[20,10] Διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ὑπὸ Ῥωμαίων ἡττήθη ὁ Πύρρος κατὰ κράτος· οὐ γὰρ στρατιά τις φαύλη καὶ ἀνάσκητος ἦν αὐτῷ, ἀλλ´ ἡ κρατίστη τῶν τότε οὐσῶν ἐν Ἕλλησι καὶ πλείστους ἀγωνισαμένη πολέμους· οὐδὲ πλῆθος ἀνδρῶν τῶν τότε παραταξαμένων ὀλίγον, ἀλλ´ ὅσον καὶ τριπλάσιον εἶναι, οὐδὲ στρατηγὸς τῶν ἐπιτυχόντων τις, ἀλλ´ ὃν ἅπαντες ὁμολογοῦσι μέγιστον γενέσθαι τῶν κατὰ τὴν αὐτὴν ἡλικίαν ἀκμασάντων στρατηγῶν, οὐδὲ τόπου φύσις ἄνισος οὔτ´ ἐπικουρίας τοῖς ἑτέροις ἄφιξις αἰφνίδιος οὔτ´ ἄλλη τις συμφορὰ καὶ πρόφασις ἀπροσδόκητος ἐπιπεσοῦσα συνέτριψε τὰ Πύρρου πράγματα, ἀλλ´ ὁ τῆς ἀσεβηθείσης θεᾶς χολός, ὃν οὐδ´ αὐτὸς ἠγνόει Πύρρος, ὡς Πρόξενος ὁ συγγραφεὺς ἱστορεῖ καὶ αὐτὸς ὁ Πύρρος ἐν τοῖς ἰδίοις ὑπομνήμασι γράφει.

[20,10] (19.11) It was for this reason that Pyrrhus was defeated by the Romans also in a battle to the finish. For it was no mean or untrained army that he had, but the mightiest of those then in existence among the Greeks and one that had fought a great many wars; nor was it a small body of men that was then arrayed under him, but even three times as large as his adversary's, nor was its general any chance leader, but rather the man whom all admit to have been the (p421) greatest of all the generals who flourish at that same period; 2 nor was it any inequality in the position he occupied, nor the sudden arrival of reinforcements for the other side, nor any other mischance or unexpected excuse for failure that ruined the cause of Pyrrhus, but rather the wrath of the goddess whose sanctity had been violated, a wrath of which not even Pyrrhus himself was unaware, as Proxenus the historian relates and as Pyrrhus himself records in his own memoirs.