Battle of Megalopolis
The Battle of Megalopolis took place in the fall of 331 or spring 330 BC. Between Sparta and Macedonia .
The Spartans under King Agis III. took advantage of the absence of Alexander the Great , who in distant Persia against Dareios III. fought for an uprising ( not mentioned by the Alexander historian Arrian ) against Macedonian rule. Megalopolis , which dates back to 371 BC. BC was founded in Arcadia as a bulwark against possible Spartan expansion attempts, was a traditional opponent of Sparta and thus a natural target of an attack. The Macedonian ruler Antipater came to the aid of the besieged city with a superior army of 40,000 men and was able to destroy the Spartans. Agis III. fell and with him 5,300 of his countrymen, while the Macedonian casualties amounted to about 3,500 men.
In an ironic commentary on the events, Alexander the Great stated that while he himself had to fight the mighty Persian king, Antipater was engaged in a " mouse war ". Sparta was spared a conquest by Antipater, but had to hold 50 distinguished citizens hostage and probably now also those during the reign of Agis III. Execute rejected membership of the Corinthian Covenant .
literature
- Alexander Demandt : Alexander the Great. Life and legend . CH Beck, Munich 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-59085-6 , p. 198.
- Siegfried Lauffer , Alexander the Great . 3rd edition Munich 1993, ISBN 3-423-04298-2 , pp. 100f.