Siege of Sparta
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The siege of Sparta took place in 272 BC and was a battle fought between Epirus, led by King Pyrrhus, and an alliance consisting of Sparta, under the command of King Areus I and his heir Acrotatus, and Macedon. The battle was fought at Sparta and ended in a Spartan-Macedonian victory.
The Siege of Sparta by Pyrrhus François Topino-Lebrun
A bust of Pyrrhus, King of Epirus, at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples
Pyrrhus of Epirus
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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.