Chapter X.
The Reconquest of Macedon.
B.C. 273-272
Fatal deficiencies in Pyrrhus's character.
Fickleness of Pyrrhus.
It was the great misfortune of Pyrrhus's life, a misfortune resulting apparently from an inherent and radical defect in his character, that he had no settled plans or purposes, but embarked in one project after another, as accident or caprice might incline him, apparently without any forethought, consideration, or design. He seemed to form no plan, to live for no object, to contemplate no end, but was governed by a sort of blind and instinctive impulse, which led him to love danger, and to take a wild and savage delight in the performance of military exploits on their own account, and without regard to any ultimate end or aim to be accomplished by them. Thus, although he evinced great power, he produced no permanent effects. There was no steadiness or perseverance in his action, and there could be none, for in his whole course of policy there were no ulterior ends in view by which perseverance could be sustained. He was, consequently, always ready to abandon any enterprise in which he might be engaged as soon as it began to be involved in difficulties requiring the exercise of patience, endurance, and self-denial, and to embark in any new undertaking, provided that it promised to bring him speedily upon a field of battle. He was, in a word, the type and exemplar of that large class of able men who waste their lives in a succession of efforts, which, though they evince great talent in those who perform them, being still without plan or aim, end without producing any result. Such men often, like Pyrrhus, attain to a certain species of greatness. They are famed among men for what they seem to have the power to do, and not for any thing that they have actually done.
Consequences which resulted from it.
In accordance with this view of Pyrrhus's character, we see him changing continually the sphere of his action from one country to another, gaining great victories every where, and evincing in all his operations—in the organizing and assembling of his armies, in his marches, in his encampments, and in the disposition of his troops on the field of battle, and especially in his conduct during the period of actual conflict—the most indomitable energy and the most consummate military skill. But when the battle was fought and the victory gained, and an occasion supervened requiring a cool and calculating deliberation in the forming of future plans, and a steady adherence to them when formed, the character and resources of Pyrrhus's mind were found woefully wanting. The first summons from any other quarter, inviting him to a field of more immediate excitement and action, was always sufficient to call him away. Thus he changed his field of action successively from Macedon to Italy, from Italy to Sicily, from Sicily back to Italy, and from Italy to Macedon again, perpetually making new beginnings, but nowhere attaining any ends.
Examples of his want of perseverance.
His determination to invade Macedon once more, on his return to Epirus from Italy, was prompted, apparently, by the mere accident that the government was unsettled, and that Antigonus was insecure in his possession of the throne. He had no intention, when he first embarked in this scheme, of attempting the conquest of Macedon, but only designed to make a predatory incursion into the country for the purpose of plunder, its defenseless condition affording him, as he thought, a favorable opportunity of doing this. The plea on which he justified this invasion was, that Antigonus was his enemy. Ptolemy Ceraunus had made a treaty of alliance with him, and had furnished him with troops for recruiting and re-enforcing his armies in Italy, as has already been stated; but Antigonus, when called upon, had refused to do this. This, of course, gave Pyrrhus ample justification, as he imagined, for his intended incursion into the Macedonian realms.