Originally Posted by
Hellenikon
Pyrrhus achieved a lot before EB2 starts, he transformed the backwater Epirus into a fledling hellenistic kingdom and created his own powerbase in Ambrakia, which didn't exist before. He collaborated with Lysimachus to deny Macedon to Demetrius, and annexed half of Macedon and Thessaly. His italian campaign is the first time when he started to struggle, and that was mainly due to manpower.
The battles versus the romans were a manpower grind and he didn't have support of the local greeks for his empire building project, in the same fashion that the macedonians deal constantly with controlling the greeks in mainland greece. His italian army was punching far above the capabilities of Epirus as a kingdom, the elephants and other resources were a loan from Ptolemy. It was only Pyrrhus' tactical genius that allowed this petty hellenistic kingdom to compete with the big powers, he engaged in a foreign policy reminiscing that of Manuel Komnennos, he was trying to improve his state by gambling his resources playing on the big league.
He had to deal with Rome, which was far more resilient that he could have imagined and that campaign depleted the fragile support he was built around - it was about winning, and making those investments pay off for everyone who joined him. He was basically a condottieri who came from the balcans to try to carve his own kingdom in italy, promising stuff to those who would support him. His later campaigns in greece look like the acts of a desperate man who is running out of resources and keeps coming with more and more dangerous gambits in order that one will pay off, and keep him afloat. Those defeats in italy and later his tragic death in Argos led to the decline of the legitimacy of the monarchy in Epirus.
He was historically of the few generals of the age who kept innovating on the battefield, in an age where the hellenistic rulers were settling down on defensive/offensive flank and the rigid phalanx. He made excellent use of his limited resources, and put enough pressure to Carthage and Rome that he was close to winning both wars, he simply couldn't afford all the losses and had to give up. IMO he was the best general of the epigonoi, one of the few who attempted to introduce improvements to the traditional alexandrian battle order, realising it's limitations way before hellenistic generals of the period did. Most of them just kept doing the same thing that had worked in the past, and hellenistic warfare became stuck. He was a sort of failed Napoleon, in the sense of the changes that the later introduced the the formal and standarized 18th century warfare. Pyrrhus' legacy is one of military innovation and tactical excellence, and he wasn't a terrible ruler either, he was just playing iin the big leagues far above the capabilities of his country - his ambition and tactical prowess was such that he nearly succeeded in pulling a "Philip II" and transforming a petty hellenic kingdom into a great hellenistic power.