1.13.1 Defeated on this occasion, Pyrrhos retreated with the remainder of his vessels to Tarentum. Here he met with a serious reverse. And his withdrawal, for he knew that the Romans would not let him depart without striking a blow, he contrived in the following manner. On his return from Sicily and his defeat, he first sent various dispatches to Asia (Minor) and to Antigonos, asking some of the kings for troops, some for money, and Antigonos for both. When the envoys returned and their dispatches were delivered, he summoned those in authority, whether from Epeiros or from Tarentum, and without reading any of the dispatches declared that reinforcements would come. A report spread quickly even to the Romans that Macedonians and men from Asia (Minor) also were crossing to the aid of Pyrrhos. The Romans, on hearing this, made no move, but Pyrrhos, on the approach of that very night, crossed to the headlands of the mountain called Keraunion.

1.13.2 After the defeat in Italy, Pyrrhos gave his forces a rest and then declared war on Antigonos, his chief ground of complaint being the failure to send reinforcements to Italy. Overpowering the native troops of Antigonos and his Gallic mercenaries he pursued them to the coast cities, and himself reduced upper Macedonia and the Thessalians. The extent of the fighting and the decisive character of the victory of Pyrrhos are shown best by the Celtic armor dedicated in the sanctuary of Itonian Athena between Pherai and Larisa, with this inscription on them:

1.13.3 hang up, Pyrrhos did, taking them from the bold Gauls [Galatai],

1.13.4 being usually readier to do what came first to hand, he was prevented by Kleonymos. This Kleonymos, who persuaded Pyrrhos to abandon his Macedonian adventure and to go to the Peloponnesus, was a Lacedaemonian who led a hostile army into the Lacedaemonian territory for a reason I will relate after giving the descent of Kleonymos. Pausanias, who was in command of the Greeks [Hellēnes] at Plataea,^* was the father of Pleistoanax, he of Pausanias, and he of Kleombrotos, who was killed at Leuktra fighting against Epameinondas and the Thebans. Kleombrotos was the father of Agesipolis and Kleomenes, and, Agesipolis dying without issue, Kleomenes ascended the throne.

1.13.5 Kleomenes had two sons, the elder being Akrotatos and the younger Kleonymos. Now Akrotatos died first; and when afterwards Kleomenes died, a claim to the throne was put forward by Areus son of Akrotatos, and Kleonymos took steps to induce Pyrrhos to enter the country. Before the battle of Leuktra^* the Lacedaemonians had suffered no disaster, so that they even refused to admit that they had yet been defeated in a land battle. For Leonidas, they said, had won the victory,^* but his followers were insufficient for the entire destruction of the Persians; the achievement of Demosthenes and the Athenians on the island of Sphakteria^* was no victory, but only a trick in war.

1.13.6 Their first reverse took place in Boeotia, and they afterwards suffered a severe defeat at the hands of Antipatros and the Macedonians.^* Thirdly the war with Demetrios^* came as an unexpected misfortune to their land. Invaded by Pyrrhos and seeing a hostile army for the fourth time, they arrayed themselves to meet it along with the Argives and Messenians who had come as their allies. Pyrrhos won the day, and came near to capturing Sparta without further fighting, but desisted for a while after ravaging the land and carrying off plunder.^* The citizens prepared for a siege, and Sparta even before this in the war with Demetrios had been fortified with deep trenches and strong stakes, and at the most vulnerable points with buildings as well.

1.13.7 Just about this time, while the Laconian war was dragging on, Antigonos, having recovered the Macedonian cities, hastened to the Peloponnesus being well aware that if Pyrrhos were to reduce Lacedaemon and the greater part of the Peloponnesus, he would not return to Epeiros but to Macedonia to make war there again. When Antigonos was about to lead his army from Argos into Laconia, Pyrrhos himself reached Argos. Victorious once more he dashed into the city along with the exiles, and his formation not unnaturally was broken up.

1.13.8 When the fighting was now taking place by sanctuaries and houses, and in the narrow lanes, between detached bodies in different parts of the city, Pyrrhos, left by himself, was wounded in the head. It is said that his death^* was caused by a blow from a tile thrown by a woman. The Argives however declare that it was not a woman who killed him but Demeter in the likeness of a woman. This is what the Argives themselves relate about his end, and Lykeas, the exegete [ex-hēgetēs] for the local-population [epikhōrioi], has also said so in hexameters [epē]. They [= the Argives] have a sanctuary [hieron] of Demeter, built in accordance with an oracular-pronouncement [khrē-], on the spot where Pyrrhos died,

1.13.9 and, in there, Pyrrhos is buried. I consider it a wonder [thauma] that, of those who are called Aiakidai, three met their end [teleutē] in the same kinds of way through the agency of the god [ek tou theou]—if, as Homer says, Achilles was killed by Alexander, son of Priam, and by Apollo, and if the people of Delphi were bidden by the Pythia to slay Pyrrhos, son of Achilles, and if the end of the son of Aiakidēs was such as the Argives say and as Lykeas has said-in-poetry [poieîn]. What Hieronymos of Kardia has written [graphein], however, is different, since a man who associates with royalty cannot help being partial in what he writes up [sun-graphein]. If Philistos had just-cause [aitiā dikaiā] in suppressing the most unholy [an-hosia] deeds of Dionysius, because he expected to be restored to Syracuse from exile, surely Hieronymos may be fully forgiven for writing [graphein] to please Antigonos.