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The Town That Got Away With Murder and Other Largely Forgotten Historic Events

Khalid Elhassan November 23, 2019 33 min

28. The Glorious Hellenistic General Who Came to an Inglorious End

King Pyrrhus (319 – 272 BC) was a Hellenistic general and statesman who reached the heights of glory, before reaching an inglorious end. A distant relative of Alexander the Great, Pyrrhus was a formidable enemy of both the kingdom of Macedon and a rising Rome. His costly victories against both gave rise to the term “pyrrhic victory” – a victory that comes at such a high price that it amounts to a de facto defeat.

Pyrrhus was born to struggle and strife. His father was an Epirote who got dethroned when Pyrrhus was two years old, and the family had to flee and seek refuge with a nearby Illyrian tribe. His tribal hosts put Pyrrhus on his father’s former throne in 306 BC, but he was dethroned four years later, and forced to hit the road and make a living as a mercenary officer.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.