This Ain’t No Punk Ass Pyrrhic Victory!
Pyrrhus gets his ass handed to him by early Rome in 275 BCE
I’m Pyrrus, basically the king of the whole of damn Greece. But in the last two years I got friggin’ schooled! I guess even kings need to learn about the art of war, eh? Man, I love my Greek brothers and sisters, but those damn Romans I ….. well, let’s just say I got some massive R.E.S.P.E.C.T for their martial asses.
27 years young, 10 years into my reign, here I am in the heel of this mofo Italian boot, in the town of Tarentum, which is mostly populated by my Greeks. They done called for my help cuz them Romans was haranguin their asses. Bullying them unwontedly, they say. Well, I was just sitting around on my haunches with nothing better to do so my boys and I packed up and our bags along with my Epirot brothers up in Albania. You know what they say, “it’s the king’s duty to make his kingdom bigger”, and my buddy Cineas agreed. Huge opportunities were open to me. Italy, Sicily, Carthaginia, Greece, and a whole empire just like my gramps Alexander the Great. I was gonna make BANK!
“What will we do with all this land once we get it,” Cineas asked. And I say ‘we will live like friggin kings for the rest of our days, relaxing with wine and just chillin to the max!’ “But brah! why not just forget all this bellicosity shit and hit the beach!”, he has the minerals to say. I LOLed; a prince gotta know his philosophy, but I ain’t gonna have my stoic mf-ing determination weakened by a few soft ass words. ‘We’re gonna cruise for them Tarentines! Let’s GO!’
I loaded up 20 elephants onto my rigs, but damnit some were lost at sea. Those big bastards are unwieldly and I almost died when a fierce north wind came crashing on us right before we were about to land. I had to abandon ship and swim. My captains followed me because I’m brave AF, believe me, Hercules gives me all the courage I need. We lost a few men, a few ships, but no big deal. I was pretty tired after climbing all those rocks to the shore, but once my buddy Cineas and our army reached Tarentum, the peeps were thrilled af for our arrival!
They were not stoked for long tho. Greeks are not badass anymore, at least not the ones here in Italy. They are silly cats; they care more about their Lambo chariots and talking shit then actually standing up for their rights. I had to slap some sense into them. I shut down their clubs, blocked all their social media and smashed up all their booze. Some of those jackasses had the nerve to call this slavery. To them I told to go piss up a rope.
Now I hear that this Roman assclown, Laevinius, a consul, was coming with a big army, plundering the land of the Lucanians on his way, like a bunch of bloody maniacs. So I went out to meet the prick, although only a few of those lazy ass locals ponied up to come with. I wasn’t pertubed tho, believe me. The Romans may have had a reputation as fighters, but they were just a bunch of bloody barbarians as far as I was concerned.
So, just before the battle I drove up to get a good view over the river Siris where I could see the Roman crew down there in their camp. Aye caramba! These dudes had some badass engineering shit done. They had these huge friggin moats and were all organized-like. They had all these tents all lined up with sentries guarding the place like it was on lockdown. I told my bro Magacles, “these assholes ain’t barbarians at all, they be all proper West Point and shit! Let’s see what these boys can do!”. He nods and we both went back all worried and shit but neither wanting to admit it. I waited a bit to see if any more backup would arrive and put some of my bad ass guards up on watch up close for them to see.
As it turned out, these precautions actually scared the shit out of those Romans, so they went all bold on our ass to attack us, fording the river and being all disciplined-like. I threw on my classic goat’s-horn helmet and charged them on my horse.
There was big ol battle and I tried to be all places at once to support my crew and keep their morale high af. My good bro Leonnatus was next to me and warned me of this big bastard on a black horse who was running me down. I said “Dude, it’s impossible to avoid your fate. But this dude ain’t gonna have the satisfaction!” The big brawler speared my horse, though, and my mates took him down. I got all spooked that this champion fighter recognized me so I changed armor with my buddy Magacles so he looked like me.
