Battle of Heraclea

The Battle of Heraclea took place in 280 BC between the Romans under the command of consul Publius Valerius Laevinus, and the combined forces of Greeks from Epirus, Tarentum, Thurii, Metapontum, and Heraclea under the command of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus. Although the battle was a victory for the Greeks and their casualties were lower than the Romans, they had lost many veteran soldiers that would be hard to replace on foreign soil. Tarentum was a Greek colony, part of Magna Graecia. The members of the leading faction in Tarentum, the democrats under Philocharis or Ainesias, were against Rome, because they knew that if the Romans entered Tarentum the Greeks would lose their independence. The Greeks in Tarentum had grown afraid of Roman expansion after the Third Samnite War. After the surrender of the Samnites in 290 BC, the Romans founded many colonies in Apulia and Lucania, the most important of which was Venusia. In 282 BC, after a battle against the Samnites, Lucanians, Bruttians and Thurii, Roman troops entered the Italian Greek colonies of Croton, Lokroi, and Rhegium. Democrats from Tarentum knew that as soon as Rome finished its war with the Gauls, Lucanians, Etruscans, Samnites, and Bruttians, they would enter Tarentum. Another event that concerned the Tarentines was that the aristocratic faction of Thurii that had taken power had invited a Roman garrison into their city; the Tarentines, who had been the referents of all the Magna Graecia colonies, were deeply worried about this fact. The second faction in Tarentum were the aristocrats, led by Agis, who did not oppose surrendering to Rome, as it would lead to the return of the aristocratic faction to power. The aristocrats, however, could not surrender directly and become unpopular with the population. In the autumn of 282 BC, Tarentum celebrated their festival of Dionysus; while in their theatre in front of sea, they saw ten Roman ships, with soldiers and supplies for the Roman garrison of Thurii, entering the Gulf of Taranto.

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Related concepts (15)

Pyrrhic War

The Pyrrhic War (280–275 BC) was largely fought between the Roman Republic and Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, who had been asked by the people of the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy to help them in their war against the Romans. A skilled commander, with a strong army supported by war elephants (which the Romans were not experienced in facing), Pyrrhus enjoyed initial success against the Roman legions, but suffered heavy losses even in these victories.

Battle of Heraclea

Epirus (ancient state)

Epirus (ɪˈpaɪrəs; Epirote Greek: Ἄπειρος, ; Attic Greek: Ἤπειρος, ) was an ancient Greek kingdom, and later republic, located in the geographical region of Epirus, in parts of north-western Greece and southern Albania. Home to the ancient Epirotes, the state was bordered by the Aetolian League to the south, Ancient Thessaly and Ancient Macedonia to the east, and Illyrian tribes to the north. The Greek king Pyrrhus is known to have made Epirus a powerful state in the Greek realm (during 280–275 BC) that was comparable to the likes of Ancient Macedonia and Ancient Rome.