Olympiodorus of Athens

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Olympiodoros ( Greek  Ὀλυμπιόδωρος ; † after 287 BC) was an archon and strategos of Athens at the beginning of the 3rd century BC.

As a strategist, Olympiodoros operated in 301 BC. BC militarily successful against the Diadoch Kassander and could relieve Elateia . According to a vague suggestion in Pausanias , Olympiodoros belonged at the beginning of the Tyrannis des Lachares in 300/299 BC. He joined the democratic opposition, probably as the successor of the murdered strategist Charias, and successfully defended Piraeus and Munychia against the tyrant. Lachares was born in 294 BC. And Demetrios Poliorketes was able to move into the city a second time. In the time before the tyranny, Demetrios appeared as the protector of the Athenian democracy, whose takeover he now promoted a second time. Because Athens, however, after the battle of Ipsos in 301 BC. After he had renounced him, he was no longer ready to grant the city full autonomy, and therefore left a garrison on the Museion Hill , thus securing his actual rule over the city. Demetrios moved on shortly afterwards to take the throne of Macedonia , and Olympiodorus officiated as Archon for the following two years (294/293 and 293/292 BC).

When the rule of Demetrius in Macedonia in 288 BC After a military offensive by Pyrrhus and Lysimachus collapsed, the Athenians also decided to revolt against him. They chose Olympiodoros as their strategos, who successfully drove the crew from the Museion. He then freed the neighboring Eleusis from the occupation and concluded an alliance with the Aitolians to forestall a counter-attack by Demetrius from Macedonia. But the latter had penetrated Attica again by sea and took up the siege of Athens. By skillful diplomatic tactics, however, the Athenians were able to persuade their former patron to give up the siege, who then withdrew with his fleet to Asia. For his military merits, Olympiodoros received honors in the form of statues and portraits both in Athens (on the Acropolis ) and in Eleusis. The city of Elateia donated a bronze statue to him in the Delphic sanctuary .

In 281 BC The Athenians were also able to liberate Piraeus and Munychia from occupation and thus regain full political autonomy under a democratic government for the first time since the Lamian War (323/322 BC). But after the Chremonideic War of 262 BC they were supposed to do this . BC lose again to Antigonus II Gonatas , the son of Demetrios.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Pausanias, Helládos Periēgēsis 1, 26, 3.
  2. ^ Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) II² 389 and 649 .
  3. ↑ Pausanias, Helládos Periēgēsis 1, 26, 1.
  4. ↑ Plutarch , Demetrius 46 and Pyrrhus 12.
  5. ↑ Pausanias, Helládos Periēgēsis 1, 25, 2 and 26, 3. Pausanias wrongly names Kassander († 297 BC) as an opponent of the Athenians.
personal data
SURNAME Olympiodorus of Athens
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Olympiodoros; Ὀλυμπιόδωρος (Greek)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Strategist and Archon of Athens
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 3rd century BC Chr.