Now I’m all incognito, and Magacles and I charged down the hill, but some knight stabbed him through the heart. Poor bastard. Then the slayer ran over to his commander thinking that he had “killed the great Pyrrus!” Now those jerks were all hopped up and the battle started to turn in their favour. Shit!
Ok, so I finally got my elephants into the action. These big ass beasts will scare the living bejesus out of even the most stern faced mofos. But, of course, the horses are even more terrified and they’ll go ape shit when they see elephants comin their way. BAM! I signaled for my Thessalian allies to go sweep things up. The day was ours! Costly though, shit, I lost the bloody flower of my men.
Next I’m on to Rome, see? A bunch of Samnites and other local tribals joinin up with their levies. I didn’t wanna crush down on Rome but you better believe I wanted to parley. These suckas should know that they been beat!
Oh shit, was I ever wrong! Those irritating bastards were all smug-like and they didn’t even give me the time of day. I sent my boy Cineas up, a real smooth talker, see? I also sent them a Trezor wallet with some ETH and the keys for a new Lambo to smooth their asses over. Hell, i even said I’d help them conquer the rest of the Italian boot, no worries! Well, shit, those hard ass Romans told me to incontinently suck rocks.
So what’s with all the recalcitrance? Apparently some asshat named Appius Claudius, blind as a bat, went on monologuing and Tweeting to the dudes discussing my offer: “sorry I was not deaf as well as blind.” The nerve! He even had the effrontery to say that I only came here to run away from trouble at home. DAMN! Well, you better believe my bro Cineas was all besotted and shit because of this. He told me that the Roman Senators were like a bunch of friggin’ edgelords! The kernel of this message was bloody impertinent, believe you me!
Now this dude Caius Fabricius, some big wig consul dude, comes to exchange some prisoners. I tried to bribe him with a Lambo but he turned down my offer. Next I tried to surprise his ass, or at least disconcert him. His self-contained, quiet superiority pissed me off. I kept an elephant behind the curtain, and then pulled it back to show him I mean business. This stone cold clown has the cojones to say “Take your cryptocurrencies and mastodon’s and stick ’em where the sun don’t shine; we ain’t movin a inch, byatch.” Damn this dude was like some Charlie Bronson! Mad props, tho. I must say I kinda liked the dude. We shot the shit about philosophy and old school punk bands for a while. I suggested we make peace so he can come join my peeps. He laughed and straight up said his people will refuse to be governed by me, blah, blah blah. Guy was a straight up gent though, he even warned me that my drink was poisoned.
What was left to do? I had to go fight the battle, couldn’t turn back now, even though we knew we were toasted tbh. We fought near some city, Asculum, but it was wet af and my elephants were slipping all over the place. Those Romans slaughtered our asses with their swords. Our Macedonian pikes couldn’t stand up. I got stabbed by a javelin, and to boot those traitorous Samnite mercenary assholes stole all my shit! But our elephants eventually chased those Romans away. Another ‘victory’, eh? Some win! Bloody hell, another battle like that and I’m done for!
So now they be coinin’ the term ‘Pyrrhic victory’ til the end of time? Just cause I won but all my troops are spent? So this is gonna be my legacy. Son of biscuit!
I think it was Led Zeppelin that said ‘the darkest hour is the one that comes just before the dawn’. Here I was broodin on a rock when my mates from Sicily came asked for help against those African tyrants the Carthaginians. Well, that was last night. And as I type all this out, I think I’ve made my mind up. All may yet be saved. Siciliy, Africa, THEN Italy and Greece. It’s just the order changed, that’s all!
Pyrrhus fell into a slow, tragic decline. He refused to stop fighting, brave and stubborn af, but it cost him. He lost in Sicily. His elephants all died off, and then he returned to Greece and had the gall to attack Sparta, of all places! He was just too damn aggro. Turns out, in the streets of Argos, some chick hurled a tile down at him from a rooftop and crushed his melon. And that was the end of Pyrrhus the Great.
