Battle of Ephesus

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Battle of Ephesus
date 409 BC Chr.
place at Ephesus in Ionia
output Athens defeat
consequences final loss of Ionia
Parties to the conflict

Athens

Ephesus , Achaemenid Empire , Syracuse , Selinunte

Commander

Thrasyllos , Pasion

Tissaphernes , Demarchus, Myskon, Potamis, Eukles, Herakleides

Troop strength
approx. 1,000 hoplites , over 3,000 light shields, 100 riders;
30 ships 		Hoplites, light shields, Persian mercenaries and horsemen;
27 ships
losses

100 hoplites, 300 light ones

4 ships

The Battle of Ephesus took place during the Peloponnesian War in 409 BC. Chr. Instead, as an army of Athens tried, the city of Ephesus in Ionia take.

prehistory

After the elimination of the Spartan fleet at the Battle of Kyzikos in 410 BC. In the following year Athens went on the offensive in order to win back the fallen cities of Ionia if possible. Since Alkibiades, the victor of Kyzikos, was still busy at the Hellespont , Thrasyllos was entrusted with the company. Thrasyllos had his army equipped with five thousand additional light shields in order to arm the rowers as peltasts after the crossing .

So at the beginning of the summer he drove to Samos and from there to Phygela, where he devastated the country and captured 200 more shields in the destruction of a crowd from Miletus . Then he drove to the port of Notion to take action against Kolophon . During another raid as far as Lydia , there was a meeting with a Persian cavalry squadron. Back in Notion, Thrasyllos spent 16 days inactive before turning against Ephesus.

The city of Ephesus was considered a holy city because of its famous Artemis temple and was therefore less fortified than comparable cities of Ionia. However, due to the delay, the Persian satrap Tissaphernes had gathered an army, and the Ephesians had sent to Miletus for help. The strategists Demarchos, Myskon, Potamis, Eukles and Herakleides with 25 ships from Syracuse and two from Selinunte also appeared to reinforce them .

course

Fight scene with hoplites

Thrasyllos disembarked his hoplites at the port of Koressos and the peltasts and light shields under the command of the Pasion at the swamp on the opposite side, where they were apparently supposed to fall in the back of the defenders. The Ephesians and their allies, under the leadership of the Tissaphernes, first turned against the hoplites, put them to flight and pursued them to the ships. Around 100 Athenians were killed. Then they came back in time to avert the danger on the other side, with about 300 lightly armed men on the Athens side.

consequences

Back in Notion, the Athenians agreed a truce to rescue their dead. They then sailed to the Hellespont, where they united with the troops of Alcibiades in Lampsakos and took part in the second battle at Abydos in winter .

The Ephesians decided on special honors for the Sicilians, who had proven to be extremely valuable allies. When the city of Selinunte was destroyed by Carthage a little later , the homeless were granted citizenship in Ephesus.

The attack on Ephesus was Athens' last attempt to recapture lost ground in Asia Minor. After the royal peace of the year 387/386 BC Ionia came back to the Persian Empire.

swell

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Xenophon , Hellenika , I 2, 1-17; Diodorus , Library , XIII 64.