Megacles
2. An officer in the service of Pyrrhus, who accompanied that monarch on his expedition to Italy, B. C. 280. He is mentioned as accompanying Pyrrhus when he reconnoitered the Roman camp previous to the battle of Heracleia; and in that action was the means of saving the king's life, by exchanging armour with him, and thus directing the efforts of the assailants upon himself, instead of Pyrrhus. He fell a victim to his devotion, being slain by a Roman named Decius. (Plnt. Pyrrh. 16, 17; Zonar. 8.3.)
From William Smith (ed.), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Text provided under a CC BY-SA license by Perseus Digital Library, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Tufts University. Data accessed from https://github.com/PerseusDL/canonical-pdlrefwk/ on 17 October 2026.