8»«» S. No 88., Skpt. 5. '57,] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



181 



LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 5. 1857. 



KIEBUUB ON PTBBHCS, KING OF EPIBUS. 



Niebuhr, in bis Lectures on ancient Ethno- 

 graphy and Geography, has the following passage 

 upon the character of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, 

 who invaded Italy and made war against the 

 Romans in the year 280 B.C. : 



" Pyrrhus is one of the most splendid, noble, and amiable 

 characters in all history. Often have I, when a young 

 man, exclaimed in full enthusiasm with Hesiod : et /ter* 

 €K6tVois iyevofitiv \ At such times one has the feeling, that 

 one would be greater by coming in contact with such 

 men. I have collected much about the history of Pyrrhus, 

 and 1 know him thoroughly ; I hope one day to represent 

 hiua in his true light and in his indescribable splendour. 

 To be great as a general is certainly one of the highest 

 distinctions in the world : lie was not always quite just, 

 but always noble and generous, far from petty egotism, 

 and free from everything that degrades man; he had a full, 

 large, and warm heart ; be looked upon his country not 

 as a domain, but loved his people with his whole soul. Dear 

 as Roman history is to me, I must nevertheless assign a 

 higher place to the two greatest enemies of Rome, 

 Pyrrhus and Hannibal." — Vol. i. p. 265., ed. Schmitz. 



It is difficult to discover the grounds for this 

 exalted estimate of Pyrrhus ; nor, indeed, does 

 Niebuhr's own account of him in his History of 

 Rome, and in his Lectures on Ancient History, at 

 all support this view of his surpassing excellence. 

 It seems to be mainly due to the same desire of 

 panegyrising the enemies of Rome, which led 

 Niebuhr to find such eminent qualities in 

 Pontius, the Samnite general who passed the 

 Romans under the yoke at Candium in the Se- 

 cond Samnite War. Pyrrhus was a brave war- 

 rior, and an energetic, perhaps an able general ; 

 in other respects he bore the common type of a 

 military king of the post- Alexandrine age. His 

 character is painted by Bishop Thirlwall in colours 

 quite as favourable as the truth of history jus- 

 tifies : 



" He was undoubtedly one of the nobler spirits of his 

 age, though it would seem that it could have been only 

 in one whicb was familiar with atrocious crimes, that he 

 could have gained the reputation of unsullied virtue, 

 more particularly of probity, which we find attached to 

 his name. With extraordinary prowess, such as revived 

 the image of the heroic warfare, he combined many 

 qualities of a great captain, and was thought by some to 

 be superior even to Alexander in military art. But his 

 whole life was not only a series of unconnected, mostly 

 abortive, enterprises, but might be regarded, with respect 

 to himself, as one ill-concerted, perplexed, and bootless 

 adventure. From beginning to end he was the sport, not 

 so much of fortune, as of desires without measure or plan, 

 of an impetuous, but inconstant will. His ruling passion 

 was less ambition than the love of action ; and he seems 

 to have valued conquest chiefly because it opened new 

 fields of battle." — Hist, of Greece, ch. 60., ad fin. 



The " thorough knowledge " of Pyrrhus which 

 Niebuhr believes himself to have possessed, must 



have been as much founded on Imagination as hia 

 enthusiastic admiration of the great qualities of 

 this singular idol ; for our only connected inform- 

 ation respecting Pyrrhus is derived from the Life 

 of Plutarch, assisted by a few notices in Pausanias 

 and other writers ; the books of Livy and Diony- 

 sius, which contained a detailed account of his 

 Italian campaign, are lost. 



It may be added that the exclamation which 

 Niebuhr professes to find in Hesiod does not, and 

 for metrical reasons could not, occur in bis poems. 

 It appears to be an imperfect reminiscence of the 

 passage in his Worlis and Days, v. 172-3. : 



" fiifKir eireir' ioAeiKov eyia n-ejuirToicri (itreivai, 

 avSpdtriv, oAV ij TrpoaSe Bavelv tj eirtiTa yeve<r8<u," 



The circumstances which attended the death of 

 King Pyrrhus are thus described subsequently by 

 Niebuhr, in his notice of Ambracia : 



" The statement in Ovid's Ibis, that the remains of 

 Pyrrhus were dragged from a tomb at Ambracia and 

 scattered about, renders it probable that this was done by 

 the Romans out of revenge, a horribly unworthy revenge 

 upon a great hero. It is possible, however, that this may 

 have been done during the disgraceful madness of the 

 nation in its rebellions against the successors of Pyrrhus. 

 Afterwards the name of Ambracia disappears ; its acro- 

 polis has now for a considerable time been called Rogus.'' 



In the note is this additional remark : 



" I have here mentioned the Ibis on account of this his- 

 torical fact, which is not the only one in that poem. I 

 recommend its study to any scholar who wishes to ascer- 

 tain whether he is thoroughly conversant with poetical 

 mythology and ancient history." — lb., vol. i. p. 271. 



The passage of the Ibis to which Niebuhr refers 

 is the following : 



" More vel intereas capti suspensus Achaei, 



Qui miser aurifera teste pependit aqu^. [ 

 Aut, ut Achillidse cognato nomine clarum, 



Opprimat hostili tegula jacta manu. 

 Nee tua, quam Pyrrhi, felicius ossa quiescant, 

 Sparsa per Ambracias quae jacuere vias." 



V. 301—6. 



The first couplet refers to Achseus, who was put 

 to a cruel death by Antiochus the Great, at 

 Sardes on the Pactolus, in the year 214 b.c, as 

 related by Polybius. 



The second couplet alludes to the death of 

 King Pyrrhus, who was killed in 272 B.C., during 

 a conflict in the streets of Argos> 



According to Plutarch (Pyi-rh. 34.) Pyrrhus 

 was about to cut down a soldier, by whom be had 

 been wounded, when the mother, seeing her son's 

 danger, dropped a tile (Kepanis^ on the king's bead : 

 be fell senseless from his horse, and was carried 

 out of the tumult, but was afterwards despatched 

 by a Macedonian. The account of Polyaenus 

 (vili. 68.) agrees with that of Plutarch. Pausa- 

 nias (i. 13. 8.) likewise relates the death of 

 Pyrrhus to have occurred within the town, and to 

 have been caused by a tile thrown on his head by 

 a woman. He adds that Leuceas, an antiquarian 



