King Pyrrhus beat Rome twice and still lost the war
In 280 and 279 BC King Pyrrhus of Epirus defeated Roman armies in southern Italy. The Romans actually lost more men, but they could refill their ranks almost at once, while Pyrrhus could not replace his officers or friends. One more victory like that, he reportedly said, and he would be finished.
The phrase 'Pyrrhic victory' means a win that costs the victor so much it amounts to defeat. It comes from Plutarch's account of the aftermath of Asculum in 279 BC, following Heraclea the year before. Plutarch describes a Roman camp replenished as if from an ever-flowing spring, its soldiers angered rather than discouraged by their losses, while Pyrrhus had brought a limited force to Italy, lost most of his commanders, and found his Italian allies lukewarm. He eventually withdrew to Sicily.
Historians apply the label widely. At Avarayr in 451, Persian forces beat Armenian Christian rebels led by Vardan Mamikonian but lost so many troops that the battle opened the road to a treaty in 484 guaranteeing Armenian autonomy and religious freedom. The Ottomans took Szigetvár in 1566 after 33 days, but Sultan Suleiman died during the siege and the push towards Vienna stalled. Spain captured Ostend after a three-year siege, yet by 1607 it was bankrupt, and the truce that followed effectively made the Dutch Republic independent.
The pattern repeats in modern wars. At Bunker Hill in 1775 the British seized the Boston peninsula but suffered far heavier casualties than the colonists, including many officers, which made their commanders more cautious and swelled support for independence. At Chancellorsville in 1863 Robert E. Lee outmanoeuvred a larger Union army, yet a fifth of his force was killed or wounded, Stonewall Jackson among them, and Gettysburg followed within two months. In 1942 Japanese carriers won the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands without losing a ship, but around 100 aircraft and their veteran crews could not be replaced.
The idea has escaped the battlefield. Sports writers use it when a team wins but loses its star to injury, and Justice Hugo Black invoked Pyrrhus in a 1952 Supreme Court dissent, warning minority groups not to celebrate a ruling on group libel.
Source: Pyrrhic victory
