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Lamian War
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Lamian War
The Lamian War or the Hellenic War (323–322 BC), was an unsuccessful attempt by Athens and a large coalition of Greek states to end the hegemony of Macedonia over Greece just after the death of Alexander the Great. It was the last time Athens played a significant role as an independent power.
War was simmering in Greece after Alexander the Great issued the Exiles' Decree (in 324 BC), which ordered the Greek states to return all the people they had forced into exile. This decree meant that Athens had to surrender the island of Samos, colonised by Athenian clerurchs since 365 BC, while the Aetolian League had to leave Oiniadai, taken c.330 BC. Once the death of Alexander became known in June 323 BC, most city-states in mainland Greece revolted and founded the Hellenic League, recalling the alliance forged during the Persian Wars, this time with Macedonia in the role of the foreign invader. The Greeks were initially successful under their Athenian commander-in-chief Leosthenes, who managed to besiege Antipater, the Macedonian general in Europe, in the city of Lamia, which gave its name to the war. However, the arrival of a large Macedonian fleet commanded by Cleitus the White from the Levant turned the tide in favour of Macedonia. Even though Athens had more ships than Macedonia, it did not have enough crews to man them all and its overextended navy was defeated off the Echinades islands and Amorgos.
On land, the Greeks lifted the siege of Lamia with the arrival of Macedonian reinforcements from Asia. At the head of a large merged army, Antipater defeated the Greeks in Thessaly at the Battle of Krannon, after which he received the surrender of every city-state in central Greece. Faced with the prospect of a naval blockade and a land invasion, Athens capitulated. It had to give up its navy, host a Macedonian garrison on its soil, lose its possessions outside Attica, and even trade its democracy for an oligarchic regime. Symbolic of this event's significance, the famous orator Demosthenes committed suicide to avoid his capture by the Macedonians. Athens never again played a leading role in Greek geopolitics after the Lamian War.
While Antipater was turning his forces west to deal with the Aetolian League, the last member of the Greek alliance still fighting, he was called back to Asia by the beginning of the Wars of the Diadochi between Alexander's generals. The Aetolian League therefore escaped unscathed and appear to be the real winner of the war, because Athens bore most of the fight, and the league remained mostly in place. The Aetolian League then became one of the most important states in Greece during the Hellenistic era.
The main ancient source on the Lamian War is the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, who composed a very large work, the Bibliotheca historica, at the very end of the Roman Republic. The events of the war are detailed in books 17–18. Modern historians have been very critical of Diodorus, for his careless treatment of chronology, inability to deal with conflicting sources, insertions of his own opinions as facts, omission of entire years of events, etc. Diodorus is nevertheless useful because his work preserves fragments of lost historians. His books dealing with the Lamian War drew extensively on Hieronymus of Cardia, the main historian of the beginning of the Hellenistic era, who also played a historical role and met many of the generals of Alexander the Great.
Plutarch, a Greek moralist who lived at the time of the Flavian emperors and Trajan, is also a good source thanks to his biographies of Demosthenes and Phocion, two leading politicians in Athens at the time.
The initial name of the war was the Hellenic War, mostly labelled as such in epigraphic material of the end of the 4th century and beginning of the 3rd century. It was chosen by the Greeks in order to recall their victorious war against the Persian Empire in the first half of the 5th century, thus placing Macedonia in the role of Persia. The name of their coalition, the Hellenic League, was chosen for the same reason. In his biography of Phocion, Plutarch writes "Hellenic War", because his source was Duris of Samos, who wrote a history book of the period in the 270s, at a time when it was still the common name. The name shift to "Lamian War" happened with Hieronymus of Cardia, who wrote an influential book just a decade after Duris. He was a pro-Macedonian writer who wanted to avoid using the name "Hellenic War" that was too much directed against Macedonia. Hieronymus' Macedonian bias can be retrieved from Diodorus' writings, as he mostly based his account from Hieronymus, and as a result has a negative tone towards the Greeks and their attempt to recover their freedom. Moreover, Hieronymus wrote his book after the Chremonidean War (267–261), another unsuccessful revolt of the Greeks against Macedonia, and likewise wished to avoid any reminder of the Persian Wars.
This theory was first made by N. G. Ashton in 1984 and has found general acceptance since. However, in 2011, John Walsh has suggested that the name Lamian War was first coined by the poet Choerilus of Iasus, who composed an epic named Lamiaka about the war soon after the events. It means that Choerilus had identified the siege of Lamia as the turning point of the war. Walsh notes that such epics became fashionable during the Hellenistic era and that Choerilus might have been a member of the court of Antipater, the Macedonian regent in Europe, also a man of letters. Therefore, Hieronumus would have only popularised a term that already existed.
