Pyrrhos Aiakides

[Argeus the Paladin]

Aka. Pyrrhus of Epirus, the person after whom Pyrrhic Victory was coined.

It was only after some additional reading that I realized he was not an everyday ambitious king with little talent who was far too ahead of himself. The man was regarded by Hannibal to be the second most talented general of antiquity by Hannibal Barca, and no ordinary ambitious king would get such an honor.

The bad luck that befell this man was great, though. Or perhaps it was some strategical rather than tactical blunders that cost him the empire that could have been his and his life.

In any case, a man worthy of some comment.

Discuss the life and time of this man here.

Off-topic: His name reminds me of Piro the American otaku from Megatokyo/Piro the cat from Kanon somehow.[/weaboo rant]

[Demetrios of Messene]

It was his lack of focus and restless character that cost him the empire that could have been his. He waged successful wars in Southern Italy, Sicily and mainland Greece, but he could not consolidate his gains.

It was his perception of honour and duty (similar to most warrior-generals of the early hellenistic era) that cost him his life. He personally commanded his troops and fought among them defying death like his role model and relative, Alexander, did.

Pyrrhus enjoyed fame while he was alive and his reputation increased post mortem. Even the Romans idealised his character and his deeds (of course that did not stop them from ravaging Pyrrhus home and enslaving the population of Epirus).

[Faramir D'Andunie]

The more I read about him the less certain I am that he did lack focus, but rather suffered from lacking the resources to pursue his ambitions, especially in his Italian campaign in which the city of Taras promised a silly amount of forces to assist him while they were pretty much non existant.

There was an excellent post in a similar thread in the past,

In order to answer this question one has first to dwell into the Greek cultural standards of the Hellenistic era, according to which Pyrrhus was judged:

A Hellenistic commander yearned both for victory by intellect and to do great deeds with his own hands, to be ‘most capable in fighting and generalling’. When men ranked the commanders of their time they thought in terms of personal prowess as well as well as intellectual quality: cleverness and courage are the qualities that describe a good commander. This yearning to compete both as a commander and a fighter at the same time presented severe practical difficulties. Polybius complained of commanders who put themselves in danger and thus placed the entire enterprise at risk. Yet he could not conceal his admiration for commanders who did so. How could a general keep his mind on the overall progress of the battle while fighting with his own hands? It was noted of Pyrrhus of Epirus that he managed this difficult balance: “Placing his hands and body in the fight and vigorously repelling his assailants, he did not become confused in his thinking nor lose his reason, but directed the battle as if he were surveying it from a distance, rushing here and there and bringing succor to those whom seemed overwhelmed.”
J.E. Lendon’s “Soldiers and Ghosts: A history of battle in classical antiquity”, pg 148


As a tactician Pyrrhus was definitely no genius, but still possessed skills and acumen much above the average. As a teen he gave an excellent account of himself as a commander in the battle of Ipsus and later he scored many victories in the wars of the Diadochoi against Demetrius the Besieger and Antigonos Gonatas. He was the only commander who dealt with the problem of breaches emerging in an advancing phalanx by artificially forming dead space between the battalions and arraying mobile troops in the gaps. He was the only Hellenistic commander alongside Xanthippus to defeat the Romans in a large-scale battle and he performed this feat not once but twice. All the rest were not just defeated but crushed (Hiero, Philip V, Antiochos the Great, Perseus, Diaios) He conquered almost all of Sicily in a rapid campaign and would have occupied the last Carthaginian enclave as well, had the Greeks themselves not driven him out. Compare his performance with the perpetual struggles of Dionysius the Elder or Agathocles against Carthage and the unruly Italic nations of the interior of the island. He made Illyrians and Aetolians, who would make a pushover of Epirus after he was gone, tremble at the sound of his name. And he also wrote a treatise on tactics, which received great praise in antiquity, but has been lost to us unfortunately. What is more he did occasionally use guile and trickery in his enterprises like night marches, surprise attacks, mock negotiations, inciting dissent among the enemy, concealing unfavorable and spreading false information, enough to establish a reputation as no less cunning to any man of his age. But the department where Pyrrhus really dominated competition, which allowed him to capture the hearts and minds of his contemporaries, was his valor on the battlefield:

