Battle of Beneventum (275 BC)  The Battle of Beneventum (275 BC) was the last battle of the Pyrrhic War. It was fought between the forces of Pyrrhus, king of Epirus in Greece, and the Romans, led by consul Manius Curius Dentatus. It was fought near Beneventum, in southern Italy. It was a strategic (possibly also tactical) Roman victory and Pyrrhus was forced to return to Tarentum, and later to Epirus. The Pyrrhic War broke out when Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, in Greece sailed to southern Italy, ostensibly to aid the Greek city of Tarentum in southern Italy in a dispute with the Romans. Ancient historians agreed that his real motive was the conquest of Italy. Besides the Tarentines, three Italic peoples of southern Italy, the Samnites, Lucani and Bruttii, who were in conflict with the Romans, fought alongside the forces of this Greek king. Pyrrhus won two battles (the Battle of Heraclea and the Battle of Asculum) which were highly wasteful for him because he suffered heavy casualties. He realised that he could not sustain more battles with the Romans. They depleted his forces, whereas the pool of military manpower of the Romans was far superior. Consequently, when he was asked by the Greek city-states of eastern and southern Sicily to help them against the Carthaginians in the western part of the island, he accepted and went to Sicily. This aggrieved his allies in southern Italy, who were left to their own devices against the Romans. Pyrrhus seized all the Carthaginian domains except for Lilybaeum, which he failed to capture. He then decided to build a large fleet to attack the Carthaginians in Africa. In order to man and equip this fleet he treated the Greek city-states despotically. Many of them turned against him. This forced him to leave Sicily and return to Italy. Plutarch gave the most detailed account of the battle. He wrote that during the three years Pyrrhus spent campaigning in Sicily, the Samnites suffered many defeats at the hands of the Romans and lost a substantial part of their territory. This made them resentful towards Pyrrhus. Therefore, most of them did not join him when he returned to southern Italy. Cassius Dio wrote that the Samnites being hard pressed by the Romans caused Pyrrhus to set forth again to come to their assistance.