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Lamian War
The Lamian War or the Hellenic War (323–322 BC), was an unsuccessful attempt by Athens and a large coalition of Greek states to end the hegemony of Macedonia over Greece just after the death of Alexander the Great. It was the last time Athens played a significant role as an independent power.
War was simmering in Greece after Alexander the Great issued the Exiles' Decree (in 324 BC), which ordered the Greek states to return all the people they had forced into exile. This decree meant that Athens had to surrender the island of Samos, colonised by Athenian clerurchs since 365 BC, while the Aetolian League had to leave Oiniadai, taken c.330 BC. Once the death of Alexander became known in June 323 BC, most city-states in mainland Greece revolted and founded the Hellenic League, recalling the alliance forged during the Persian Wars, this time with Macedonia in the role of the foreign invader. The Greeks were initially successful under their Athenian commander-in-chief Leosthenes, who managed to besiege Antipater, the Macedonian general in Europe, in the city of Lamia, which gave its name to the war. However, the arrival of a large Macedonian fleet commanded by Cleitus the White from the Levant turned the tide in favour of Macedonia. Even though Athens had more ships than Macedonia, it did not have enough crews to man them all and its overextended navy was defeated off the Echinades islands and Amorgos.
On land, the Greeks lifted the siege of Lamia with the arrival of Macedonian reinforcements from Asia. At the head of a large merged army, Antipater defeated the Greeks in Thessaly at the Battle of Krannon, after which he received the surrender of every city-state in central Greece. Faced with the prospect of a naval blockade and a land invasion, Athens capitulated. It had to give up its navy, host a Macedonian garrison on its soil, lose its possessions outside Attica, and even trade its democracy for an oligarchic regime. Symbolic of this event's significance, the famous orator Demosthenes committed suicide to avoid his capture by the Macedonians. Athens never again played a leading role in Greek geopolitics after the Lamian War.
While Antipater was turning his forces west to deal with the Aetolian League, the last member of the Greek alliance still fighting, he was called back to Asia by the beginning of the Wars of the Diadochi between Alexander's generals. The Aetolian League therefore escaped unscathed and appear to be the real winner of the war, because Athens bore most of the fight, and the league remained mostly in place. The Aetolian League then became one of the most important states in Greece during the Hellenistic era.
The main ancient source on the Lamian War is the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, who composed a very large work, the Bibliotheca historica, at the very end of the Roman Republic. The events of the war are detailed in books 17–18. Modern historians have been very critical of Diodorus, for his careless treatment of chronology, inability to deal with conflicting sources, insertions of his own opinions as facts, omission of entire years of events, etc. Diodorus is nevertheless useful because his work preserves fragments of lost historians. His books dealing with the Lamian War drew extensively on Hieronymus of Cardia, the main historian of the beginning of the Hellenistic era, who also played a historical role and met many of the generals of Alexander the Great.
Plutarch, a Greek moralist who lived at the time of the Flavian emperors and Trajan, is also a good source thanks to his biographies of Demosthenes and Phocion, two leading politicians in Athens at the time.
The initial name of the war was the Hellenic War, mostly labelled as such in epigraphic material of the end of the 4th century and beginning of the 3rd century. It was chosen by the Greeks in order to recall their victorious war against the Persian Empire in the first half of the 5th century, thus placing Macedonia in the role of Persia. The name of their coalition, the Hellenic League, was chosen for the same reason. In his biography of Phocion, Plutarch writes "Hellenic War", because his source was Duris of Samos, who wrote a history book of the period in the 270s, at a time when it was still the common name. The name shift to "Lamian War" happened with Hieronymus of Cardia, who wrote an influential book just a decade after Duris. He was a pro-Macedonian writer who wanted to avoid using the name "Hellenic War" that was too much directed against Macedonia. Hieronymus' Macedonian bias can be retrieved from Diodorus' writings, as he mostly based his account from Hieronymus, and as a result has a negative tone towards the Greeks and their attempt to recover their freedom. Moreover, Hieronymus wrote his book after the Chremonidean War (267–261), another unsuccessful revolt of the Greeks against Macedonia, and likewise wished to avoid any reminder of the Persian Wars.
This theory was first made by N. G. Ashton in 1984 and has found general acceptance since. However, in 2011, John Walsh has suggested that the name Lamian War was first coined by the poet Choerilus of Iasus, who composed an epic named Lamiaka about the war soon after the events. It means that Choerilus had identified the siege of Lamia as the turning point of the war. Walsh notes that such epics became fashionable during the Hellenistic era and that Choerilus might have been a member of the court of Antipater, the Macedonian regent in Europe, also a man of letters. Therefore, Hieronumus would have only popularised a term that already existed.
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