There was a sharp and terrible conflict between the soldiers who engaged, and especially also between the leaders. For Pantauchus, who was confessedly the best of the generals of Demetrius for bravery, dexterity, and vigour of body, and had both courage and a lofty spirit, challenged Pyrrhus to a hand-to‑hand combat; and Pyrrhus, who yielded to none of the kings in daring and prowess, and wished that the glory of Achilles should belong to him by right of valour rather than of blood alone, advanced through the foremost fighters to confront Pantauchus. At first they hurled their spears, then, coming to close quarters, they plied their swords with might and skill. Pyrrhus got one wound, but gave Pantauchus two, one in the thigh, and one along the neck, and put him to flight and overthrew him; he did not kill him, however, for his friends haled him away. Then the Epeirots, exalted by the victory of their king and admiring his valour, overwhelmed and cut to pieces the phalanx of the Macedonians, pursued them as they fled, slew many of them, and took five thousand of them alive.
Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus 7.4-5

The Romans, however, anxious to anticipate the coming of the forces which Pyrrhus had decided to await, attempted the passage, their infantry crossing the river by a ford, and their cavalry dashing through the water at many points, so that the Greeks on guard, fearing that they would be surrounded, withdrew. When Pyrrhus saw this, he was greatly disturbed, and charging his infantry officers to form in line of battle at once and stand under arms, he himself rode out with his three thousand horsemen, hoping to come upon the Romans while they were still crossing, and to find them scattered and in disorder. But when he saw a multitude of shields gleaming on the bank of the river and the cavalry advancing upon him in good order, he formed his men in close array and led them to the attack. He was conspicuous at once for the beauty and splendour of his richly ornamented armour, and showed by his deeds that his valour did not belie his fame;
Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus 16.6-7

Then he determined to storm the walls of Eryx, which was the strongest of their fortresses and had numerous defenders. So when his army was ready, he put on his armour, went out to battle, and made a vow to Heracles that he would institute games and a sacrifice in his honour, if the god would render him in the sight of the Sicilian Greeks an antagonist worthy of his lineage and resources; then he ordered the trumpets to sound, scattered the Barbarians with his missiles, brought up his scaling-ladders, and was the first to mount the wall. Many were the foes against whom he strove; some of them he pushed from the wall on either side and hurled them to the ground, but most he laid dead in heaps about him with the strokes of his sword. He himself suffered no harm, but was a terrible sight for his enemies to look upon, and proved that Homer was right and fully justified in saying that valour, alone of the virtues, often displays transports due to divine possession and frenzy. After the capture of the city, he sacrificed to the god in magnificent fashion and furnished spectacles of all sorts of contests.
Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, 22.5-6


One of them ran forth far in advance of the rest, a man who was huge in body and resplendent in armour, and in a bold voice challenged Pyrrhus to come out, if he were still alive. This angered Pyrrhus, and wheeling round in spite of his guards, he pushed his way through them — full of wrath, smeared with blood, and with a countenance terrible to look upon, and before the Barbarian could strike dealt him such a blow on his head with his sword that, what with the might of his arm and the excellent temper of his steel, it cleaved its way down through, so that at one instant the parts of the sundered body fell to either side. This checked the Barbarians from any further advance, for they were amazed and confounded at Pyrrhus, and thought him some superior being. So he accomplished the rest of his march unmolested and came to Tarentum, bringing twenty thousand foot and three thousand horse.
Plutarch, Life of Pyrrhus, 24.2-4

To synopsize, there was a self-contradictory culture in Hellenistic command, the dominating Homeric mold that had been redefined and supercharged by the example of Alexander the Great all over Greece, which ranked generals in an order of excellence based on their performance in three departments: tactics (“tactics is the highest art of war"), strategems("in war less is achieved openly and with force than guile") and valor on the battlefield. Pyrrhus was considered great because of his performance in these three departments and because he could keep the difficult balance between them. We take a look at Pyrrhus by modern military values and see an ill strategist who wasted resources, couldn’t set his eyes fixed on a goal and repeatedly put himself in harm’s way risking his endeavors, but the ancients saw a sharp field commander, a taker of cities and a great warrior all at once, their generation’s most ideal embodiment of the Homeric heroic model. Finally, people outside the Greek cultural confines also esteemed Pyrrhus for these abilities and for his daring nature. Hannibal, we are told for example by Polybius, considered Pyrrhus the second greatest general, ‘for he showed that boldness is the most crucial excellence of a general’ and Cicero liked to portray Pyrrhus as a grave but noble threat to the young Republic, as opposed to its the gruesome, dreadful arch-rival that was Hannibal.

edit
Fixed some grammar mistakes, bad idea to post while your focus is on your meal.

[Giorgos]

Pyrrhus could have been the one to wreck the Romans, had he had reinforcements. He didn't get them. History is as it is.

