Lamian war

After the Battle of Heronea (338 BC), Ancient Greece came under the control of Macedonia. During the war of Alexander the Great against the Persians, the Greeks fought on both sides of the front. However, during the subsequent uprising in the struggle for the freedom of Hellas, both veterans of the army of Alexander the Great and the Greek "Persophiles" united. The Athenian strategist Leosthenes became the leader of the anti-Macedonian uprising. As a mercenary commander, he was able to make preparations without raising suspicion. Leosthenes secretly negotiated with the Aetolians (western Greece), recruited mercenaries in the Spartan town of Tenar with the money placed by the treasurer escaping from Alexander Garpal in the Athenian vault. Alexander the Great forced the Persian satraps to disband their armed detachments, so many mercenaries who had no other means of subsistence other than war returned to Greece. The direct cause of the uprising, according to ancient historians, was Alexander’s decree, according to which exiles could return to Greek cities. This decree particularly affected the Athenian state, which tried to maintain control of the strategically important island of Samos , from where Athens expelled many of its opponents.

As soon as the news of Alexander’s death reached Athens, a popular assembly proclaimed a campaign for freedom and issued a manifesto demanding the expulsion of Macedonian garrisons throughout Greece. The ambassadors carried this demand across all Greek states with the intention of rebelling them against Macedonia. Athens mobilized 5500 citizens for the war, to which 2 thousand mercenaries were added at the expense of the city. At the head of the Greek army was Leosthenes , who emerged from the Spartan Tenaron with 8 thousand mercenaries. 7 thousand Aetolians joined the liberation army, other cities also sent troops.

Corinth did not participate in the campaign, where the Macedonian garrison stood, Sparta , always acting independently and whose hostages were in Macedonia.

The Boeotians , remaining allies of the Macedonians, tried to prevent the combined Greek army from passing through their lands, but were overturned in the summer of 323 BC. e. . Leosthenes with an army of 30 thousand people passed through the Thermopyllic passage to Thessaly .

Antipater was able to collect only 14 thousand soldiers to resist the Greeks, the rest were necessary to protect the country from barbarians. He sent for help to the commander Alexander Crater , so that he hastened to him from Asia Minor with the veterans sent Alexander home, as well as to the governor of Minor Phrygia Leonnat . Antipater hoped with the help of the Macedonian garrisons in Thessaly to keep the rebel Greeks from further advancement.

Antipater preferred to immediately retreat after the first clash with the rebel forces. Not having enough strength for the battle, he took refuge in the well-fortified town of Lamia (southern Thessaly ), which was called the whole war. There he hoped to wait for the Crater Veterans to approach. The first assault, which lasted several days, was repelled by the Macedonians. The Greeks could not leave significant forces of the Macedonians in their rear, close to the strategically important Thermopilsky passage, and began a systematic siege, surrounding Lamia with a wall.

Many Thessalian cities went over to the side of the Greek coalition, on whose strength Antipater relied heavily. Antipater lacked food, he was forced to enter into negotiations with Leosthenes, which did not lead to anything, since Leosthenes demanded complete surrender. First, at the end of 323 BC. e. under the pretext of the annual election of the officials of the Aetolian Union, the Etolian civilian militia went home, promising, however, to return later, and then the Greek commander Leosthenes died from a stone (or dart) thrown from the walls of the fortress. Instead of Leosthenes, the Athenians appointed Antifilos as their leader.

The siege of Lamia lasted all winter, and in the spring of 322 BC. e. the Macedonian commander Leonnat with the 20,000th army invaded Thessaly. Antiphil lifted a siege with Lamia to meet with Leonnat in battle before Antipater helped him. The Greeks put up 22 thousand foot and 3.5 thousand horse. The Thessalian cavalry, having shown valor in the battles of Alexander the Great, now fought under the command of Menon against the Macedonians. The battle turned out to be equestrian, the infantry of the warring parties almost did not participate in the battle. Leonnat fell in battle against the superior Greek and Thessalian cavalry. The Macedonian infantry retreated to rough terrain, where it was able to fend off the impending Greeks. The next day, Antipater, having escaped from Lamia, joined the surviving soldiers of Leonnat to his forces. Now the Macedonians had more infantry than the Greeks, but the lack of cavalry forced them to retreat to Macedonia, avoiding battle in an open field.

