26. A Silly End
Pyrrhus defeated the Romans in costly battles whose losses he could not afford, but which the Romans, with their deep manpower reserves, could. After one such victory, he quipped “If we are victorious in one more battle with the Romans, we shall be utterly ruined“. Taking a break from Italy, he took off to fight the Carthaginians in Sicily, but by the time he returned, the Romans had recovered and formed a vastly superior army.
So Pyrrhus cut his losses and left Italy in 275 BC. His end came in 272 BC, when he took sides in an internal dispute in the city of Argos. An old woman threw a tile from a roof that hit Pyrrhus in the head, knocking him off his horse and snapping his spine. Whether or not he survived the fall, his fate was sealed when an enemy soldier rushed in and beheaded the Epirote king.