A Pyrrhic Victory.
Volume I,
The Shaping of Destiny.
By Ian Crouch.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT.

The manuscript of A Pyrrhic Victory is fiction, but it is loyal to the known history of Pyrrhus’s life.

Many of the supporting characters are also historical figures.

I have tried to be loyal to the known history of these times both philosophically and factually – to the great deeds of Alexander the Great and his contemporaries, to the wonderful achievements of Classical Greece, and to the Romans, who are nearing their time of greatness in the Mediterranean world.

There are a few small liberties that I have taken with fine historical detail to avoid unnecessary complexity. An example of one of these liberties is my giving the names of Lucius Cornelius Scipio and Gnaeus Fulvius as the consuls of Rome at the time of Pyrrhus’s and Antigone’s wedding. These two men were the consuls in 298 BC, but it is possible that they entered their time of office a short time after the wedding. I avoided speaking about the consulship of 299 BC because in that year there was an interregnum of the consulship, with the election of Military Tribunes with consular power. Such interregna occurred from time to time in Rome when there was a serious dispute between the patricians and the plebeians, at this time usually related to access to offices of power by the plebeians.