Tristan Hughes

That's a topic for another podcast or several.

But Rome's ultimate victory against the Samnites paved the way for their expansion into southern Italy.

Now this put them into conflict with the Greek cities led by Tarentum.

Yet these cities lacked the strength to oppose the Romans on their own.

In recent decades, they had grown used to requesting outside assistance – warlords from mainland Greece keen to expand their power into rich and fertile Magna Graecia.

The policy hadn't enjoyed the greatest success in the past, but in 281 BC, with the Romans knocking on their door, the Tarentines tried again.

They looked to a new rising warlord on the Greek mainland, Pyrrhus, king of Molossia, leader of the Epirots in northwest Greece, a relative of Alexander the Great and a charismatic proven commander.

With a mighty army centred around professional pike phalanxes, shock cavalry and Indian war elephants, Pyrrhus crossed the small strait that divides Greece and Italy and led the resistance against the Romans.

He gained early success, winning a victory against the Romans at Heraclea, after which it's likely that Pestum joined his side.

Samnites, Lucanians and Greeks were united under Pyrrhus' banner against Rome.

Another victory followed for Pyrrhus the next year at Asculum, but this one was less clear-cut.

Pyrrhus lost a lot of his key troops, with him supposedly remarking at the end of the day, another such victory and I am undone.

Effectively, another victory that costly and I'll lose the war.

This is where we get the phrase Pyrrhic victory from.

Pyrrhus would have expected the Romans to give in after two defeats, but the Romans had other ideas.

Like the Hydra, they raised new forces to fight Pyrrhus and the tables started to turn.

A few years and a disastrous Sicilian expedition later, Pyrrhus brought the Romans to battle once more in southern Italy, this time at a place called Beneventum.

There, the Romans either defeated Pyrrhus or brought him to a stalemate.

The result was the same.

Pyrrhus, who many had likened to Alexander the Great, abandoned his Italian venture.