Pyrrhic War - Battle of Beneventum

Battle of Beneventum

In 275 BC, Pyrrhus was back in Italy. He faced the Romans at the town of Maleventum (translation: Bad Event) in southern Italy and was severely defeated, as the Romans had learned how to deal with his spearmen and elephants. The Romans had learned that they could wound the elephants in the side using their pila, the short throwing spears that had come into use during the Samnite Wars. This would in turn panic the elephants, which ran out of control and trampled their own troops. (This was more than sixty years before the famous campaign of Hannibal of Carthage in which he crossed the Alps with an army employing elephants.)

After the battle, the Romans renamed the town to Beneventum (Good Event) in recognition of their victory over Pyrrhus. He then retreated into Tarentum for the duration of the war. Pyrrhus soon left Italy forever and returned to the Greek mainland, leaving a sufficient force to garrison Tarentum. He had lost two thirds of his army during the fighting and had little to show for his efforts. His parting words were memorable, What a battlefield I am leaving for Carthage and Rome!

He had scarcely embarked before Tarentum surrendered to the Romans (272 BC). Rome treated the Tarentines leniently, allowing them the same local self-rule it allowed other cities. Tarentum in turn recognized Rome's hegemony in Italy and became another of Rome's allies, while a Roman garrison remained in Tarentum to ensure its loyalty. Other Greek cities and the Bruttian tribes with their valuable forest-country surrendered likewise, undertaking to supply Rome with ships and crews in future. Some Greek cities may still have seen themselves as allies, rather than subjects, of Rome.