[SigniferOne]

Basically the Greek culture was collapsing/folding on itself in the 3rd century BC. By the 1st century BC the Greek cities had an awful citizenry, embarrassing state and prospects, and there was not a single skilled author, artist or philosopher left anywhere in Greece. See hellenistic sculptures and stelae, or the awful writings of someone like Philodemus who was uncovered near Pompeii.

If it wasn't for the Roman 'conquest' and the subsequent rebirth of classical Greek values, there would've been nothing left.

[Demetrios of Messene]

Basically the Greek culture was collapsing/folding on itself in the 3rd century BC. By the 1st century BC the Greek cities had an awful citizenry, embarrassing state and prospects, and there was not a single skilled author, artist or philosopher left anywhere in Greece. See hellenistic sculptures and stelae, or the awful writings of someone like Philodemus who was uncovered near Pompeii.

If it wasn't for the Roman 'conquest' and the subsequent rebirth of classical Greek values, there would've been nothing left.

Errr... where did this come from and how does it relate to the thread???

After Alexander's conquests, Greek culture actually exploded outside the boundaries of the Greek cities and kingdoms. Greek cities in mainland Greece had fallen under Roman rule by 1st century B.C.

After 3rd century B.C., Greek artists, authors and philosophers were extremely active in the great cities of the hellenistic states (e.g. Euclid, Eratosthenes) and great personalities kept appearing even in traditional greek cities (e.g. Archimedes).

So, no Roman "conquest" did not save or revive the Greek culture, because it was not dead to begin with.

[Carpathian Wolf]

Errr... where did this come from and how does it relate to the thread???

After Alexander's conquests, Greek culture actually exploded outside the boundaries of the Greek cities and kingdoms. Greek cities in mainland Greece had fallen under Roman rule by 1st century B.C.

After 3rd century B.C., Greek artists, authors and philosophers were extremely active in the great cities of the hellenistic states (e.g. Euclid, Eratosthenes) and great personalities kept appearing even in traditional greek cities (e.g. Archimedes).

So, no Roman "conquest" did not save or revive the Greek culture, because it was not dead to begin with.

This comes from his Helleno-phobia and general disregard for anything eastern europe. Stick around you'll see what I mean.

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Basically the Greek culture was collapsing/folding on itself in the 3rd century BC. By the 1st century BC the Greek cities had an awful citizenry, embarrassing state and prospects,

Perhaps because by the 2nd century Greece had been conquered by the Romans and the only thing left for the assemblies of citizens to do was praise Rome, the pro-Roman oligarchies and the system of eyergetism. Otherwise they would share the fate of Epirus (167BC), Corinth (146BC), Delphi and Athens (86BC).

and there was not a single skilled author,

Strabo sends his regards.

artist

You mean like the sculptor who created this?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

or philosopher left anywhere in Greece.

Poseidonius begs to differ.

If it wasn't for the Roman 'conquest' and the subsequent rebirth of classical Greek values, there would've been nothing left.

There wasn't anything left. By the 1st century BC Rome itself had decayed, the old agrarian basis of the Roman society had been corroded by the exponential increase in concentration of land at the hands of the senatorial class, corruption was rampant, the old civic ideals were dead, the Republic itself collapsed and at its wake sprung forth a military dicatorship. Where do you see the revival of Greek classical ideals? Those assumed liberty and civic ethos as prerequisites. Rome lacked the latter and Greece lacked both. And what you coin as 'rebirth' of Greece (the Second Sophistic? ha) was in fact a goofy attempt on behalf of the Romans and the Greeks to recreate classical past, in military and in culture, which is the ultimate indicator of stagnation and outdated antiquarianism.

[SigniferOne]

Poseidonius begs to differ.

Actually Posidonius is an interesting case. He is not recorded to have had incredible or profound mind; he was merely a professor of decent acumen. A much more accurate example of the 1st century BC culture is Diodorus, or Philodemus. There wasn't a single competent historian in Greece after 4th century BC. Polybius was the only exception and he railed at the cultural collapse of Greece of his time. And he was the 2nd century BC. A hundred years later it was even worse.

Compare the professors of rhetoric in Attica and elsewhere with the actual practitioners of rhetoric/oratory like Cicero. The teachers in those places were no longer giants like Demosthenes or Aeschines who could sway entire multitudes with their professions, but basically dried out feeble professors. Several historians, Greek and Roman, record that when the greatest Roman men of active mind (e.g. Cicero, Hortensius, Piso, Brutus) took to the Attic or Rhodian schools, they very quickly overtook their professors in all fields that they studied.

Strabo sends his regards.

