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Warfare and Society in Ancient Greece
Lecture 22
The ideology of the polis’ army III:
The Lamian War or the polis vs. the autocrat
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The Athenians as hegemones
Diodorus XVII.111
During this period Greece was the scene of disturbances and revolutionary movements from which
arose the war called Lamian. The reason was this. The king had ordered all his satraps to dissolve
their armies of mercenaries, and as they obeyed his instructions, all Asia was overrun with soldiers
released from service and supporting themselves by plunder. Presently they began assembling from
all directions at Taenarum in Laconia, 2 whither came also such of the Persian satraps and generals as
had survived, bringing their funds and their soldiers, so that they constituted a joint force.
3 Ultimately they chose as supreme commander the Athenian Leosthenes, who was a man of
unusually brilliant mind, and thoroughly opposed to the cause of Alexander. He conferred secretly
with the council at Athens and was granted fifty talents to pay the troops and a stock of weapons
sufficient to meet pressing needs. He sent off an embassy to the Aetolians, who were unfriendly to
the king, looking to the establishment of an alliance with them, and otherwise made every
preparation for war.
4 So Leosthenes was occupied with such matters, being in no doubt about the seriousness of the
proposed conflict, but Alexander launched a campaign with a mobile force against the Cossaeans, for
they would not submit to him. This is a people outstanding in valour which occupied the mountains
of Media; and relying upon the ruggedness of their country and their ability in war, they had never
accepted a foreign master, but had remained unconquered throughout the whole period of the
Persian kingdom, and now they were too proudly self-confident to be terrified of the Macedonian
arms. 5 The king, nevertheless, seized the routes of access into their country before they were aware
of it, lay waste most of Cossaea, was superior in every engagement, and both slew many of the
Cossaeans and captured many times more.
Diodorus Siculus, XVIII.9.1
When Alexander died a short time thereafter and left no sons as successors to the kingdom, the
Athenians ventured to assert their liberty and to claim the leadership of the Greeks. As a resource for
the war they had the sum of money left by Harpalus, the story of which we told in full in the
preceding Book, and likewise the mercenaries who, some eight thousand in number, had been
dismissed from service by the satraps and were waiting near Taenarum in the Peloponnesus.
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A narrative of the Lamian War
Pausanias, I.25.3-6
The disaster at Chaeronea was the beginning of misfortune for all the Greeks, and especially did it
enslave those who had been blind to the danger and such as had sided with Macedon. Most of their
cities Philip captured; with Athens he nominally came to terms, but really imposed the severest
penalties upon her, taking away the islands and putting an end to her maritime empire. For a time the
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Athenians remained passive, during the reign of Philip and subsequently of Alexander. But when on
the death of Alexander the Macedonians chose Aridaeus to be their king, though the whole empire
had been entrusted to Antipater, the Athenians now thought it intolerable if Greece should be
forever under the Macedonians, and themselves embarked on war besides inciting others to join
them.
[4] The cities that took part were, of the Peloponnesians, Argos, Epidaurus, Sicyon, Troezen, the
Eleans, the Phliasians, Messene; on the other side of the Corinthian isthmus the Locrians, the
Phocians, the Thessalians, Carystus, the Acarnanians belonging to the Aetolian League. The
Boeotians, who occupied the Thebaid territory now that there were no Thebans left to dwell there, in
fear lest the Athenians should injure them by founding a settlement on the site of Thebes, refused to
join the alliance and lent all their forces to furthering the Macedonian cause.
[5] Each city ranged under the alliance had its own general, but as commander-in-chief was chosen
the Athenian Leosthenes, both because of the fame of his city and also because he had the reputation
of being an experienced soldier. He had already proved himself a general benefactor of Greece. All
the Greeks that were serving as mercenaries in the armies of Darius and his satraps Alexander had
wished to deport to Persia, but Leosthenes was too quick for him, and brought them by sea to
Europe. On this occasion too his brilliant actions surpassed expectation, and his death produced a
general despair which was chiefly responsible for the defeat. A Macedonian garrison was set over the
Athenians, and occupied first Munychia and afterwards Peiraeus also and the Long Walls.5
[6] On the death of Antipater Olympias came over from Epeirus, killed Aridaeus, and for a time
occupied the throne; but shortly afterwards she was besieged by Cassander, taken and delivered up to
the people. Of the acts of Cassander when he came to the throne my narrative will deal only with
such as concern the Athenians. He seized the fort of Panactum in Attica and also Salamis, and
established as tyrant in Athens Demetrius the son of Phanostratus, a man who had won a reputation
for wisdom. This tyrant was put down by Demetrius the son of Antigonus, a young man of strong
Greek sympathies.
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The death of Leosthenes
Diod. XVIII.13
Leosthenes, when he had come near Lamia with all his forces, fortified a camp with a deep ditch and
a palisade. At first he would draw up his forces, approach the city, and challenge the Macedonians to
battle; then, as the latter did not dare risk an encounter, he made daily attacks on the walls with relays
of soldiers. 2 As the Macedonians defended themselves stoutly, many of the Greeks who pushed on
rashly were killed; for the besieged, since there was a considerable force in the city and an abundance
of all sorts of missiles, and the wall, moreover, had been constructed at great expense, easily had the
better of the fighting. 3 Leosthenes, giving up hope of capturing the city by storm, shut off all the
supplies that were going into it, thinking that he would easily reduce by hunger the forces besieged in
the city. He also built a wall and dug a deep, wide ditch, thereby cutting off all escape for the
beleaguered troops.
