Cadmean victory

The phrase "Cadmean victory" has been largely displaced in popular use by the phrase "Pyrrhic victory," which carries a similar connotation.

In fighting and killing the snake, the companions of the founder Cadmus all perished - leading to the term "Cadmean victory" (i.e. a victory involving one's own ruin).

Details of the battle are sketchy, but it is known that the Greeks had driven the allied fleet off, but had lost almost two-thirds of their own fleet in doing so: a Cadmean victory, according to Herodotus.

The block was a Cadmean victory in that although the block was canceled after one year, the resulting audience fracture caused what turned out to be irreparable harm to the previously dominant TGIF, eventually clearing the way for CBS to dominate the Friday night lineup beginning in the next decade.