Strabo, need I remind you, is an Augustan writer who happened to have been writing in Greek. After the 1st century BC begins an aggressive championing of Greek culture by the Romans themselves; the Neo-Attic sculpture takes off precisely at this time, in contrast to the corrupted and degenerate art-works you can find in Greek museums for 2-1st centuries BC. Why does Neo-Attic sculpture take off? Because of Roman emphasis and patronage.

Strabo and subsequent Greek writers are all living in an Augustan world where classical Greek values are championed to the exclusion of all else (e.g. the subsequent corrupt baggage), where all educated people speak Greek and Latin, and culture is supported by the underlying championing of the Roman nobility. Just read Strabo's works, being peacefully able to travel from Gaul to Italy, Africa, Spain, and everywhere else in between. He makes several references to the beneficence and gentle ease of a post-Augustan civilized life.

There wasn't anything left.

No? The old agrarian basis decayed, but that is the sole claim to fame in Roman history? Would you say that there was nothing left in Greece by the 4th century BC because the old agrarian basis decayed, and citizens preferred to sit in theaters all perfumed up (Demosthenes' description) rather than working the fields and fighting for their country?

And what you coin as 'rebirth' of Greece (the Second Sophistic? ha)

The rebirth of Greece did not start with the Second Sophistic, and I've never said that. It began with the late 1st century BC accession of Romans to rule over Greece, engineering patronage of the few Greeks who championed classical values, and emulation of those values among the Romans themselves (e.g. the Ara Pacis, sculpted by an Italian workshop). The Augustan period is a high moment of the Greek revival, where the Greek arts were once again capable of creating masterpieces like the Laocoon.

It is typical for some scholars to look down on the Second Sophistic however, without any basis for that disdain whatsoever. The greatest Greek scientists lived in this period (Ptolemy, Galen, subsequently Diophantus), while many of the great Greek authors flourished here as well (Plutarch, Lucian, Hermogenes, etc).

[Timoleon of Korinthos]

Actually Posidonius is an interesting case. He is not recorded to have had incredible or profound mind; he was merely a professor of decent acumen.

And also acclaimed as the greater polymath of his age. His decent acumen also produced an astronomical device similar to the Antikythera mechanism.

A much more accurate example of the 1st century BC culture is Diodorus, or Philodemus.

And why not Dionysius of Halicarnassus? By the way, you want a dubious historian right at the heart of Greece's golden age? Herodotus: military incompetence, hearsay, myths, subjectivity, beliefs in fate, divine intervention, you name it, he has. How is Diodorus worse?

There wasn't a single competent historian in Greece after 4th century BC. Polybius was the only exception and he railed at the cultural collapse of Greece of his time. And he was the 2nd century BC. A hundred years later it was even worse.

And how would you know, when the only work that has survived (largely) intact is precicely the work of Polybius? How exactly can you judge and issue a verdict on Timaeus, Phylarchus and Poseidonius, when you can't study their work in the first place? How do you know that in an earlier age Philistus was not better than Thucidides and Ephorus than Xenophon; or if they were not both worse than Diodorus?

Compare the professors of rhetoric in Attica and elsewhere with the actual practitioners of rhetoric/oratory like Cicero. The teachers in those places were no longer giants like Demosthenes or Aeschines who could sway entire multitudes with their professions, but basically dried out feeble professors.

And guess what, the home-cities of those professors were also not the once powerful and independed states that could raise mighty armies and fleets. They were defeated, occupied, disarmed, reduced to provincial status and absorbed by an ever-growing titanic political entity. To what means would have a 1st century BC Athenian orator have swayed the masses, when Athens wielded 0 kg of geopolitical might on the international level and could only make decisions of her own for the most trivial of matters?
Demosthenes and Aeschines had lived in a very different era, when Athens was still a force to be reckoned with and could exert influence to the course of history. If they had lived in 50BC they would have been, for all their skills, nobodies. Similarly, contemporary Cicero made a monumental impact owing both to his orational prowess and his political standing as member of the Senate in an era of dramatic incidents and historical corssroads for the Roman civilisation. If he had not been born a Roman or if he had been born a Roman of the 3rd century AD, he likewise wouldn't have become more than a footnote in history.

Strabo, need I remind you, is an Augustan writer who happened to have been writing in Greek.

Strabo was a Greek writing as all Greek authors in his native langauge, who also studied next to another Greek (Aristodemus) in his youth and yet aside other Greeks (Xenocrates, Athenodoros) enlisted at the Augustan court when he moved to Rome.