4 After this the Aetolians all returned to Aetolia, having asked Leosthenes for permission to go home
for the present because of some national business. Antipater and his men, however, were nearly
exhausted and the city was in danger of being taken because of the anticipated famine, when chance
gave the Macedonians an unexpected turn of good fortune. 5 For when Antipater made an attack on
the men who were digging the moat and a struggle ensued, Leosthenes, coming to aid his men, was
struck on the head by a stone and at once fell and was carried to camp in a swoon. On the third day
he died and was buried with the honours of a hero because of the glory he had gained in war. The
Athenian people caused the funeral oration to be delivered by Hypereides, foremost of the orators in
eloquence and in hostility toward the Macedonians; 6 for at that time Demosthenes, the chief of the
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orators of Athens, was in exile, convicted of having taken some of the money of Harpalus. In place
of Leosthenes, Antiphilus was made general, a man outstanding in military genius and courage.
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The last strategos
Hyperides, Funeral Oration 2-3
I am, however, taking heart in this assurance: that what I leave unsaid will be supplied by you who
hear me; for my listeners will be no random audience but the persons who themselves have
witnessed the actions of these men. While praise is due to Athens for her policy, for choosing as she
did a course not only ranking with her past achievements but even surpassing them in pride and
honor, and to the fallen also for their gallantry in battle, for proving worthy of their forbears' valor,
to Leosthenes the general it is doubly due; the city's guide in framing her decision, he was besides the
citizens' commander in the field.
Hyperides, Funeral Oration 7
To do so would, I think, be foolish. Granted, if one is praising men of a different stamp, such as
have gathered from diverse places into the city which they inhabit, each contributing his lineage to
the common stock, then one must trace their separate ancestry. But from one who speaks of
Athenians, born of their own country and sharing a lineage of unrivalled purity, a eulogy of the
descent of each must surely be superfluous.
Hyperides, Funeral Oration 10-13
Leosthenes perceived that the whole of Greece was humiliated and . . . cowed, corrupted by men
who were accepting bribes from Philip and Alexander against their native countries. He realized that
our city stood in need of a commander, and Greece herself of a city, able to assume the leadership,
and he gave himself to his country and the city to the Greeks, in the cause of freedom. After raising a
mercenary force he took command of the citizen army and defeated the first opponents of Greek
freedom, the Boeotians, Macedonians and Euboeans, together with their other allies, in battle in
Boeotia. Thence he advanced to Pylae and occupied the pass through which, in bygone days as well,
barbarians marched against the Greeks. He thus prevented the inroad of Antipater into Greece, and
overtaking him in that vicinity, defeated him in battle and shut him into Lamia, which he then
besieged. The Thessalians, Phocians, Aetolians, and all the other peoples of the region, he made his
allies, bringing under his control, by their own consent, the men whom Philip and Alexander gloried
in controlling against their wish. The circumstances subject to his will he mastered, but fate he could
not overpower.
Hyperides, Funeral Oration 17-18
For who could rightly grudge his praise to those of our citizens who fell in this campaign, who gave
their lives for the freedom of the Greeks, convinced that the surest proof of their desire to guarantee
the liberty of Greece was to die in battle for her? One circumstance did much to reinforce their
purpose as champions of Greece: the fact that the earlier battle was fought in Boeotia. They saw that
the city of Thebes had been tragically annihilated from the face of the earth, that its citadel was
garrisoned by the Macedonians, and that the persons of its inhabitants were in slavery, while others
parcelled out the land among themselves. And so these threats, revealed before their eyes, gave them
an undaunted courage to meet danger gladly. Yet the action fought near Pylae and Lamia has proved
in the field, over Antipater and his allies, but on the grounds of situation also.
Hyperides, Funeral Oration 37
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Remember the figures who, born after the heroes of old, yet rivalled their deeds of valor, the
followers of Miltiades and Themistocles, and those others who, by freeing Greece, brought honor to
their country and glory to their lives; [38] whom Leosthenes so far outdid in bravery and counsel,
that where they beat back the barbarian power as it advanced, he even forestalled its onslaught. They
saw a struggle with the foe in their own land, but he defeated his opponents on the foe's own soil.
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A very unhoplitelike Greek army
Plutarch, Life of Phocion XXVI.1-2
But a short time afterwards Craterus crossed from Asia with a large force, and there was another
pitched battle at Crannon. Here the Greeks were defeated. Their defeat was not severe, nor did many
of them fall, but owing to their lack of obedience to their commanders, who were young and softhearted, and because at the same time Antipater made tempting overtures to their several cities, their
army melted away and most shamefully abandoned the cause of freedom At once, therefore,
Antipater led his forces against Athens, and Demosthenes and Hypereides left the city.
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