Taking possession of Aegae, the ancient capital of Macedonia, he installed a garrison of Gaul mercenaries, who greatly offended the Macedonians by digging up the tombs of their kings and leaving the bones scattered about as they searched for gold.

[3] In 272 BC, Cleonymus, a Spartan of royal blood who was denied the throne, asked Pyrrhus to attack Sparta and place him in power.

Pyrrhus gathered an army of 25,000 infantry, 2,000 cavalry and 24 war elephants and invaded the Peloponnese under the ruse of attacking Antigonid garrisons in southern Greece.

By setting ambushes and occupying important positions along the Epiriote line of retreat, the Spartans were able to inflict significant casualties on Pyrrhus' rearguard, killing his son Ptolemy.

[6] Pyrrhus' advance on Argos did not go smoothly as his army was constantly harassed by vengeful Spartan troops led by Areus.

[7] Upon hearing of his son's death and the collapse of his rearguard, Pyrrhus summoned his Molossian cavalry and charged the Spartans.

[8] Pyrrhus attempted to goad Antigonus into fighting a pitched battle on the plain in front of Argos but the Macedonian king was unmoved.

During the night he used the opened gate to infiltrate the city and take possession of the market place with his Gallic mercenaries.

The gate, however, was too small to admit his war elephants, so their handlers were forced to take off their towers and put them back on again once they were in the city.

As Pyrrhus turned to strike down his assailant, he was hit on the head by a roof tile thrown by his attacker's mother who was watching the fight from her rooftop.

Pyrrhus was either killed by the force of the tile's impact or, alternately, having fallen dazed from his horse he was decapitated by Zopyrus, one of Antigonus' Macedonian soldiers.

On his journey north to Macedon, Antigonus succeeded in placing garrisons in the cities of Chalcis and Eretria on the important island of Euboia with the outcome being that he further consolidated his power in Greece.

Angered by Macedon's supremacy and full of ambition, Areus formed a coalition with several Greek poleis, most notably Athens.

The war ended in a defeat that was so crushing for Sparta that it would not rise as a regional power again until the reign of Cleomenes III thirty years later.