After the 1st century BC begins an aggressive championing of Greek culture by the Romans themselves; the Neo-Attic sculpture takes off precisely at this time, in contrast to the corrupted and degenerate art-works you can find in Greek museums for 2-1st centuries BC.

Corrupted and degenerate as in this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

or this

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

You are nuts.

Why does Neo-Attic sculpture take off? Because of Roman emphasis and patronage.

Or maybe because the 2nd and 1st century BC had seen Greece acting as the battlefield of the perpetual large scale wars, the Roman civil wars standing out, prominent cultural centers like Corinth, Athens and Delphi being sacked and the population being financially squeezed by tax demands from the various contending parties, whereas the 1st century AD saw the return to some semblance normal life and financial recovery?

At any rate, do you realise what you suggest? That copying and attempting to recreate the style and the patterns of the past is admirable, whereas exploring new, authentic oriantations and creating masterpieces like the Winged Nike and the Dying Gaul is deplorable.

Strabo and subsequent Greek writers are all living in an Augustan world where classical Greek values are championed to the exclusion of all else (e.g. the subsequent corrupt baggage), where all educated people speak Greek and Latin, and culture is supported by the underlying championing of the Roman nobility.

Writing in Greek (even more so if you are Greek) and following the stylistical patterns of classical era does not comprise holding up to classical values. Promoting the idea that the citizen body collectively makes the political decisions, that armies fight out of patriotism rather than for pay, that man ought to craft a fortune for himself and for his city, that is enshrining classical values. But I don't see any of these in Augustan Rome; as a matter of fact I see the opposite: a military diactatorship under guise, a professional army recruitng largely from non Italians and non citizens, while the civic ethos of old keeps going down the spiral, and the system of euergetism becoming a necessary implement in the financial life of most Greek cities.

Just read Strabo's works, being peacefully able to travel from Gaul to Italy, Africa, Spain, and everywhere else in between. He makes several references to the beneficence and gentle ease of a post-Augustan civilized life.

I am not denying, but this does not equal patronage of classical values.

No? The old agrarian basis decayed, but that is the sole claim to fame in Roman history? Would you say that there was nothing left in Greece by the 4th century BC because the old agrarian basis decayed, and citizens preferred to sit in theaters all perfumed up (Demosthenes' description) rather than working the fields and fighting for their country?

No, because at that point there was still momentum from the previous century and the brief hegemony of Thebes illuminated the old civic ideals of the agrarian soldier and the politician-general for one last time. But Chaeroneia officially trumpeted the death of city-state. The world Philip and Alexander crafted was one for poets and merchants and actors and enginneers and mercenaries and adventurers and kings' protegees, there was no room for patriots and politicians. By the 3rd century Greece had became a dominion of oligarchy, of interstate homogenisation of the privilleged class through sympolities, of social imbalance and internal strife. The old political values were dead and the demilitarisation of (the larger part of) the society was on the rise - the eternal curse of professionalism. Definitely a strikingly different picture from Greece of the 6th and 5th centuries.

It is typical for some scholars to look down on the Second Sophistic however, without any basis for that disdain whatsoever. The greatest Greek scientists lived in this period (Ptolemy, Galen, subsequently Diophantus), while many of the great Greek authors flourished here as well (Plutarch, Lucian, Hermogenes, etc).

The greatest Greek scientists flourished in the Hellenistic era: Archimides, Ctesibius, Euclid, Hipparchus, Aristarchus, whoever manufactured the Antikythera machanism etc. The second sophistic is a laughable, pittyful attempt to recreate a past long deceased (Arrian: "I am the new Xenophon, people" LMFAO) and the strangling choke of antiquarianism in all levels, the fact that it comprised the greater part of actual cultural life in this period to mimick and copy the culture of 4-5 centuries ago, higlights how devoid of energy and spirit had the civilisation in Greece become.

[SigniferOne]

And why not Dionysius of Halicarnassus?

Because he was an Augustan writer, that is, driven and formulated by the culture of the Augustan court and age. He was not some renowned Greek writer, orbiting in his own greatness and popularity; he was obscure and unknown, plucked out from the general dessicated culture of Greece and moved to Rome, where, encouraged by Romans, he spent 20 years on literary scholarship and research of Roman history. You need to make a distinction between Augustan Greek writers and those before that.

By the way, you want a dubious historian right at the heart of Greece's golden age? Herodotus: military incompetence, hearsay, myths, subjectivity, beliefs in fate, divine intervention, you name it, he has. How is Diodorus worse?

