Tarentum attacked a Roman fleet sailing in its waters, and after Rome rejected the Tarentines' demands, war was declared. The Tarentines then sought foreign support from Pyrrhus of Epirus, who landed at Tarentum with reinforcements in 281/280 BC.

According to Livy, the Tarentines looted a Roman fleet and killed its commander in 282 BCE; when Rome sent envoys to complain, they were mistreated. War was then declared in 281 BCE.

During the eponymous Pyrrhic War of 280–275 BC, Pyrrhus fought Rome at the behest of Tarentum, scoring costly victories at Heraclea and Asculum. The Greek city of Tarentum, in southern Italy, fell out with Rome due to a violation of an old treaty that specified Rome was not to send warships into the Tarentine Gulf. Although this was designed as a measure against the Italian peoples of Lucania, the Tarentines grew nervous and attacked the Romans in Thurii, driving the Roman garrison from the city and sinking several Roman warships. The Tarentines asked Pyrrhus to lead their war against the Romans.

In 281 Tarentum (in southern Italy) asked for Pyrrhus’s assistance against Rome. He crossed to Italy with about 25,000 men, and in 280 won a complete, if costly, victory over a Roman army at Heraclea. In 279 Pyrrhus, again suffering heavy casualties, defeated the Romans at Ausculum in Apulia.

In 282 BCE, Roman Republic was asked to intervene in the case of the Greek city of Thurii, which was being raided by Lucanians and Bruttians. When the Romans entered the bay of Tarentum, they regarded it as breaking the mutual agreement not to enter the bay with Roman ships. Tarentum reacted quickly and destroyed the Roman ships, attacked Thurii and took Roman citizens prisoner. ... Postumius did not remove the pollution until he returned to Rome, where, upon hearing of the envoy’s treatment, it was decided to declare war on Tarentum in 282 BCE, which also caused the war with Pyrrhus.

Hostilities between Rome and the Greek states commenced after a Roman ambassador was insulted at Tarentum, when seeking redress for a minor naval skirmish in the harbor of Tarentum. When Rome declared war, Tarentum called on Pyrrhus of Epirus for help.

Tarentum was the largest and most powerful Greek city in Italy. Tarentum asked Pyrrhus to go to Italy to assist them because Rome declared war on the city. This followed Tarentum attacking a Roman fleet off their coast, sinking some of their ships and capturing some prisoners. The Tarentines rejected Rome's diplomatic proposals to resolve the situation and ridiculed the Roman envoys, leading Rome to declare war. … Tarentum asks Pyrrhus for help: They brought gifts and claimed if he went to Italy he would find a force of 50,000 infantry and 20,000 cavalry gathered from Tarentum, Messapia, Lucania and Samnium. This got Pyrrhus excited and made the Epirotes eager to fight in Italy.

In the late 4th and early 3rd centuries BCE, Rome had already conquered most of central and southern Italy. The wealthy Greek city of Tarentum, located in Magna Graecia, viewed Rome’s growing influence as a threat. The immediate cause of war emerged in 282 BCE. According to Appian and Dionysius of Halicarnassus, a Roman naval squadron entered waters near Tarentum despite a treaty restriction. When Roman envoys arrived in Tarentum’s harbor in 282 BCE, the Tarentines attacked the fleet and insulted the ambassadors. Facing inevitable retaliation, Tarentum appealed to King Pyrrhus of Epirus for military assistance.

In 282 BC, a conflict erupted between Rome and the Greek city of Tarentum (modern-day Taranto) in southern Italy. Realising their cause was doomed without aid, the Tarentines sent a plea for help from the Greek mainland. It was this plea that reached the ears of Pyrrhus in Epirus, and Pyrrhus quickly accepted the offer. Pyrrhus landed in southern Italy in 281 BC with a large Hellenistic army.

In 282 BC, Tarentum attacked ten Roman ships that had entered the Gulf of Taranto without permission. In the following year, the Romans sent a diplomatic mission to negotiate terms for the release of prisoners. Instead, the mission took control of the city, and in desperation the Tarentines called for aid from Pyrrhus of Epirus.

