Pyrrhic Victory

 
Back in the Dark Ages, I took two years of Latin in high school, and though I can’t say much in that dead language, I can say something for it. Studying Latin taught me to love words—not just their meaning but how that meaning evolved and endured through the centuries.

In addition to Latin and Greek etymology, I’ve always been curious about the stories behind idioms, especially the ones that come from real or fictional names (called Eponyms). This week’s idiom comes from a Greek emperor named Pyrrhus: [That's him pictured above and below.]

Pyrrhic victory (PEER-ik) noun: A victory achieved at ruinous cost. A situation in which one “wins the battle but loses the war.”

Around 306 B.C., young Pyrrhus inherited his throne and soon became known as a “fighting leader” who stood victorious on many battlefields. In 281 King Pyrrhus took his army to Italy and defeated the Romans on two major fronts. Though the Romans suffered far more losses, Pyrrhus was far from home and had no back up. Upon taking the second city, the king was congratulated but confessed, "One more such victory and I am lost."

More recent examples of Pyrrhic victories would include the Civil War battles at Antietam and Chancellorsville. In the former, the North drove Lee out of Maryland, but not without both sides suffering the bloodiest single-day battle in American history (23,000 casualties including nearly 3,700 dead). In the latter, against all odds, the South won the battle, suffered half the losses of the North, but lost General "Stonewall" Jackson in the process.

Some may consider the current Iraq war a Pyrrhic victory for our coalition forces, but a historical military perspective may confirm otherwise. It's too soon to know the lasting impact of Saddam Hussein's fall. In a political sense, however, it’s clear that President Bush's opponents have successfully turned the battle of public opinion into a "Pyrrhic" perception that has weakened our national resolve.

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Setting military and political applications aside, at a personal level, there are many ways to “win the battle but lose the war.” Pyrrhic victories occur whenever we forget the highest goal of human interaction and waste intangible resources like credibility, goodwill, loyalty, or authority in petty “battles” and then have none left for meaningful “campaigns.”

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A hypothetical example would be the teen who wastes “honor” by lipping off at his spinster aunt. He wins the favor of his laughing peers but loses (without knowing it) the college trust fund she had come to announce during her annual visit. (Conversely one might say, it’s the narrow-minded aunt who wastes the wisdom of her years by always “being right” but in turn loses the “right” to help her nephew mature. This analogy would apply to any situation where "youth" loses both the resources and the respect of "gray hair.")

Have you ever won an argument but lost a friend? Or won some petty grievance but lost your boss’s trust? Or harshly proved a customer wrong and lost his continued patronage? Or won obedience from a child but lost the conscience it deserved. Or trumped authority over those you lead, who learn to give precisely what you’ve asked for but never quite what you wanted?

Whenever winning is put over learning or resources are valued above relationships, life can become a series of Pyrrhic victories in which we seem to win “the upper hand” but have nothing left to hold.

. Further application: Mark 8:36