There is nothing dubious about either the belief in fate or divine intervention; not all thinking men are atheists, I'm sorry to disappoint you. All of the great ancient (as well as many modern) historians thought of the notion of fate, Polybius and Dionysius front and center among them. As for Herodotus' real faults, they can hardly be ascribed to the man who founded the profession of history writing as we know it. Do we blame the first computer for thick tubes, no transistor, and occupying a whole building just to do a simple operation? It is a miracle he wrote anything at all, and we should be thankful to him for that.

That is not the problem with Diodorus; many of his writings are actually inspired, profound, and I have little to criticize on the content of his history. The problem lies here: when scholars began reading Diodorus in the original Greek, they discovered that many of the passages were written in different styles of writing, indeed sometimes in different dialects of Greek. Looking over the whole thing as a panorama, they discovered that it was little more than a jigsaw puzzle of Greek writings across many geographical locations, political orientations, and writing styles. That's when it became clear that his history is something like a Frankenstein, consisting of little more than pieces of other histories, literally replicated and unthinkingly put together.

And how would you know, when the only work that has survived (largely) intact is precicely the work of Polybius? How exactly can you judge and issue a verdict on Timaeus, Phylarchus and Poseidonius, when you can't study their work in the first place? How do you know that in an earlier age Philistus was not better than Thucidides and Ephorus than Xenophon; or if they were not both worse than Diodorus?

We can judge it very well, in fact. Have you read Polybius' chapter on Timaeus? We also have several of his fragments, the man was a historical hack, biased, with no objective purpose and little redeeming quality.

As for Phylarchus, I've quickly looked him up on Wiki and Polybius says of him that he "wrote history for the purpose of effect, and for seeking to harrow up the feelings of his readers by the narrative of deeds of violence and horror."

Philistus I know nothing about, but I have nothing bad to say against Ephorus; he was one of the last competent historians. In fact he was better than Xenophon, and you are wholly misplacing your admiration for the 5th century in ascribing to Xenophon any credit. Xenophon's history is so completely biased and partial for the Spartans that he omits to mention the battle of Leuctra in any great detail, or explain its effects on the Spartan state. His Anabasis is competent but also rather dry, and is more a travel journal than an effective complete history. Xenophon is a bad representative of high Greek historiography.

And guess what, the home-cities of those professors were also not the once powerful and independed states that could raise mighty armies and fleets. They were defeated, occupied, disarmed, reduced to provincial status and absorbed by an ever-growing titanic political entity.

And why would this stop them from writing quality literature?

To what means would have a 1st century BC Athenian orator have swayed the masses, when Athens wielded 0 kg of geopolitical might on the international level and could only make decisions of her own for the most trivial of matters?

I'm not saying that those Greek professors of oratory were supposed to have had real geopolitical weight. I'm saying that they should've at least been awesome and moving in practice, in their own classrooms, whereas the testimony is that these passionate Romans quickly overtook them in all private classroom exercises.

Strabo was a Greek writing as all Greek authors in his native langauge, who also studied next to another Greek (Aristodemus) in his youth and yet aside other Greeks (Xenocrates, Athenodoros) enlisted at the Augustan court when he moved to Rome.

Correct he was an Augustan Greek writer, one of the first that started the revival of Greek literature. He was plucked from obscurity, other incompetent geographers shunned while him being extolled, sponsored, and championed by the Romans. Him and Dionysius share many of the same features, and they reciprocated in kind:

Strabo demonstrated the "awesome majesty of the Roman Peace", while Dionysius, impressed by Roman learning, argued that they were so learned and intelligent as to be a branch of the Greek peoples, rather than being brute barbarians that some other Greeks thought.

Corrupted and degenerate as in this

All these pictures come from Pergamon, which was the only competent school of sculpture in all of Greece in the 2nd century. There are other great Pergamene examples you could've cited, e.g. Altar of Zeus. But the problem is that no great statues were produced in Athens, no great statues were produced in Corinth, and Ptolemies and Syrians were absolutely devoid of any quality sculpture.

We do have the Venus de Milo but we don't know if it was produced in Melos, especially since Melos was never distinguished by any great school of sculpture at any point in history. When you think of good sculpture as coming only from Pergamon in comparison to the vast amount of territory controlled by Greek cities and empires, you understand just how low the culture had fallen.

It wasn't "the Romans' fault" that Ptolemies produced no good sculpture. It wasn't "the Romans' fault" that the Seleucids were shorn and barren of any artistry.

Or maybe because the 2nd and 1st century BC had seen Greece acting as the battlefield of the perpetual large scale wars, the Roman civil wars standing out, prominent cultural centers like Corinth, Athens and Delphi being sacked and the population being financially squeezed by tax demands from the various contending parties, whereas the 1st century AD saw the return to some semblance normal life and financial recovery?

