Pyrrhic War

The Pyrrhic War was a conflict from 280 to 275 BCE between the Roman Republic and Pyrrhus of Epirus, who intervened in southern Italy in support of Greek cities.

Battle of Heraclea: A 280 BCE battle in which Pyrrhus defeated a Roman army in southern Italy. Pyrrhus’s first major victory in Italy demonstrated the impact of his war elephants.
Tarentum: An ancient Greek city in southern Italy, known today as Taranto. Its conflict with Rome prompted an appeal that brought Pyrrhus to Italy.
Roman conquest of Tarentum: Rome’s capture of Tarentum in 272 BCE, which ended the city’s independence. The city Pyrrhus had come to defend eventually fell under Roman control.
Roman Republic: The republican state that governed Rome from the end of the monarchy until the establishment of the Roman Empire. Its manpower and alliance system allowed Rome to absorb losses and continue the war.
Battle of Asculum: A 279 BCE battle in which Pyrrhus defeated Roman forces at great cost. Its heavy losses gave rise to the expression “Pyrrhic victory.”
Magna Graecia: The network of Greek colonies established in southern Italy and Sicily. Rome’s expansion into this Greek-speaking region set the war’s wider context.
Roman conquest of southern Italy: Rome’s extension of political and military control over the southern Italian peninsula. The war removed a major obstacle to Roman dominance in the south.
Epirus: An ancient kingdom in the western Balkans, north of the Gulf of Ambracia. Pyrrhus’s home kingdom supplied his political base but limited his resources abroad.
Battle of Beneventum: A 275 BCE battle in which Roman forces checked Pyrrhus’s advance in Italy. The inconclusive fighting helped end Pyrrhus’s campaign on the peninsula.
Pyrrhus of Epirus: A Hellenistic king of Epirus who fought Rome in Italy and later campaigned in Sicily. His intervention turned Tarentum’s dispute with Rome into a major war.

Linked from 11 pages