Taranto had a treaty with Rome stating that the Romans would not send their ships to the Gulf of Taranto. … in 282 BCE Rome strengthened the garrisons in 3 Greek cities – Turija, Locri and Regium. Turija, however, was situated on the western shore of the Bay of Tarentum. … The Tarentians watched with concern as Rome grew in strength, and in the end, decided to act. Taranto troops attacked and sank many Roman ships, they also drove the garrison of the Republic out of Turia. The Tarentians were determined to fight Rome, and on behalf of all Greek cities in Italy, they sent an invitation to Pyrrhus to intervene in the Apennine Peninsula.

The crisis started in 327 B.C. at Naples had a great importance for the development of the relationships between the communities of Italy during the last...

This conflict marked the beginning of the Pyrrhic War. In the late 3rd century BC, the Greek city of Tarentum invited Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, to help resist the growing power of Rome. Rome violated an agreement by dispatching 10 ships to Thurii, which Tarentum treated as a breach of the old treaty and destroyed the Roman fleet.

After intervening in a local conflict, Rome found itself at war with the Greek city of Tarentum. The Greeks called upon King Pyrrhus of Epirus to assist them and he sailed to Italy with a massive army to fight the Romans. ... Pyrrhic War lasted from 280-275 BCE. It had its origins in an altercation between the Greek city of Thurii and a neighboring Samnite tribe.

Tarentum had a dispute with Rome due to a violation of an old treaty that specified Rome was not to send warships into the Tarentine Gulf. In 282 BC, Rome placed soldiers in the Greek cities of Thurii, Locri, and Rhegium, and sent warships to Thurii to protect against the Italian people of Lucania. However, the Tarentines became anxious and attacked the Romans in Thurii, forcing them to leave the city and sinking some of their warships. With Rome ready to attack, Tarentum was in a precarious position and needed help from a stronger power. The Tarentines asked Pyrrhus, the king of Epirus, to lead their war against the Romans.

The city of Tarentum, fearing Roman domination, hired King Pyrrhus of Epirus to resist Rome. This conflict between Tarentum and Rome became the Pyrrhic War.

Pyrrhus of Epirus had the bad luck of fighting an enemy that Alexander himself would not have been able to beat. He fought Rome after Tarentum invited him to intervene in its conflict with the Romans.

Pyrrhus, king of Epirus, was invited by Tarentum to lead their struggle against Rome after tensions escalated between the city and the Republic over Roman naval activity in the Tarentine Gulf and the mistreatment of Roman envoys. Ancient narrative sources such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Appian, and the epitomes of Livy consistently present the Tarentine-Roman conflict as the immediate cause of Pyrrhus’s intervention and the subsequent war with Rome.

This article concerns the Battle of Tarentum of 209 BC during the Second Punic War, which is unrelated to the Pyrrhic War. It is included only because the search results surfaced Tarentum, but it does not support the claim about the cause of the war with Pyrrhus.

This study examines the war fought between 280 and 275 BCE between the Roman Republic and King Pyrrhus of Epirus from a Roman perspective. It discusses the origins of the conflict in Rome’s interventions in southern Italy and the resulting tensions with the Greek city-states, particularly Tarentum, which opposed Roman expansion. Tarentum’s hostility and eventual appeal to Pyrrhus are presented as the immediate context for the outbreak of the Pyrrhic War.

Pyrrhus' war began when Rome intervened in southern Italy, and her fleet entered (282) the waters of the great Greek polis of Tarentum, the 3rd-century state power in the region. Rome’s presence in Tarentine waters was seen as a violation of Tarentum’s sphere of influence and of an earlier understanding that Rome would not send warships into the Gulf of Tarentum. Tarentum’s reaction against the Roman fleet and subsequent request for Pyrrhus’ aid are described as the spark that led to the wider war between Rome and Pyrrhus of Epirus.