A Pyrrhic victory means winning at such a great cost , it almost amount to a defeat . extremely relatable to anyone who ’s ever tried to “ win " at an all - you - can - eat on buffet , and a lesson that Pyrrhus , King of Epirus , study the hard way when he move to war with elephant .
The first time Romans see an elephant was during conflict back in280 BCEwhen Pyrrhus transported 20 war elephant to Italy . Hard to suppose the futility you ’d feel standing on the struggle lines , spear up in deal , as a jumbo , armoured gymnastic horse with a fifth tree branch for a nozzle charge toward you .
The war - come - crash - course of instruction - in - fauna was an effort to reclaim the throne , and he was successful against the Romans in Heraclea and Asculum , but only just . The academic degree of casualty was so wicked that historianPlutarch quote Pyrrhusas having enjoin , “ If we are winning in one more conflict with the Romans , we shall be utterly ruined . ”
Pyrrhus depart level in once more with his war elephant , but it was the suffer out again that would be his precipitation . The story go that the body of one of his deceased war elephants was blocking the means out , post the remaining elephantine horse into a frenzy .
In the radioactive dust , Pyrrhus was injured by an foe soldier , and in getting even stabbed him to death . Problem solved , or it would have been , had the soldier ’s female parent not been watch from a nearby rooftop .
In her grief - strike rage , the mother cast a tile at Pyrrhus ’s fountainhead and struck her target . According toThe Collective , Plutarch recalled , “ She was filled with cult and fear … and pluck up a tile with both her hired hand she hurled it at Pyrrhus . ”
Whether thetile strikeitself stop Pyrrhus off , or just dazed him long enough to succumb to further enemy attacks , is debated online . Either style , after his helter-skelter bar of by - the - peel - of - the - teeth victory , it seems fitting that a man who went to warfare with elephants should be brought down with the weight of a cap tile .
As embarrassing death go , it ’s still not quite as bad as the Hellenic philosopher whodied express mirth at his own joke about a Equus asinus eating some figs . Oh , Chrysippus …
