Battle on the crocus field

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The battle on the crocus field ( modern Greek Κρόκιου Πεδίου Krókiou pedíou ) took place in 352 BC. Chr. In Thessaly (in modern northern Greece instead). The Macedonians under Philip II achieved a decisive victory against the Phocians , which brought them hegemony over ancient Greece .

background

While Philip took office in 359 BC. It succeeded extremely quickly in making Macedonia a regional power in the north through campaigns against Illyria , the advance into Thrace and the capture of several coastal cities on the northern Aegean coast ( Amphipolis 357 BC, Pydna 356 BC, Methone ) to make of Greece, the significance was Athens in the same period declined rapidly: in the Social war (.. 357-355 BC), many of the allies were second Delian League dropped and some protection were among the Persians sought; the attempt to get them back under the rule of Athens by force failed, so that the federation in 355 BC. Had to be dissolved under pressure from the Persians. Sparta , too , had been since the war against Thebes and the Battle of Leuktra in 371 BC. BC as a hegemonic power failed, as did Thebes themselves when their general Epaminondas fell at Mantineia in 362 BC . The Greek world of states was thus weakened overall by the internal Greek wars, so that only a minor occasion was required to give a new power the opportunity to fill this vacuum.

Third holy war

This occasion arose when the Phocians in 356 BC BC under the general Philomelus attacked the city of Delphi and got hold of the rich temple treasures with which they raised a mercenary army of 10,000 men. The oracle of the holy place compelled Philomelus to say that he could do what he pleased. This was an affront to the Greek cultural nation as a whole, so that the Amphictyon League , which was responsible for the preservation of the holy place, obtained a war resolution against the Phoker; this was the beginning of the Third Holy War (often also called the Second Holy War, since a Spartan campaign against the Phocians in 448 BC is sometimes not counted). However, it was not the case that the Phocians actually had all the Greek states against them, because Greece formed a cultural unit, but politically there had been internal blocs for a long time, which are also noticeable now. The Phocians were traditionally opponents of Thebes, which presided over the Boeotian League . Boeotia was allied with Lokris and Thessaly. On the side of the Phocians were Sparta, Corinth and Athens, although the latter largely stayed out of the conflict, as it was otherwise bound in the war of allies. In 354 BC BC the Boeotians won a victory against the Phocians under Philomelus, who then committed suicide; the command of the Phocian troops passed to Onomarchus . In this situation Philip saw the opportunity to expand his influence into central Greece and advanced through Thessaly to the south, but his army got caught in 353 BC. In the battle of Thessaly in an ambush set by the Phokers and had to withdraw; as he himself said “to strike like a battering ram and then strike all the harder.” In fact, he returned in 352 BC. BC again and made this prediction come true.

The battle

Little is known about the battle itself. The crocus field is a plain west of the Pagasai Gulf . Philipp reached it in a forced march at night from the north, with 3,000 horsemen and 20,000 soldiers. He wanted to prevent Onomarchus from turning north himself to unite with reinforcements in Pherai . The Phokers had about 500 horsemen and meanwhile also 20,000 soldiers under arms, for this purpose the Athenian fleet under Chares was ready to support them off the coast (20 ships with a good 2,000 men should have been involved). Philip, who was able to study the modern combat tactics there in his youth in Thebes, succeeded in decisively defeating the Phocians in the city. This opened the way to central Greece. Thessaly was practically annexed by Macedonia and in the same year Philip had secured his rule as far as the Gulf of Malia and Thermopylae . The Holy War was practically won, even if it continued until the peace treaty in 346 BC. BC, through which Macedonia was accepted into the Delphic amphyctionia and was able to enforce its role as a Greek hegemonic power in practice.

literature

  • John Buckler: Philip II and the sacred war . Brill, Leiden 1989, ISBN 90-04-09095-9 ( limited preview in Google book search [accessed on March 29, 2017] with further references).