 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source .(March 2020) |
| Battle of Thermopylae | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of Lamian War | |||||||
 The battlefield today | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
| Athens, Aetolian League | Macedon | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Leosthenes | Antipater | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| 13,000 infantry 600 cavalry [1] | |||||||
The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 323 BC between the Macedonians and a coalition of armies including Athens and the Aetolian League in the pass of Thermopylae during the Lamian War.
After Antipater received news of the outbreak of the war, he sent messengers to Craterus and Philotas who were in Asia with an army of over 10,000 soldiers, to come to his aid. [1] But receiving news of the progress of the war and realizing that he could not wait for his reinforcements to arrive, he marched south to Thessaly with 13,000 foot soldiers and 600 horsemen, [1] while he left Sippas in command of Macedon. But the Thessalians, who initially supported Macedon, changed sides to the Athenian alliance and joined the Athenian general Leosthenes' forces in occupying the passes of Thermopylae, significantly outnumbering the Macedonians. Antipater was defeated in the ensuing battle and since he could not retreat because the Athenian coalitions' forces were stronger than his forces, he shut himself in the city of Lamia where he was subsequently besieged by Leosthenes' forces. [1]
Macedonia, also called Macedon, was an ancient kingdom on the periphery of Archaic and Classical Greece, and later the dominant state of Hellenistic Greece. The kingdom was founded and initially ruled by the royal Argead dynasty, which was followed by the Antipatrid and Antigonid dynasties. Home to the ancient Macedonians, the earliest kingdom was centered on the northeastern part of the Greek peninsula, and bordered by Epirus to the west, Paeonia to the north, Thrace to the east and Thessaly to the south.
This article concerns the period 339 BC – 330 BC.
This article concerns the period 329 BC – 320 BC.
Antipater was a Macedonian general and statesman under kings Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great, and father of King Cassander. In 320 BC, he became regent of all of Alexander the Great's Empire but died the next year; he had named an officer named Polyperchon as his successor instead of his son Cassander, and a two-year-long power struggle ensued.
Phocion was an Athenian statesman and strategos, and the subject of one of Plutarch's Parallel Lives.
The Battle of Chaeronea was fought in 338 BC, near the city of Chaeronea in Boeotia, between the Macedonians led by Philip II of Macedon and an alliance of some of the Greek city-states led by Athens and Thebes. The battle was the culmination of Philip's final campaigns in 339–338 BC and resulted in a decisive victory for the Macedonians.
The Lamian War, or the Hellenic War was fought by a coalition of cities including Athens and the Aetolian League against Macedon and its ally Boeotia. The war broke out after the death of the King of Macedon, Alexander the Great, and was part of a series of attempts to challenge Macedonian hegemony over mainland Greece.
Leonnatus was a Macedonian officer of Alexander the Great and one of the diadochi.
Leosthenes was an Athenian who was commander of the combined Greek army in the Lamian War. Leosthenes was the son of his namesake father Leosthenes who had suffered exile in 362/1 BC and who had fled to the court of Philip II. It is unknown by what means he had obtained the high reputation he had when he first makes his appearance in history. It has been inferred from a passage in Strabo, that he had first served under Alexander the Great in Asia; but it now seems certain that this is a mistake, and rather the reference should have been to Leonnatus.
The Battle of Thermopylae was a battle fought in 480 BC during the Persian Wars.
Peace of Philocrates is the name given to the peace treaty concluded in 346 BC between Athens and Macedon under Philip II. Philocrates was the name of the main Athenian negotiator of the Treaty.
The Third Sacred War was fought between the forces of the Delphic Amphictyonic League, principally represented by Thebes, and latterly by Philip II of Macedon, and the Phocians. The war was caused by a large fine imposed in 357 BC on the Phocians by the Amphictyonic League, for the offense of cultivating sacred land; refusing to pay, the Phocians instead seized the Temple of Apollo in Delphi, and used the accumulated treasures to fund large mercenary armies. Thus, although the Phocians suffered several major defeats, they were able to continue the war for many years, until eventually all parties were nearing exhaustion. Philip II used the distraction of the other states to increase his power in northern Greece, in the process becoming ruler of Thessaly. In the end, Philip's growing power, and the exhaustion of the other states, allowed him to impose a peaceful settlement of the war, marking a major step in the rise of Macedon to pre-eminence in Ancient Greece.
The Battle of Thermopylae was fought in 279 BC between invading Gallic armies and a combined army of Greek Aetolians, Boeotians, Athenians, and Phocians at Thermopylae. The Gauls under Brennus were victorious, and advanced further into the Greek peninsula where they attempted to sack Delphi but were completely defeated.
Classical Greece was a period of around 200 years in Greek culture. This Classical period saw the annexation of much of modern-day Greece by the Persian Empire and its subsequent independence. Classical Greece had a powerful influence on the Roman Empire and on the foundations of Western civilization. Much of modern Western politics, artistic thought, scientific thought, theatre, literature and philosophy derives from this period of Greek history.
The second Persian invasion of Greece occurred during the Greco-Persian Wars, as King Xerxes I of Persia sought to conquer all of Greece. The invasion was a direct, if delayed, response to the defeat of the first Persian invasion of Greece at the Battle of Marathon, which ended Darius I's attempts to subjugate Greece. After Darius's death, his son Xerxes spent several years planning for the second invasion, mustering an enormous army and navy. The Athenians and Spartans led the Greek resistance. About a tenth of the Greek city-states joined the 'Allied' effort; most remained neutral or submitted to Xerxes.
Under the reign of Philip II, the kingdom of Macedonia, initially at the periphery of classical Greek affairs, came to dominate Ancient Greece in the span of just 25 years, largely thanks to the personality and policies of its king. In addition to utilising effective diplomacy and marriage alliances to achieve his political aims, Philip II was responsible for reforming the ancient Macedonian army into an effective fighting force. The Macedonian phalanx became the hallmark of the Macedonian army during his reign and the subsequent Hellenistic period. His army and engineers also made extensive use of siege engines.
Phocis was an ancient region in the central part of Ancient Greece, which included Delphi. A modern administrative unit, also called Phocis, is named after the ancient region, although the modern region is substantially larger than the ancient one.
The Battle of Plataea was fought during 323 BC between the Athenian and Boeotian armies during the Lamian War.
The kingdom of Macedonia was an ancient state in what is now the Macedonian region of northern Greece, founded in the mid-7th century BC during the period of Archaic Greece and lasting until the mid-2nd century BC. Led first by the Argead dynasty of kings, Macedonia became a vassal state of the Achaemenid Empire of ancient Persia during the reigns of Amyntas I of Macedon and his son Alexander I of Macedon. The period of Achaemenid Macedonia came to an end in roughly 479 BC with the ultimate Greek victory against the second Persian invasion of Greece led by Xerxes I and the withdrawal of Persian forces from the European mainland.
The Siege of Lamia occurred in 322 BC between the Macedonians led by Antipater and a coalition of armies mostly from central Greece led by Leosthenes.