscan allies and Roman enemies used the scutum.

Plutarch mentions an interesting element of Epirote folklore regarding Achilles: In his biography of King Pyrrhus, he claims that Achilles " had a divine status in Epirus and in the local dialect he was called Aspetos " ( meaning unspeakable, unspeakably great, in Homeric Greek ).

As a large part of the Spartan army led by king Areus I is in Crete at the time, Pyrrhus has great hopes of taking the city easily, but the citizens organise stout resistance, allowing one of Antigonus II's commanders, Aminias the Phocian, to reach the city with a force of mercenaries from Corinth.

* In renewed fighting, Pyrrhus of Epirus, leading the combined Tarantine, Oscan, Samnite, and Greek forces, wins a ' Pyrrhic victory ' against the Romans led by consul Publius Decius Mus at the Battle of Asculum, called such because his victory comes at a great cost to his own forces.

It was certainly in the power of the Romans in 274 BC, when Pyrrhus was defeated in a great battle, fought in its immediate neighborhood, by the consul Curius Dentatus.

As a large part of the Spartan army led by king Areus was in Crete at the time, Pyrrhus besieged Sparta with great hopes of taking the city easily, but the citizens organized stout resistance, allowing one of Antigonus's commanders, Aminias, the Phocian, to reach the city with a force of mercenaries from Corinth.

He returned to the stage in 1726 with a successful play, Pyrrhus ; in 1748 his Catilina was performed with great success at court ; and in 1754, aged eighty, he appeared his last tragedy, Le Triumvirat.

In 1802 Guérin produced Phaedra and Hippolytus ( Louvre ); in 1810, after his return to Paris, he again achieved a great success with Andromache and Pyrrhus ( Louvre ); and in the same year also exhibited Cephalus and Aurora ( Louvre ) and Bonaparte and the Rebels of Cairo ( Versailles ).

A few years later they are mentioned as sending auxiliaries to the army of Pyrrhus ; but after the defeat of that monarch, and his expulsion from Italy, they had to bear the full brunt of the war, and after repeated campaigns and successive triumphs of the Roman generals, Gaius Fabricius Luscinus and Lucius Papirius, they were finally reduced to submission, and compelled to purchase peace by the surrender of one-half of the great forest of Sila, so valuable for its pitch and timber.

Pyrrhus was proclaimed king of Sicily and began his fight against the Carthaginians, in which he scored several great victories.

Pyrrhus, though a great commander, mistreated the Sicilians, who quit supporting Pyrrhus.

After a few great victories, Pyrrhus abandoned his Sicilian campaign and returned whence he had come, to the states of Southern Italy.

After the decline of Epirus following the death of Pyrrhus, Agron took great strides in improving the lot of his subjects.

) The name of the former river is noticed also in connection with the first great battle between Pyrrhus and the Romans, 280 BCE, which was fought upon its banks ( Plut.

Pyrrhus managed to achieve great but costly victories against the Romans, hence the phrase " Pyrrhic victory " which refers to an exchange at the Battle of Asculum.

Ptolemy (); 237 BC-died 234 ВС ), king of Epirus, was the second son of Alexander II, king of Epirus, and Olympias, grandson of the great Pyrrhus and brother of Phthia of Macedon.

In 294 BC, after forty-three years of semi-autonomy under Macedonian suzerainty, Ambracia was given by the son of Cassander to Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, who made it his capital, and adorned it with palace, temples and theatres.

Category: Pyrrhus of Epirus

Alexander II was a king of Epirus, and the son of Pyrrhus and Lanassa, the daughter of the Sicilian tyrant Agathocles.

He married his paternal half-sister Olympias II of Epirus, by whom he had two sons, Pyrrhus II of Epirus, Ptolemy of Epirus and a daughter, Phthia of Macedon.

Category: Pyrrhus of Epirus

His second wife was Alcia and they had a daughter called Lanassa, who married as the second wife of King Pyrrhus of Epirus.

First the Latin league was forcibly dissolved during the Latin War, then the power of the Samnites was broken during the three prolonged Samnite wars, and the Greek cities of Magna Graecia who were unified after Pyrrhus of Epirus finally left Italy, requiring the Greek Cities in southern Italy to submit to Roman authority at the conclusion of the Pyrrhic War.

Often regarded as one of the greatest military strategists in European history, Hannibal would later be considered one of the greatest generals of antiquity, together with Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Scipio, and Pyrrhus of Epirus.

According to Polybius there had been several trade agreements between Rome and Carthage, even a mutual alliance against king Pyrrhus of Epirus.

Wars with Carthage, the Parthians and most notably, the campaigns against Pyrrhus of Epirus, illustrate this.

The citizens called Pyrrhus of Epirus for help.

* 280 BC: King Pyrrhus of Epirus invades Italy in an attempt to subjugate the Romans and bring Italy under a new empire ruled by himself

* After failing to decisively defeat the Romans, Pyrrhus of Epirus withdraws from Italy.

Unified into a single state in 370 BC by the Aeacidae dynasty, Epirus achieved fame during the reign of Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose campaigns against Rome are the origin of the term " Pyrrhic victory ".

Palermo eventually became a Greek colony when Pyrrhus of Epirus gained it during the Pyrrhic War period in 276 BC.

He offered Corfu as dowry to his daughter Lanassa on her marriage to Pyrrhus, King of Epirus.

They hired the mercenary, King Pyrrhus of Epirus, in neighboring Greece to fight the Romans on their behalf.

* Pyrrhus I, King of Epirus, r. 307 – 302, 297 – 272 BC

Taranto won the first of two wars against Rome for the control of Southern Italy: it was helped by Pyrrhus, king of Greek Epirus, who surprised Rome with the use of elephants in battle, a thing never seen before by the Romans.

Theatre of Pyrrhus in Dodona.

In c. 290 BCE, King Pyrrhus made Dodona the religious capital of his domain and beautified it by implementing a series of construction projects ( i. e. grandly rebuilt the Temple of Zeus, developed many other buildings, added a festival featuring athletic games, musical contests, and drama enacted in a theatre ).

Neoptolemus (; Greek: Νεοπτόλεμος, Neoptolemos, " new war "), also called Pyrrhus (; Πύρρος, Purrhos, " red ", for his red hair ), was the son of the warrior Achilles and the princess Deidamia in Greek mythology, and also the mythical progenitor of the ruling dynasty of the Molossians of ancient Epirus.

Pyrrhus gave her name to a new city called Berenicis.

Before this campaign was finished, Pyrrhus had embarked upon a new one.

* Two new legions levied for consul Publius Valerius Laevinus are deployed against Pyrrhus, reinforced by the existing legions of consul Tiberius Coruncanius from Etruria.

Their independence was soon threatened by the Aetolians, who began to occupy territory around the Gulf of Ambracia, including Pyrrhus ' old capital, Ambracia, which forced the Epirotes to establish a new center at Pheonice.