Leosthenes

This article refers to Leosthenes, the Greek general of the Lamic War. For Leosthenes, the Greek admiral who died in 361, see Leosthenes (Admiral) .

Leosthenes ( Greek Λεωσθένης; † 323 BC before Lamia ) was a Greek general who emerged mainly through his role in the Lamian war .

His early career is largely unknown. It is sometimes assumed that he served under Alexander the Great in Asia, but a corresponding passage in Strabo may be based on a confusion with Leonnatos . Leosthenes appears in the sources shortly before Alexander's death, where he already plays a prominent role as an opponent of Macedonian interested parties. He was entrusted with the command of around 8,000 Greek mercenaries who were shipped from Asia to Cape Tainaron on Alexander's orders (see " Mercenary Decree " of Alexander the Great). When news of Alexander's death reached these troops, Leosthenes took the opportunity to induce them to revolt against Macedonian rule. Immediately afterwards, Leosthenes hurried to Aitolia to get the local population to revolt. A little later, Lokris, Phocis, Doris, Thessaly and large parts of the Peloponnese also joined the movement. Leosthenes was appointed commander in chief of the troops. He assembled the army near Thermopylae . The Boeotians, on the other hand, stuck to the alliance with Macedonia, but the Boeotian army was quickly defeated after the Athenians had also joined the coalition. The majority of the Macedonian army was still in Asia, so that Antipater , the Macedonian governor in the European part of the Alexander Empire, was clearly numerically inferior to the rebels; his troops were repulsed in a battle near Thermopylae, so that he was forced to retreat to the Thessalian fortress of Lamia until reinforcements would arrive. Leosthenes initially wanted to take Lamia by storm, but he did not succeed, so that he had to take refuge in a protracted blockade. When the besieged Macedonians failed, Leosthenes was hit by a stone. He died of the injuries three days later.

Leosthenes was evidently quite young, but still left children behind. His funeral oration was given by Hypereides , and later the Greeks erected a monument to him in the port of Piraeus . Antiphilus followed him at the post of strategos .

swell

• Pausanias - Description of Greece
• Diodorus - Chronicle
• Plutarch - Phocion

literature

• Helmut Berve : The Alexander Empire on a prosopographical basis . Volume 2, Prosopography . Munich 1926, (Λεωσθένης: No. 471).