LCL 101: PLUTARCH, Lives. Pyrrhus, Page 348-353
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I. Historians tell us that the first king of the Thesprotians and Molossians after the flood was Phaethon, one of those who came into Epeirus with Pelasgus; but some say that Deucalion and Pyrrha established the sanctuary at Dodona and dwelt there among the Molossians. In after time, however, Neoptolemus the son of Achilles, bringing a people with him, got possession of the country for himself, and left a line of kings descending from him. These were called after him Pyrrhidae; for he had the surname of Pyrrhus in his boyhood, and of his legitimate children by Lanassa, the daughter of Cleodaeus the son of Hyllus, one was named by him Pyrrhus. Consequently Achilles also obtained divine honours in Epeirus, under the native name of Aspetus. But the kings who followed in this line soon lapsed into barbarism and became quite obscure, both in their power and in their lives, and it was Tharrhypas, historians say, who first introduced Greek customs and letters and regulated his cities by humane laws, thereby acquiring for himself a name. Alcetas was a son of Tharrhypas, Arybas of Alcetas. and of Arybas and Troas, Aeacides. He married Phthia, the daughter of Menon the Thessalian, a man who won high repute at the time of the Lamian war and acquired the highest authority among the confederates after Leosthenes. Phthia bore to Aeacides two daughters, Deïdameia and Troas, and a son, Pyrrhus.
II. But factions arose among the Molossians, and expelling Aeacides they brought into power the sons of Neoptolemus. The friends of Aeacides were then seized and put to death, but Pyrrhus, who was still a babe and was sought for by the enemy, was stolen away by Androcleides and Angelus, who took to flight. However, they were obliged to take along with them a few servants, and women for the nursing of the child, and on this account their flight was laborious and slow and they were overtaken. They therefore entrusted the child to Androcleion, Hippias, and Neander, sturdy and trusty young men, with orders to fly with all their might and make for Megara, a Macedonian town; while they themselves, partly by entreaties and partly by fighting, stayed the course of the pursuers until late in the evening. After these had at last been driven back, they hastened to join the men who were carrying Pyrrhus. The sun had already set and they were near their hoped-for refuge, when suddenly they found themselves cut off from it by the river which flowed past the city. This had a forbidding and savage look, and when they tried to cross it, proved altogether impassable. For its current was greatly swollen and violent from rains that had fallen, and the darkness made everything more formidable. Accordingly, they gave up trying to cross unaided, since they were carrying the child and the women who cared for the child; and perceiving some of the people of the country standing on the further bank, they besought their help in crossing, and showed them Pyrrhus, with loud cries and supplications. But the people on the other side could not hear them for the turbulence and splashing of the stream, and so there was delay, one party shouting what the other could not understand, until some one bethought himself of a better way. He stripped off a piece of bark from a tree and wrote thereon with a buckle-pin a message telling their need and the fortune of the child; then he wrapped the bark about a stone, which he used to give force to his cast, and threw it to the other side. Some say, however, that it was a javelin about which he wrapped the bark, and that he shot it across. Accordingly, when those on the other side had read the message and saw that no time was to be lost, they cut down trees, lashed them together, and made their way across. As chance would have it, the first of them to make his way across was named Achilles; he took Pyrrhus in his arms, and the rest of the fugitives were conveyed across by others in one way or another.
III. Having thus outstripped their pursuers and reached a place of safety, the fugitives betook themselves to
Glaucias the king of the Illyrians; and finding him sitting at home with his wife, they put the little child down on the floor before them. Then the king began to reflect. He was in fear of Cassander, who was an enemy of Aeacides, and held his peace a long time as he took counsel with himself. Meanwhile Pyrrhus, of his own accord, crept along the floor, clutched the king’s robe, and pulled himself on to his feet at the knees of Glaucias, who was moved at first to laughter, then to pity, as he saw the child clinging to his knees and weeping like a formal suppliant. Some say, however, that the child did not supplicate Glaucias, but caught hold of an altar of the gods and stood there with his arms thrown round it, and that Glaucias thought this a sign from Heaven. Therefore he at once put Pyrrhus in the arms of his wife, bidding her rear him along with their children; and a little while after, when the child’s enemies demanded his surrender, and Cassander offered two hundred talents for him, Glaucias would not give him up, but after he had reached the age of twelve years, actually conducted him back into Epeirus with an armed force and set him upon the throne there.n the aspect of his countenance Pyrrhus had more of the terror than of the majesty of kingly power. He had not many teeth, but his upper jaw was one continuous bone, on which the usual intervals between the teeth were indicated by slight depressions. People of a splenetic habit believed that he cured their ailment; he would sacrifice a white cock, and, while the patient lay flat upon his back, would press gently with his right foot against the spleen. Nor was any one so obscure or poor as not to get this healing service from him if he asked it. The king would also accept the cock after he had sacrificed it, and this honorarium was most pleasing to him. It is said, further, that the great toe of his right foot had a divine virtue, so that after the rest of his body had been consumed, this was found to be untouched and unharmed by the fire. These things, however, belong to a later period.
IV. When he had reached the age of seventeen years and was thought to be firmly seated on his throne, it came to pass that he went on a journey, when one of the sons of Glaucias, with whom he had been reared, was married. Once more, then, the Molossians banded together, drove out his friends, plundered his property, and put themselves under Neoptolemus. Pyrrhus, thus stripped of his realm and rendered destitute of all things, joined himself to Demetrius the son of Antigonus, who had his sister Deïdameia to wife. She, while she was still a girl, had been nominally given in marriage to Alexander, Roxana’s son; but their affairs miscarried, and when she was of age Demetrius married her.
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Originally Posted by Johane Derite
