You might also find this link useful on the history of Pyrrhus. Pyrrhus the Eagle

And of course there is also info on the Hannibal site: Barca Net -- Look for Pyrrhus

I find Pyrrhus' battles to be more interesting than many later battles in getting an idea of evenly matched armies of the time. The Romans he faced were post Servian/pre-Polybian legions much like what the Romans would have been using in the 1st Punic War. The end of Pyrrhus' invasion just precedes the start of RTW.

His phalangites won their first two major battles with Rome and probably only lost the third because of the attempted night attack, and later stampeding of his elephants into his phalanx. Folks try to claim that the Roman legions won every battle with the phalanx, and therefore the legion was superior 1vs1. The argument falls apart when you take a closer look at the record of Pyrrhus, Hannibal, and even Philip V at Cynocephalae. These battles illustrate the frontal strength of the phalanx, and also its weakness in flexibility/speed of movement/ease of disorder. There was superiority to the Roman system when facing phalanx based infantry, but not in the head-to-head match up. One of the bigger weaknesses with phalangites is that they can't pursue very well. Therefore, if they win, they can't destroy their enemy as completely. Even worse, if they lose, they tend to be trapped.

Pyrrhus battles provide a very good look at elephants with their strengths and weakenesses. "Live by the elephant, die by the elephant!" Or something like that.

Does anyone know what the territorial/national symbol of Epirus would have been?