Leonnatos

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Leonnatos (* around 360 BC ; † 322 BC ), son of Anteas, comes from the tribe of the Lynkesten, who lived north of Epirus - in the Lynkestis. Leonnatos became known through the tradition of the Asian campaign of the Macedonian King Alexander the Great . He was born around 360 and died in the Lamian War in 322 .

Life

Origin and advancement

Little is known about the life of Leonnato until he entered the Macedonian royal court. It can be considered certain that he is a relative of the mother of Philip II , the father of Alexander.

Little is known about the Lynkeste tribe either. According to their own testimony, they come from Corinthian kings (the Bakchiads) who settled on the border with Illyria after an odyssey through the Greek region . It was not until the reign of Philip II that this tribal association was incorporated into the ruling structure. The noble young men of the various tribes were brought to the Macedonian court in Pella , where they received training and a position in the king's entourage. Leonnatos himself was first a youth companion ( syntrophos ) of Alexander and then rose to a bodyguard ( somatophylax ) of King Philip II. When he was murdered in 336 BC He was one of the three bodyguards who personally killed the assassin Pausanias .

Asian campaign

On Alexander's subsequent campaign in Asia, Leonnatos was one of the military leaders of the army . After the battle of Issus in 333 BC. He took the family of the Persian great king Dareios III. in custody. Together with Philotas , he took Gaza after a month-long siege and led its defender, Batis , in chains before Alexander. In Egypt he was born in the winter of 332/331 BC. Appointed a bodyguard of the king to replace the previously deceased Arybbas . From then on he belonged to Alexander's closest circle of advisors and worked in 330 BC. In the condemnation of Philotas with. In the further course of the campaign, from 327 B.C. Entrusted to independent commandos, he was instrumental in the storming of the rock castle of Chorienes and, together with Ptolemy , brought charges against the conspiracy of pages .

His most famous act of arms was in 325 BC. The rescue of Alexander at the storming of Multan . Together with Peukestas , he is said to have carried the wounded king out of the battle on Achilles' shield . Then he subjugated the tribe of the Oreiten in Gedrosien . For his services he was named by Alexander in Susa 324 BC. Honored with a golden diadem.

Diadoche

After Alexander's death in 323 BC In BC Leonnatos was appointed satrap of the province of Phrygia on the Hellespont (Little Phrygia ) in the imperial order of Babylon . However, he refused to obey the orders of the regent Perdiccas and crossed the Hellespont with 20,000 infantrymen and 2,500 mounted men to return to Macedonia. Presumably Leonnatos pursued his own and higher ambitions after the Alexander sister Cleopatra made him an offer of marriage. But before the marriage could take place, Leonnatos tried to come to the aid of Antipater , who was trapped by the Athenians in Lamia . Leonnatos was killed in a battle not far from the city, but Antipater was able to free himself from the siege.

literature

  • Robin Lane Fox: Alexander the Great . Conquerors of the world, Stuttgart 2004. ISBN 3-608-94078-2
  • Alexander Demandt: The Hellenistic Monarchies , in: The same: Ancient forms of government. Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-05-002541-7
  • Waldemar Heckel: Who's Who in the Age of Alexander the Great: Prosopography of Alexander's Empire , John Wiley & Sons 2008 ( digitized version )

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arrian Anabasis 6.28.4
  2. ↑ Diodorus 16.94.4
  3. ↑ Arrian Anabasis 2.12.4-5; Curtius Rufus 3 December 4-6; Plutarch Alexander 21.1-2; Diodorus 17.37.3
  4. ↑ Hegesias , FrGrHist 142 F5
  5. ↑ Arrian Anabasis 3.5.5
  6. ↑ Curtius Rufus 6/8/17
  7. ↑ Curtius Rufus 8/8/22
  8. ↑ Arrian Anabasis 6.22.3; Curtius Rufus 9.5.14
  9. ↑ Arrian Anabasis 7.5.4-5
  10. ↑ Plutarch Eumenes 3.9
  11. ↑ Diodorus 18.14.5
personal data
SURNAME Leonnatos
BRIEF DESCRIPTION General under Alexander the Great; Diadoche
DATE OF BIRTH around 360 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 322 BC Chr.
Place of death near Lamia , Greece