Pyrrhus became King of Epirus in 296 BCE. He soon demonstrated the military ingenuity that allows us to include him in the greatest generals of all time. His policy was aggressive but he also paid attention to the defences of his realm by establishing an extensive network of fortified acropolises. One of them is right here, in Megalo Gardiki. Apart from these forts, he adopted other means of defence as well; a string of marriages that secured important alliances and an extension of his influence. His first wife was Antigone, daughter of Berenice, queen of Egypt. Later on he married Lanassa, daughter of king Agathocles of Syracuse as well as Bircenna, the daughter of the king of the Illyrians, as well as the daughter of the king of the Paeonians.