Antipater, skillfully maneuvering on the approaches to Macedonia, kept the Greeks from battle. When the Crater arrived with 11 thousand infantry, of which 6 thousand were hardened veterans and 1.5 thousand cavalry, the army of Antipater gained a numerical and qualitative superiority over the Greeks. Now Antifil, whose army was melting in numbers, began to avoid battle.

However, in August 322 BC. e. a battle took place under the city of Crannon in the center of Thessaly . About 29 thousand Greeks opposed the 48-thousand army of Antipater and Crater, of which 5 thousand were cavalry ( Diodorus of Sicily ). The Thessalian cavalry fled numerically superior to the Macedonian cavalry, but the Macedonian phalanx forced the Greeks to retreat. The Macedonians killed 130 people, the Greeks 500. The plutarch in the biography of Phocion thus describes the defeat of the Greeks:

“ Soon, Crater crossed over from Asia to Europe with great military force. Under Crannon, the opponents met again, and this time the Greeks were defeated. It turned out to be not too heavy, the losses were not particularly great, however, because of disobedience to the leaders, young and too condescending, and also because Antipater persuaded the cities to betray the common cause, the vanquished dispersed, shamefully leaving their freedom to their fate. "

The Athenian fleet of 240 ships under the command of Evetion was tasked with preventing the arrival of reinforcements from Asia to Antipater. Part of the ships of Evetion blocked the Gulf of Mali in the Aegean Sea, where Antipater held a flotilla to support land operations. The other part ran through the Hellespont , separating Europe from Asia.

In the spring of 322 BC e. Navarh Cleet led the Macedonian fleet of 240 triremes to the city of Abydos in the Hellespont. Evetion had 170 ships. In the naval battle, the Greeks were defeated. Then Cleatus dispersed the Athenian fleet in the Gulf of Mali and attached the unblocked fleet of Antipater to his own. The surviving Greek ships tried to take refuge on the island of Amorgos in the southern Aegean , but Cleitus overtook them there too.

Deprived of the fleet, Athens ceased to be a significant naval power. It was now possible for Antipater to land an amphibious assault in Attica , but his landing expedition was engaged in robbery and ruin of the surroundings. The Athenians sent a detachment under the command of the elderly Phocion and killed the looters.

Recognizing the lack of strength for a long war, which Focion had warned of at one time, the leaders of the allied Greek army proposed to make peace, but Antipater, declaring that he could not deal with an alliance that he did not recognize, began to conduct separate negotiations with each city separately . As a result, Thessalian cities were individually attacked and again fell under Macedonian rule. The Athenians, left without allies, went home. Autumn 322 BC e. all cities thought only of more favorable conditions for surrender.

Talks with Antipater about the fate of Athens were led by the speaker Demad, the platonic philosopher Xenocrates and the strategist Fokion. They managed to convince the winners to refrain from invading Attica, but otherwise Antipater was adamant. Athens was imposed a large indemnity. The democratic form of government was abolished and replaced by an oligarchy . Only wealthy citizens interested in a stable world were allowed to rule the state, the rest lost their political rights. Athens had to abandon the last possessions outside Attica - the islands of Lemnos , Imbros , Skyros and Samos . The Macedonian garrison was introduced into the Athenian fortress. Athens had to give out active opponents of Macedonia, including the famous speaker Demosthenes . In order not to fall into the hands of enemies, Demosthenes was poisoned.

The 32,000-strong Macedonian army entered Aetolia in order to compel the Aetolians to submission, like the Athenians. However, the Aetolians put up fierce resistance. They locked themselves in mountain fortresses with their families, leaving cities that they could not protect. Antipater established a winter blockade, trying to starve out the rebellious highlanders with hunger, but he did not succeed, because he was forced to withdraw troops from Aetolia because of the need to wage war in other places. Thus, the staunch Aetolians managed to maintain independence, and subsequently they, together with the Romans, took part in the defeat of Macedonia during the Macedonian Wars .

• Friedrich Schlosser , World History, St. Petersburg, 1868-1872, v. 1
• Diodorus (17.111, 18.8-15, 18.24-25)
• Plutarch ("Fokion", "Demosthenes")
• Justin (13.5)
• Pausanias (1.25)
• Hyperid (speech at the funeral of Leosthenes )