It didn't see just a return to some semblance of normal life, it saw a complete flourishing of the Greek culture there. Several Roman emperors even granted the Greeks political autonomy , a cessation from the Empire, which is absolutely unheard of for any other people. That's right, the Greeks were given a full right to govern themselves and fully immunity from Roman politics. And there were no wars in Greece, but there was an intense championing of Greek values, frankly all over much of the Empire, and certainly in Greece itself. That is why Greece produced writers like Plutach and Lucian which she's never been able to produce before.

At any rate, do you realise what you suggest? That copying and attempting to recreate the style and the patterns of the past is admirable, whereas exploring new, authentic oriantations and creating masterpieces like the Winged Nike and the Dying Gaul is deplorable.

Not at all. by "Classical" Greek values I don't mean particularly 5th century originals, but any realistic meticulous representation. By this standard today's European sculpture is not classical, but Baroque French sculpture was.

Writing in Greek (even more so if you are Greek) and following the stylistical patterns of classical era does not comprise holding up to classical values. Promoting the idea that the citizen body collectively makes the political decisions, that armies fight out of patriotism rather than for pay, that man ought to craft a fortune for himself and for his city, that is enshrining classical values. But I don't see any of these in Augustan Rome; as a matter of fact I see the opposite: a military diactatorship under guise, a professional army recruitng largely from non Italians and non citizens, while the civic ethos of old keeps going down the spiral, and the system of euergetism becoming a necessary implement in the financial life of most Greek cities.

You seem to be equating political liberty with artistic flourishing. The two are by no means equivalent. See the Baroque French artistry, under an autocratic monarch, for the easiest contrary evidence to your argument. But the same argument could be made in Greece: in the 6 and early 5th centuries Athens was politically healthy, robust, with its men fighting for their country, participating in elections, and all the rest of it. However the height of Athenian culture came in the 4th century BC with Ephorus, Theopompus as historians, Plato and Aristotle as philosophers, Lysippus and Apelles as artists, etc -- whereas in the same period the Athenian body politic was starting to be utterly corrupt, people perfuming themselves and filling themselves up with meaningless diversions, rather than submitting to hardship and fighting for their country.

You need to be able to distinguish a country's political state from its culture. Athens of the 4th century was the political inferior of the earlier periods, but culturally the champion. Augustan Rome was similarly politically inferior to its earlier periods, but culturally the champion. It was under Augustan Rome that were carved the sculptures that surpassed even the prior Greek ones: the Laocoon, the Borghese Gladiator, the Colossus of Sperlonga, the Medici Venus, the Ara Pacis, and many more.

The greatest Greek scientists flourished in the Hellenistic era: Archimides, Ctesibius, Euclid, Hipparchus, Aristarchus, whoever manufactured the Antikythera machanism etc.

Archimedes was indeed great but he was an exception, because all of the other authors you mention were inferior to what followed. Ctesibus falls in comparison to Heron, Euclid is much less than the Roman-era mathematicians, and Hipparchus is inferior to Diophantes.

As for Aristarchus, there was nothing great about him, because the heliocentric theory had no evidence behind it, and the Greek scientists themselves rejected it:

"Cleanthes (a contemporary of Aristarchus and head of the Stoics) thought it was the duty of the Greeks to indict Aristarchus on the charge of impiety for putting in motion the hearth of the universe … supposing the heaven to remain at rest and the earth to revolve in an oblique circle, while it rotates, at the same time, about its own axis."
-Plutarch

The second sophistic is a laughable, pittyful attempt to recreate a past long deceased (Arrian: "I am the new Xenophon, people" LMFAO)

Actually Arrian is a literary giant, so thanks for reminding me to put him in the same category as Plutarch, Lucian, and Hermogenes. He has written the only trustworth and unbiased history of Alexander that the Greeks had ever written; just investigate the histories of Alexander that were written around his time and shortly after -- no more awful and embarrassing series of biases and distortions exists during the whole period of antiquity. By contrast, with Arrian even Xenophon is inferior, almost incompetent in writing history. In imitating Xenophon Arrian merely meant imitating Xenophon's crisp and clear writing style, as well as his emphasis on a hero king (who in Xenophon's case was Cyrus). How much better he acquitted himself than Xenophon did, in all these categories, is a testament of history.

higlights how devoid of energy and spirit had the civilisation in Greece become.

