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.
Sources and name of the war
Sources 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.Bosworth, The Legacy of Alexander, p. 27.Walsh, "Leosthenes", p. 1 (note 2). 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.Bosworth, The Legacy of Alexander, pp. 24–28.Ashton, "The Lamian War-stat magni nominis umbra", p. 154.
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.
Name 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.Ashton, "The Lamian War-stat magni nominis umbra", p. 153. 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.Ashton, "The Lamian War-stat magni nominis umbra", pp. 155, 156. 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.Ashton, "The Lamian War-stat magni nominis umbra", pp. 154, 155. 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.Ashton, "The Lamian War-stat magni nominis umbra", p. 157.
This theory was first made by N. G. Ashton in 1984 and has found general acceptance since.Walsh, "Lamiaka", p. 538. 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.Walsh, "Lamiaka", pp. 539–542. 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.Walsh, "Lamiaka", pp. 542–544. Therefore, Hieronumus would have only popularised a term that already existed.Walsh, "Lamiaka", p. 543.
Background In 338 BC, the Macedonian king Philip II defeated a coalition of Greek states led by Thebes and Athens at the battle of Chaeronea. He then forced the Greeks into an hegemonic alliance called the League of Corinth in order to secure his back while he started a war of conquest against the Persian empire, but resentment remained high among the Greeks. In 335 Thebes revolted at the news that the new Macedonian king Alexander III had died, but he acted quickly and razed Thebes to the ground. Four years later, the Spartan king Agis III led another war of liberation against Macedonia, which was defeated by Antipater at the battle of Megalopolis. At the same time, a new federal state in central Greece called the Aetolian League took advantage of Agis' revolt to capture the city of Oiniadai, which was repopulated with Aetolians. In 324, Alexander completed his conquests in Asia and moved to Mesopotamia, where he proclaimed the Exiles' Decree, which demanded that citizens forced into exile in any Greek city had to be allowed to return to their home.Stephen Miller, "Kleonai", p. 100. Read at the Olympic Games on 4 August 324 BC before a crowd of 20,000 exiles, the Exiles' Decree caused a lot of tension in Greece, especially in Athens, which had colonised the island of Samos for several decades and did not want to abandon this valuable possession.Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony, pp. 30, 31. The Aetolian League was also ordered to withdraw from Oiniadai; Alexander threatened to come in person to punish the Aetolians.Yardley et al., Justin, p. 126.
Course of the war
Declaration of war Athens was already preparing for war when the news of Alexander's death in June 323 BC became known; war started shortly after, probably in the beginning of September.Hammond & Walbank, History of Macedonia, vol. III, pp. 107, 108.Yardley et al., Justin, p. 120. Two Athenian politicians are known to have advised against the war: Phocion and Demades, who represented the interests of the landed aristocracy.Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony, p. 36. The latter lost his political rights because of his support of Macedonia, and especially for having sponsored the bill that gave Alexander the Great the status of a god. A friend of Antipater, Aristotle was also condemned on a spurious charge of impiety, and left Athens for Chalcis in Euboea.Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony, p. 37.
Before his death, Alexander had wanted to settle his Greek mercenaries in Persis, but many of them (in the tens of thousands) returned to Greece before that could happen. They escaped through a fleet raised by an Athenian mercenary named Leosthenes, who brought them to the Greek mainland. Secretly in touch with his native city, Leosthenes kept about 8,000 of these mercenaries with him in Cape Taenarum (a mercenary market on Spartan territory)Walsh, "Leosthenes", pp. 6, 7. and carved an alliance with the Aetolians, waiting for the right moment to go to war against Macedonia.Stephen Miller, "Kleonai", pp. 100–102, thinks that Leosthenes was elected strategos in 325 and 324 BC, but this is rejected by Hammond and Habicht.Hammond & Walbank, History of Macedonia, vol. III, p. 107.Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony, pp. 34, 35. The life of Leosthenes before the Lamian War has long been debated by scholars, who describe him as having served either Alexander or Darius, then acting as either a private mercenary leader or a strategos (an elected magistrate at Athens). John Walsh also suggests that Leosthenes' achievements were exaggerated by the ancient historian Diodorus of Sicily.Walsh, "Leosthenes", pp. 3, 8.
Belligerents Athens was able to receive the support of many Greek states, principally in northern and central Greece. These states had likely been approached during the Nemean Games that took place in summer 323, where representatives of most city-states gathered.Stephen Miller, "Kleonai", p. 105. The Aetolian League was the most natural ally, as its members were equally concerned by the Exiles' Decree. The alliance was possibly concluded in mid-September 323 BC.Stephen Miller, "Kleonai", p. 103. Other allies from the area joined successively in this chronological order: Thessaly except Pelinna, Oetaea except Heraklea, Achaea Phthiotis except Phthiotic Thebes, Malis except Lamia, Doris, Locris, Phokis, Ainis, Alyzeia, Dolopia, Athamania, the island of Leukas in the Ionian Sea, some of the Molossians in Epirus.Hammond & Walbank, History of Macedonia, vol. III, p. 108.Habicht, Athens from Alexander to Antony, p. 36.Yardley et al., Justin, p. 131. Alliances were also concluded further north with some Illyrian and Thracian tribes. N. G. L. Hammond also mentions that the Odrysian king Seuthes III was at war with Macedonia at the same time, but does not connect this revolt to the Lamian War.Hammond & Walbank, History of Macedonia, vol. III, pp. 108, 110, 111.
In the Peloponnese, Argos, Sicyon, the Acte peninsula including Epidaurus and Troezen, Phlius, Elis, and Messenia joined the Hellenic League.Kralli, The Hellenistic Peloponnese, p. 85. These cities followed Athens at a later date than the northern cities, as the treaty between Athens and Phokis is dated from 27 October, while that with Sicyon is from 23 December. It showed that Athens' diplomatic effort continued over several months after the beginning of the war.Stephen Miller, "Kleonai", pp. 102, 103.