A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. Such a victory negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.
James G. Blaine finally gained the 1884 Republican nomination for US president on his third attempt: "Another victory like this and our money's gone!"
Last stand and final charge from the fortress of Szigetvár (painting by Johann Peter Krafft, 1825)
Japanese aircraft prepare to take off from Shōkaku during the Battle of the Santa Cruz Islands
The ruined streets of Vukovar ten days after its surrender
Pyrrhus was a Greek king and statesman of the Hellenistic period. He was king of the Molossians, of the royal Aeacid house, and later he became king of Epirus. He was one of the strongest opponents of early Rome, and had been regarded as one of the greatest generals of antiquity. Several of his victorious battles caused him unacceptably heavy losses, from which the term "Pyrrhic victory" was coined.
A marble bust of Pyrrhus from the Villa of the Papyri at the Roman site of Herculaneum, now in the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, Italy
The rescue of the young Pyrrhus after an uprising against his father Aeacides of Epirus by Nicolas Poussin (ca. 1634).
The infant Pyrrhus is presented to King Glaucias by Nicolas-René Jollain (ca. 1779).
Bust of Pyrrhus of Epirus, Roman copy of Greek original inside the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen.
