Plutarch’s Lives: Life of Pyrrhus

by Plutarch

Plutarch was a Greek historian, biographer, essayist, and Middle Platonist known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia . Thanks to his writings and lectures Plutarch became a celebrity in the Roman Empire. At his country estate, guests from all over the empire congregated for serious conversation, presided over by Plutarch in his marble chair. Many of these dialogues were recorded and published, and the 78 essays and other works which have survived are now known collectively as the Moralia .

Plutarch’s best-known work is the Parallel Lives , a series of biographies of famous Greeks and Romans, arranged in pairs to illuminate their common moral virtues and vices. The surviving Lives contain 23 pairs, each with one Greek Life and one Roman Life , as well as four unpaired single Lives . Some of the Lives , such as those of Heracles, Philip II of Macedon and Scipio Africanus, no longer exist; many of the remaining Lives are truncated, contain obvious lacunae or have been tampered with by later writers. Extant Lives include those on Aristides, Pericles, Pompey, Julius Caesar, Cicero, Cato the Younger, Mark Antony, and Marcus Junius Brutus.

Plutarch also wrote a series of biographies, including the biographies of Demetrius, Pyrrhus, Agis and Cleomenes, Aratus and Artaxerxes, Philopoemen, Camillus, Marcellus, Flamininus, Aemilius Paulus, Galba and Otho.

Genres: Biography, History

42 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2001

About the author

Plutarch (later named, upon becoming a Roman citizen, Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus; AD 46–AD 120) was a Greek historian, biographer, and essayist, known primarily for his Parallel Lives and Moralia. He is classified as a Middle Platonist. Plutarch's surviving works were written in Greek, but intended for both Greek and Roman readers.

Reviews

[David Sarkies · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alexander Wannabe
31 July 2018

It seems that as soon as Alexander the Great went roaring through the Middle East carving out one of the largest empires then known every two-bit ruler wanted to not only emulate, but exceed, his accomplishments. Honestly, I’m not sure that is at all possible because not only was he an excellent general, a part of me feels that maybe, just maybe, Alexander never originally intended to go out and conquer the world – he just basically wanted to deal with the Persian threat. Well, deal with them he did, but the thing was that the more he chased Darius III, the more territory he ended up conquering, until he found himself at the far end of Bactria, and from then on it was, well, lets just see what else we can do.

So, years after Alexander had left his mark on the Middle East, and when Macedon was a pale reflection of what it once was, we suddenly find ourselves introduced to a young man who was the ruler for a small city on the far side of the Greek peninsula – Pyrrhus of Epirus. Well, he sort of grew up in exile, and while he did manage to reclaim his throne for a short while, he ended up in Egypt where he married the daughter of Ptolemy I. With the backing of the king of Egypt, he then returned to Epirus and basically kicked out the usurper and reclaimed the throne for himself. Interestingly, he was also the second cousin of Alexander the Great, so I guess there was a bit of family pressure to emulate his second-cousin’s feats.

The thing with Pyrrhus is that it seemed that luck was on his side for a while, because he seemed to have this ability to win battles. Well, that was until he decided to attempt to emulate Alexander’s success, but instead of going east, as Alexander had done, he decided to go west – to Rome. Well, not quite, he went to the city of Tarrentum, which was under siege by Roman forces, and they had put out the request for help. So, desiring battle, and also with this dream of extending an empire over the Mediterranean, Pyrrhus took a bunch of soldier, and a herd of elephants, and crossed over the Adriatic Sea. Well, let’s just say that while he won the battle, it wasn’t the type of battle that he would want repeated – as he famously said, if he has any more battles like this one he would be ruined. Yep, this is the guy whom the term Pyrrhic victory was coined after.

