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Pyrrhic victory

Plutarch

Phraseologism: Pyrrhic victory.

Meaning: A victory that cost too many sacrifices, and therefore tantamount to defeat (book).

Origin: According to the ancient Greek historian Plutarch, the king of Epirus Pyrrhus in 279 BC. e., after his victory over the Romans at Asculum, he exclaimed: "Another such victory, and we are lost." Another version of the same phrase is known: "One more such victory, and I will be left without an army." In this battle, Pyrrhus won thanks to the presence in his army of war elephants, against which at that time the Romans did not yet know how to fight and therefore were powerless in front of them, "as if before rising water or a destructive earthquake," as the same Plutarch wrote. The Romans then had to leave the battlefield and retreat to their camp, which, according to the customs of those times, meant a complete victory for Pyrrhus. But the Romans fought courageously, so the winner on that day lost as many soldiers as the vanquished - 15 thousand people. Hence this bitter confession of Pyrrhus. Contemporaries compared Pyrrhus to a dice player who always makes a good throw, but does not know how to use this luck. As a result, this feature of Pyrrhus killed him. Moreover, an ominous role in his death was played by his own "miracle weapon" - war elephants. When Pyrrhus's army besieged the Greek city of Argos, his warriors found a way to penetrate the sleeping city. They would have captured it completely bloodlessly, if not for the decision of Pyrrhus to bring war elephants into the city. They did not pass through the gates - the combat towers installed on them interfered. They began to remove them, then re-mount them on animals, which caused a noise. The Argives grabbed their weapons, fighting began in the narrow city streets. There was general confusion: no one heard orders, no one knew who was where, what was happening on the next street. Argos has become a huge trap for the Epirus army. Pyrrhus tried to get out of the "captured" city as soon as possible. He sent a messenger to his son, who was standing near the city with a detachment, with an order to urgently break part of the wall so that the Epirus warriors would quickly leave the city. But the messenger misunderstood the order, and the son of Pyrrhus moved to the city to help his father. So two oncoming streams collided at the gate - those retreating from the city and those who hurried to their aid. To top it all off, the elephants rebelled: one lay down right at the gate, not wanting to move at all, the other, the most powerful, nicknamed Nikon, having lost his wounded driver friend, began to look for him, rush about and trample both his own and other people's soldiers. Finally, he found his friend, grabbed him with his trunk, put him on his tusks and rushed out of the city, crushing everyone he met. In this turmoil, Pyrrhus himself died. He fought a young Argive warrior whose mother, like all the women of the city, stood on the roof of her house. Being near the place of the fight, she saw her son and decided to help him. Having broken the tiles from the roof, she threw them at Pyrrhus and hit him in the neck, which was not protected by armor. The commander fell and was finished off on the ground. But, besides this "sad-born" phrase, Pyrrhus is also known for some achievements that enriched the military affairs of that time. So. he was the first to enclose the military camp with a defensive rampart and a moat.

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