"Pyrrhic victory"

In 281 BC the people of Tarentum (now Taranto), a Greek colony in southern Italy then at war with the Romans, requested the aid of Pyrrhus. Early in 280 BC he sailed for Tarentum with a force of 25,000 men and 20 elephants and in the same year defeated the Romans at Heraclea, in the Roman province of Lucania, but at great cost to his army; hence the expression Pyrrhic victory.

"Pyrrhus," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia. (c) 1993-1997 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.