Second Battle of Lamia

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Second Battle of Lamia
Part of First Macedonian War
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Lamia
Second Battle of Lamia (Greece)
Date209 BC
Location
Lamia, Greece
Result Macedonian victory
Belligerents
Vergina Sun WIPO.svg Macedonia Aetolian League
Vexilloid of the Roman Empire.svg Roman Republic
Pergamum
Commanders and leaders
Vergina Sun WIPO.svg Philip V of Macedon Pyrrhias
Strength
unknown unknown
Casualties and losses
unknown heavy

The Second Battle of Lamia was fought in 209 BC between the forces of Philip V of Macedon and Pyrrhias, a general of the Aetolian League. Pyrrhias was once again aided by Pergamene forces and Roman advisors but again he was defeated. His side suffered heavy casualties.

Contents

Background

In the spring of 210 BC, Laevinus again sailed from Corcyra with his fleet, and with the Aetolians, captured Phocian Anticyra. Rome enslaved the inhabitants and Aetolia took possession of the town. [1]

Although there was some fear of Rome and concern with her methods, [2] the coalition arrayed against Philip continued to grow. As allowed for by the treaty, Pergamon, Elis and Messenia, followed by Sparta, all agreed to join the alliance against Macedon. [3] The Roman fleet, together with the Pergamene fleet, controlled the sea, and Macedon and her allies were threatened on land by the rest of the coalition. The Roman strategy of encumbering Philip with a war among Greeks in Greece was succeeding, so much so that when Laevinus went to Rome to take up his consulship, he was able to report that the legion deployed against Philip could be safely withdrawn. [4]

However, the Eleans, Messenians and Spartans remained passive throughout 210 BC, and Philip continued to make advances. He invested and took Echinus, using extensive siege works, having beaten back an attempt to relieve the town by the Aetolian strategos Dorimachus and the Roman fleet, now commanded by the proconsul Publius Sulpicius Galba. [5] Moving west Philip probably also took Phalara the port city of Lamia, in the Maliac Gulf. Sulpicius and Dorimachus took Aegina, an island in the Saronic Gulf, which the Aetolians sold to Attalus, the Pergamene king, for thirty talents, and which he was to use as his base of operations against Macedon in the Aegean Sea.

In the spring of 209 BC, Philip received requests for help from his ally the Achaean League in the Peloponnesus who were being attacked by Sparta and the Aetolians. He also heard that Attalus had been elected one of the two supreme commanders of the Aetolian League, and rumours that he intended to crossover the Aegean from Asia Minor. [6] It was due to this that King Philip decided to march south into Greece. In the First Battle of Lamia the Aetolian league suffered almost 1,000 casualties.

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Pyrrhias was an Aetolian general, who was sent by his countrymen during the Social War, to take the command in Elis. Here he took advantage of the absence of Philip V of Macedon, and the incapacity of Eperatus the Achaean strategos, to make frequent incursions into the Achaean territories. Having established a fortified post on Mount Panachaikon, he laid waste the whole country as far as Rhion and Aigion. The next year he concerted a plan with Lycurgus, king of Sparta, for the invasion of Messenia. However, he failed in the execution of his part of the scheme, being repulsed by the Cyparissians before he could effect a junction with Lycurgus. In consequence he returned to Elis, but as the Eleans were dissatisfied with his conduct, he was shortly after recalled by the Aetolians and replaced by Euripidas. At a later period he obtained the office of strategos of the Aetolians, in the same year that this office was bestowed as an honorary title upon Attalus I, king of Pergamon. In the spring of that year he advanced with an army to Lamia to oppose the passage of Philip V of Macedon towards the Peloponnese. Though supported with an auxiliary force both by Attalus and by the Roman praetor Publius Sulpicius Galba Maximus, he was defeated by Philip in two successive battles and forced to retire within the walls of Lamia. It is not improbable that Sipyrrhicas, who appears in Livy (XXXI.46) as chief of the Aetolian deputation which met Attalus at Heracleia, is only a false reading for Pyrrhias.

References

  1. Livy, 26.26; Polybius, 9.39. Livy says that Anticyra was Locrian, but modern scholars disagree, see Walbank, p. 87, note 2.
  2. Polybius, 9.37–39, 10.15.
  3. Polybius, 9,30.
  4. Livy, 26.28.
  5. Polybius, 9.41–42.
  6. Livy, 27.29.

Bibliography