Yes the Greek spirit had become so devoid of energy that Plutarch wrote the greatest biographies than all prior Greeks put together; probably greater than most biographies ever written in human history. That Lucian has focused on his humor and imagination so much that he wrote science-fiction stories and used his biting and highly-intelligent wit to pierce follies and correct vices. That Arrian, as I said, exemplified more historical veracity and objecitivity than all of Alexander's historians put together.

[Romanos IV]

Not that it is my intention to disrupt this, mostly insightful and interesting, discussion, but I fear I'm stupid enough to not be able to connect it with the thread topic. Other than that, I think it can be said that decline, although slowly started since the Diadoci era (320bc - 197 bc or something), it was the Roman conquest that brought the Greeks to their kneels. Maritime trade stopped, many state-of-the-art sculptures were taken to Rome, democracy ceased to exist.



@topic: He was a competent General, but it is feasable to argue that he overextended his ambitions; for he involved himself in Magna Grecia, Sicily, Macedonia and other Greek states. In addition, we have to remember that Epirus, although being in good strategic position between the most powerful Greek states of the era (Macedon, Aetolean League, etc) and Italy, is basically not fertile, or rich in ressources or in possesion of a really powerful navy to contest naval supremacy in the Mediterranean. Look at Rome, Athens, Macedon. They had at least 2 of said benefits; Epirus had none.

[SigniferOne]

Not that it is my intention to disrupt this, mostly insightful and interesting, discussion, but I fear I'm stupid enough to not be able to connect it with the thread topic. Other than that, I think it can be said that decline, although slowly started since the Diadoci era (320bc - 197 bc or something), it was the Roman conquest that brought the Greeks to their kneels. Maritime trade stopped, many state-of-the-art sculptures were taken to Rome, democracy ceased to exist.

The discussion sprang from a point that Pyrrhus had a chance to stop the decline of Greece by conquering the Romans when he had the chance. My whole point was that the Greece decline was internal and self-induced; that the Greeks under Rome experienced a great artistic and literary revival, and that, in fact, it was a boon of luck that Pyrrhus was defeated. For the Romans who survived him championed Greek values far better than he and his contemporaries ever could.

[Tirus]

He met an unworthy end for a king; a woman from the city of Argos struck him in his neck, just under the rim of his helmet, and broke his neck by doing so..

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

Ignore SignifierOne, he has escaped from the 20's again...

Phyrrus was a good general, who lacked the resources and manpower to extend his reach as far as his grasp. Furthermore, the Greek style of warfare was on its way out, and, oddly, most Greek Generals/leaders seemed to ignore this, to their detriment.

[Beorn]

I honestly diagree with your last argument, Signifer.

Was the sack of Corinth a step up in the revival of Greece?
Or was the looting of Delphoi?

[SigniferOne]

I honestly diagree with your last argument, Signifer.

Was the sack of Corinth a step up in the revival of Greece?

Definitely not.

However by that point Corinth itself no longer had any scultptors, and was no longer producing any sculpture. What did help Greece was 1st century BC and the Augustan period, when old Greek artistic values were reinvigorated and sponsored on a monumental scale, when Corinth was rebuilt, and came to flourish like never before (see articles for Roman Corinth).

[Beorn]

Definitely not.

However by that point Corinth itself no longer had any scultptors, and was no longer producing any sculpture. What did help Greece was 1st century BC and the Augustan period, when old Greek artistic values were reinvigorated and sponsored on a monumental scale, when Corinth was rebuilt, and came to flourish like never before (see articles for Roman Corinth).

Yep, but before the 'renaissance' of Greece as u describe it, there were the Mithridatic Wars, Sulla's volations, the Roman Civil War and unnumbered pieces of art, plus the scholars and educated people that went to Rome.

[SigniferOne]

Yes that's war. And my point is, none of these things, e.g. the Mithridatic Wars or the Civil Wars, ravaged a functional, glorious and functioning culture. They ravaged a culturally decadent people, that had nothing to their name, no productions of their own, but the achievements of their ancestors. Once Romans began penalizing non-classical Greek productions and championing classical ones, they forced Greece to come out of its stupor and become active once again.

[Hookah Smoking Caterpiller]

Yes that's war. And my point is, none of these things, e.g. the Mithridatic Wars or the Civil Wars, ravaged a functional, glorious and functioning culture. They ravaged a culturally decadent people, that had nothing to their name, no productions of their own, but the achievements of their ancestors. Once Romans began penalizing non-classical Greek productions and championing classical ones, they forced Greece to come out of its stupor and become active once again.

Where do you get these crazy ideas from?