280 B.C. Lego Battle of Heraclea. Pyrrhus of Epirus vs. Rome

Pyrrhus was the king of Epirus, a rocky impoverished kingdom in the northwest of Greece, just south of Macedonia. He was a second cousin of Alexander the Great. He came to southeastern Italy, just near the top of the heel, at the request of the Greeks of the city of Tarentum, who had just provoked (or been provoked into) war with Rome. Other Greeks of southern Italy supported Pyrrhus in his bid to challenge Rome, like Greeks from Thurii, Metapontum, and Heraclea itself (the city from which the battle's name is derived).

Pyrrhus came with his own Hellenic Phalanx and also soldiers donated by Ptolemy II of Egypt, the Greek king of that part of Alexander's fractured empire. Ptolemy II also lent 20 war elephants to Pyrrhus, the first known use of these animals in Italy. Sixty years later Hannibal Barca would invade Italy with elephants for a second time.

The legions of Rome were commanded in the battle of Heraclea by Consul Publius Valerius Laevinus. He sent his cavalry around as if to conduct a foraging mission, but in fact to cross the river Siris behind the lines of the Greeks.

The Roman legions crossed the river directly against the light infantry along the Greeks' side of the river. Slingers from Rhodes and archers shot at the Romans but scattered when enough Romans gathered on the Greeks' side of the river. They alerted Pryyhus and the heavy infantry and calvary that the legions had arrived.

The Roman legion and Greek phalanx had never done battle before, and although the Romans could not defeat the phalanx, the phalanx could not turn the lines of legionaries. The elephants, however, were unknown to the horses of the Roman cavalry, which fled in a panic at the sight or smell of the elephants. This left the Roman lines undefended by cavalry, and soon attacked on its flank. With heavy losses the Romans retreated.

Pyrrhus was the victor of the battle, but at a loss of soldiers that was too steep for him to bear more than once. While the Romans could easily and quickly recruit replacement legionaries, Pyrrhus' losses were not easily replaced.

After a second battle against the Romans the next year at Asculum, which Pyrrhus also won, Pyrrhus remarked that another such victory against the Romans would utterly undo him.

Good information about this battle and Pyrrhus is recorded in almost-contemporary sources that we still have, and can be read in English translation for free at:

http://www.livius.org/ps-pz/pyrrhus/pyrrhus01.html

http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Pyrrhus*.html

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