Well, he did try to establish an empire, and when he failed to take Sicily, namely because the one city that held out against him comprised of such fierce warriors and he was basically defeated on the battle field, Pyrrhus was forced to return home – bankrupt and beaten. This was the problem with Pyrrhus – he was a bit of a character, and pretty much won most of his battles through intimidation – having a herd of elephants sort of does that for you. The problem is that when people actually fought back then there was going to be a problem, as was the case with the Romans.

As Plutarch points out, while he managed to defeat the Romans, he wasn’t able to capitalise on that victory – the Romans simply had this ability to continue to raise reinforcements, something that Pyrrhus wasn’t able to do. As for the Sicilians, well, they were fierce warriors, and like the Romans, they weren’t all that keen on submitting to a foreign power. Sure, the Greeks were happy with him, but when it came to the non-Greeks, well, that was a completely different story – and the Spartans, they weren’t happy to submit to him either.

Yet he still had this ability to win battles, but then again it seemed as if he was one of those people that was somewhat addicted to war. For instance, when he returned to Epirus, he realised that he didn’t have any money, so he decided to do what most people at the time did when they ran out of money – go and take it from somebody else (actually, I believe they still do that today). So, he went over to the Macedonians, and decided to simply raid some of their cities. Well, he turned out to be pretty successful, so he continued until he had basically subjugated them. It seems then that he wasn’t happy to just go back to Epirus and relax, instead he decided to go and pick on somebody else – the Spartans. Well, at first he was victorious, but eventually his luck ran out, and you could say that it was the end of the story.

Interestingly, it seemed as if he was somewhat of a rather flamboyant character, and also somebody who really didn’t have a huge understanding of tactics, other than scaring people with elephants, and relying on dumb luck, and charm as well. Yeah, charm can get you to some pretty high places, but sometimes you reach a point where charm stops working, and you have to actually demonstrate some real skills. Also interestingly, Alexander’s success seemed to come out not through detailed planning, or a desire to conquer the world, but the fact that the war against Darius led him there. This was not the case with Pyrrhus, who went to war with the Romans with the belief that he could conquer them as well.

Another interesting thing to note is how long Alexander’s empire lasted – not long. This also seems to be the case with many of these empires run by tinpot dictators – they don’t last long. Sure, they may have conquered the world, but there was no depth to their conquests. Compare this with Rome, who would continually build on a foundation, and wasn’t reliant on a single personality. This is a similar way as to how the modern empires developed – there was no single personality that dominated the Empire, but rather it came about through trade, and economic prosperity. In fact the most powerful empires seemed to be those that have an establish bureaucracy. When the Roman Republic collapsed to be replaced by the rule of the Emperors, there was already a solid foundation to the empire that it was not only able to survive the rule of Augustus, but was also able to continue for another four hundred odd years,

[Dave Harmon · Rating 4 out of 5]

i once played a game of risk and lost very quickly because i couldnt get a single decent dice roll. that must be how Pyrrhus felt.
This book has one of my favorite anecdotes from antiquity, a conversation between Pyrrhus and his resident philosopher friend who during a conversation keeps asking Pyrrhus what would we do then? after the ROmans we could easily conquer all of Italy.
then what?
well bviously Sicily would easily be next.
then what?
well Africa and Carthage are right there for the taking of course.
then what?
well then we would have the strength to retake Macedon, greece, and the rest of Alexander's empire!
then what?
well then we could relax drink and have a good time.
but my kind, we are already doing that now without doing any of those things.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This review is specifically for the edition edited by Anne White. That edition is broken up into 12 reading “lessons” and each one contains vocab, important information at the beginning of each reading portion, and discussion questions at the end of each section. These edits make Plutarch’s “Lives” much more palatable to the modern reader. I read this book aloud to my student for Government/Citizenship as an introduction to the roots and legacy Rome and Greece have had on the US government setup. We had a lot of good discussion about Pyrrhus’ character, tactics, and compared him to other Lives we have read about.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 2nd best general of the ancient world should be better known. What a tragic end he had dying by a roof tile dropped by a mother protecting her son!