Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #25365 in Books
• Published on: 2009-07-16
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

Customer Reviews

Ancient History's Forgotten General
Pyrrhus of Epirus was widely regarded in the Ancient World as one of the great commanders. Plutarch has Hannibal declare him as the greatest commander the world ever saw, whilst even Cicero praised his military insight. Unfortunately, Pyrrhus has become in modern scholarship something of a footnote, known because of the phrase "a pyrrhic victory" than for anything else (an appreciable irony is that this phrase was not used in the Ancient World as their preferred phrase was "a Cadmean Victory"). Pyrrhus probably suffers in mainstream academia for falling between the gaps of periodisation as a Hellenistic Monarch who fought against an Italian Pennisula based Rome and thus has avoided serious academic treatment, he also probably comes off worse for sharing Hannibal's gimick of fighting Rome with Elephants, sadly history only seems to want remember one Elephant Commander.

It is therefore good news for those with an interest in Ancient History that Jeff Champion has written such a solid work on Pyrrhus. The last dedicated book on the subject was Garoufalias in 1979, and this work offers a more up to date account and is highly accessible to a lay audience. The book is primarily a narrative account of Pyrrhus' career, and handles a good range of source material from Justin's Epitome of Trogus to Plutarch's life or Pyrrhus, Diodorus, Pausanias, Livy, Appian and several other ancient authors. Champion provides good authorial analysis of the sources (though on a personal level I feel he is a little harsh on Plutarch) and uses them to provides good accounts of the key battles at Heraclea, Asculum and Beneventum as well as producing a good chapter on Pyrrhus' time in Sicilly. Another quality of this work is in Champion's ability to create background information, the introduction sections of his chapters on Epirus, Rome, Sicilly and also on the Successors succeed in providing a succint assessment of previous events.

All in all I would recommend this book to anyone interested in developing an understanding of Pyrrhus or as a case study of Hellenistic Kingship. There are a couple of refinements the book could have used, it does lack a conclusion chapter, I would have been interested to read Champion's thoughts on Pyrrhus as a retrospective analysis and whether he shares (Plutarch's) Hannibal's opinion of Pyrrhus. The other issue in terms of layout would have been if the publisher could have arranged the battle maps to feature in the relevant chapter rather than at the start of the book.

Pyrrhus of Epirus, by Jeff Champion
Pyrrhus of Epirus

Jeff Champion writes about the career of Pyrrhus of Epirus, whose battles against the Romans coined the well known term "a Pyrrhic Victory".

This book includes detailed descriptions of Pyrrhus' major battles and the surrounding historical events in a factual and candid manner. It includes maps, sufficient background information and describes the accuracy and context of the historical references, so that a non-historian can easily understand this work.

I highly recommend this informative and entertaining book for anybody with an interest in ancient history or warfare.