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Dionysius of Halicarnassus · Roman Antiquities §20.10.1-20.10.2

Wrath of Persephone as the Cause of Pyrrhus's Defeat

Passage 955 of 962 · Greek

Summary

It is argued that Pyrrhus' decisive defeat by the Romans was caused not by military factors, such as terrain, reinforcements, or army quality, but by the wrath of the despoiled goddess Persephone, a fact recognized by both historians and Pyrrhus himself.

§20.10.1διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ἡττήθη ὁ Πύρρος κατὰ κράτος· οὐ γὰρ στρατιά τις φαύλη καὶ ἀνάσκητος ἦν αὐτῷ, ἀλλʼ ἡ κρατίστη τῶν τότε οὐσῶν ἐν Ἕλλησι καὶ πλείστους ἀγωνισαμένη πολέμους· οὐδὲ πλῆθος ἀνδρῶν τῶν τότε παραταξαμένων ὀλίγον, ἀλλʼ ὅσον καὶ τριπλάσιον εἶναι, οὐδὲ στρατηγὸς τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων τις, ἀλλʼ ὃν ἅπαντες ὁμολογοῦσι μέγιστον γενέσθαι τῶν κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἡλικίαν ἀκμασάντων στρατηγῶν, §20.10.2οὐδὲ τόπου φύσις ἄνισος οὔτʼ ἐπικουρίας τοῖς ἑτέροις ἄφιξις αἰφνίδιος οὔτʼ ἄλλη τις συμφορὰ καὶ πρόφασις ἀπροσδόκητος ἐπιπεσοῦσα συνέτριψε τὰ Πύρρου πράγματα, ἀλλʼ ὁ τῆς ἀσεβηθείσης θεᾶς χολός, ὃν οὐδʼ αὐτὸς ἠγνόει Πύρρος, ὡς Πρόξενος ὁ συγγραφεὺς ἱστορεῖ καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Πύρρος ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις ὑπομνήμασι γράφει.
For this reason Pyrrhus was also decisively defeated by the Romans; for he did not possess some weak and untrained army, but the strongest of those then existing among the Greeks and one that had fought the most wars; nor was the multitude of the men then drawn up in battle-array small, but so great as to be even threefold; nor was his general one of the ordinary sort, but one whom everyone agrees was the greatest of the generals who flourished in the same age; nor did an unfavorable nature of the terrain, nor a sudden arrival of reinforcements for the other side, nor any other misfortune and unexpected circumstance falling upon him shatter the fortunes of Pyrrhus, but the wrath of the goddess who had been treated with impiety, of which Pyrrhus himself was not ignorant, as Proxenus the historian relates and Pyrrhus himself writes in his own memoirs.

Notes

  1. 19.11ἀλλʼ ὅσον καὶ τριπλάσιον εἶναι — The relative pronoun of quantity ὅσον is used with the infinitive εἶναι to express result or degree ("so great as to be..."). Although the standard of comparison is not explicitly mentioned, it contextually refers to "three times as many [as the enemy]".
  2. 19.11ἀλλʼ ὃν ἅπαντες ὁμολογοῦσι μέγιστον γενέσθαι — The relative pronoun ὃν (accusative, with the antecedent στρατηγός) serves as the subject accusative of the infinitive clause (μέγιστον γενέσθαι) governed by the verb ὁμολογοῦσι ("whom all agree to have been the greatest"). This forms an embedded relative clause containing an accusative-with-infinitive construction.
  3. 2365οὐδὲ τόπου φύσις ἄνισος οὔτʼ ἐπικουρίας τοῖς ἑτέροις ἄφιξις αἰφνίδιος οὔτʼ ἄλλη τις συμφορὰ καὶ πρόφασις ἀπροσδόκητος ἐπιπεσοῦσα συνέτριψε — This is a correlative negative construction οὐδέ ... οὔτε ... οὔτε ... ("neither... nor... nor..."), in which multiple subjects (φύσις, ἄφιξις, and συμφορὰ καὶ πρόφασις) share the single main verb συνέτριψε ("shattered") placed at the end of the sequence.

Cite this passage

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Roman Antiquities §20.10.1-20.10.2. Humanitext Reader, https://reader.humanitext.ai/en/text/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0081.tlg001.humanitext-grc2:20.10.1-20.10.2

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