Qualla: Battle of Asculum https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:30 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_res/siteimages/rsslogo.png Qualla: Battle of Asculum https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum Battle of Asculum: Introduction https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum/ "If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined." Pyrrhus of Epirus reportedly said this to someone congratulating him after the Battle of Asculum in 279 BC, and the remark has outlived everything else about the engagement. Twenty-three centuries later, we still call a victory that costs more than it gains a "Pyrrhic victory." The battle itself, fought near the town the Romans called Asculum -- modern Ascoli Satriano in Apulia -- pitted roughly 70,000 soldiers on each side against one another in a contest whose outcome the ancient historians could not even agree on. Plutarch says Pyrrhus won. Cassius Dio says the Romans won. What everyone agrees on is that the cost was ruinous.

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/7/4/battle-of-asculum-wp/sr74-battle-of-asculum-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Battle of Asculum: Fire Wagons Against War Elephants https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum/ Pyrrhus had brought war elephants to Italy, and at the earlier Battle of Heraclea in 280 BC, they had terrorized the Roman legions. The Romans were not the kind of people who suffered the same humiliation twice. Before Asculum, they built 300 specialized anti-elephant wagons -- f...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/7/4/battle-of-asculum-wp/sr74-battle-of-asculum-fire-wagons-against-war-elephants.mp3 0:06 2 full Battle of Asculum: A Battlefield Pyrrhus Could Not Choose https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum/ The engagement at Asculum exposed the central tension of Pyrrhus's Italian campaign: his army was built for one kind of warfare, and Italy kept offering another. According to Plutarch, the fighting lasted two days. On the first day, Pyrrhus found himself on ground broken by woode...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/7/4/battle-of-asculum-wp/sr74-battle-of-asculum-a-battlefield-pyrrhus-could-not-choose.mp3 0:06 3 full Battle of Asculum: Three Historians, Three Different Battles https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum/ The accounts diverge so sharply that they almost describe different events. In Cassius Dio's version, the Romans deployed their fire wagons effectively, forcing the elephants to the far end of the line. A contingent of Daunian allies raided Pyrrhus's camp, causing panic among his...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/7/4/battle-of-asculum-wp/sr74-battle-of-asculum-three-historians-three-different-battles.mp3 0:06 4 full Battle of Asculum: The Arithmetic of Exhaustion https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum/ Plutarch, citing the historian Hieronymus of Cardia, puts Roman losses at 6,000 killed and Pyrrhus's own losses at 3,505 -- numbers drawn from Pyrrhus's personal war commentaries. Dionysius of Halicarnassus, in a passage now lost, reportedly claimed that over 15,000 men on both s...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/7/4/battle-of-asculum-wp/sr74-battle-of-asculum-the-arithmetic-of-exhaustion.mp3 0:06 5 full Battle of Asculum: The King Who Left https://qualla.com/battle-of-asculum/ Recognizing that he could not win a war of attrition against Rome, Pyrrhus accepted an invitation from the Greek city-states of Sicily to help them fight the Carthaginians. He abandoned his Italian allies -- who were understandably aggrieved -- and spent three years campaigning i...

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]]> Mon, 23 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/s/r/7/4/battle-of-asculum-wp/sr74-battle-of-asculum-the-king-who-left.mp3 0:06 6 full