Battle of Thebes

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Battle of Thebes
date August 335 BC Chr.
place Thebes / Greece
output Victory of the Macedonians and the Allies
consequences Destruction of Thebes, maintenance of Macedonian hegemony
Parties to the conflict

Thebes

Macedonia
Corinthian League

Commander

Phoinix
Prothytes

Alexander the Great

Troop strength

unknown
according to Diodor (17, 9, 3):
30,000 infantrymen
3,000 cavalrymen
losses

According to Diodorus (17, 14, 1):
6,000 dead
30,000 prisoners

According to Diodorus (17, 14, 1):
more than 500 fallen

Alexander the Great was victorious in the Battle of Thebes in August 335 BC. Chr. About the Greek polis Thebes , which was destroyed as a result.

background

At the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC BC the Boiotic polis Thebes had lost their hegemony over large parts of ancient Greece to Philip II of Macedonia , which they had since defeated Sparta in the Battle of Leuctra in 371 BC. Had still held. Thebes was then forced to join the Hellenic League of Corinth and take up Macedonian occupation troops on their acropolis , the Kadmeia . In addition, it had to provide troops for the campaign of revenge against the Persian empire , with which Thebes was actually allied in the previous generations.

In 336 BC Philip II was murdered in the 3rd century BC, and following the laws of the history of ancient Greece, the Macedonian enemies in the Greek cities saw this as an opportunity to shake off Macedonian hegemony. In relation to the young successor Alexander, however, the envoys of the Greeks in Corinth renewed the provisions of the Hellenic League and the readiness to campaign against the Persians.

Outbreak of war

After Alexander in the spring of 335 BC When his army started a campaign against the barbarian tribes of the Balkans, the Macedonian enemies around Demosthenes and Lycurgus rose up in Athens , who announced in public speeches the death of Alexander against the Triballers , whereby all contractual ties to him had become null and void. The Theban Macedonian opponents exiled in Athens then returned to their hometown, murdered two Promakedon leaders and took over power, but the Kadmeia remained in the hands of the Macedonian garrison entrenched there. The Theban Council then decided to wage war against Macedonia, which was justified as the liberation of the Greeks from Macedonian "tyranny". They received support from Demosthenes, who supplied them with weapons on his own account, which he in turn was able to finance with 300 talents that the Persian great king Dareios III. had sent. The city leaders of Athens tolerated this private engagement of the politician, since they could support Thebes in this way without having to break the treaties previously entered into with Macedonia. The Arcadians , who were already standing on the isthmus , also declared their readiness for military support. Demosthenes was finally able to get through an official application to help Thebes in the Ekklesia of Athens, but the city refrained from sending troops for the time being, as one intended to wait for further events. A diplomatic engagement by Antipater had evidently raised doubts about Alexander's death, whereupon Macedonian friends like Demades and Phocion urged caution. Athens did not dare to fight against Alexander.

In fact, it wasn't until midsummer 335 BC that Alexander had After his victory over the Illyrians at Pelion (today on the eastern border of Albania) learned of the defection of Thebes from the Hellenic League. Instead of ending his Balkan campaign with a return to Pella , he marched with his troops in a hurry to the south and reached Boiotia after a twelve-day forced march , passing the Thermophyls . Although his quick arrival amazed and surprised the Greeks, the political leaders in Thebes continued to cling to the fama of his death, declaring the leader of the Macedonians to be another Alexander, son of Aeropos . The Arcadians and Eleans , for their part, preferred to withdraw from the isthmus to their cities; later they condemned the initiators of their procession. Alexander, however, received the support of the Boiotic cities Phokis , Orchomenos , Thespiai and Plataiai , who recognized their chance of revenge on their generation-long oppressor Thebes. Abandoned by their allies, isolated in Greece and with the Macedonians on the Kadmeia behind them, the Theban leaders were nevertheless determined to continue their resistance, be it because of the lack of prospect of mercy or because of overestimation of their own strength.

The battle

The exact course of the following battle and, above all, Alexander's role in it is difficult to reconstruct, since the two authors reporting on it in detail, Arrian ( Anabasis 1, 8, 1-8, Promakedonian after Ptolemy ) and Diodor ( Bibliothéke historiké 17, 11 , 1 - 13, 6, Prot-Heban), contradict them in their descriptions.

Thebes was surrounded by a wall ring, which was easy to defend against the attacker, as the attacker had waived the use of siege engines in favor of a higher marching speed. The wall, however, had a weak point on its south side, where the Kadmeia, occupied by the Macedonians, was directly adjacent, which was thus predestined as a gateway. The Thebans therefore expanded their defensive work at this point with an extensive palisade fence, which was further reinforced with ditches and walls. In this way they cut off direct access to the Kadmeia from the outside world and at the same time isolated its crew. The Macedonian commander of the Kadmeia, named Philotas, remained calm and waited and did not disturb the fortification work. The Thebans positioned their battle-ready phalanx in front of the palisade wall and behind it their cavalry, so this was where the battle was to take place. Alexander, on the other hand, initially refrained from a direct attack on his approach, in order to give the city superiors time to discuss a possible surrender; among other things, he demanded the extradition of the two anti-Macedonian leaders Phoinix and Prothytes. He hoped that the Thebans would give in because of his clear superiority, but from the city wall they rejected his condition of surrender, demanded for their part the extradition of Philotas and Antipater and insulted Alexander as "the tyrant of Greece". According to Diodorus, however, the majority of the population, knowing that they were inferior, was in favor of giving in, but they did not succeed in overthrowing the anti-Macedons among the city's top officials.

At this point the reports begin to contradict one another. While Diodorus describes how Alexander angrily divided his army into three battle lines to attack because of the insults, Arrian reports of an insubordination of the officer Perdickas , who, contrary to a clearly different order from Alexander, led his infantry battalion, a taxis of the pezhetairoi , to attack the city , thereby dragging the battalion of Amyntas with him, whereupon Alexander reluctantly let the rest of the army rush to attack. Because Arrian relied on the tradition of Ptolemy in his work , the thesis of a form of the damnatio memoriae to Perdickas operated by Ptolemy is accepted, who, after Ptolemy, charged his arch enemy, who appeared in the first Diadoch war , with the historical responsibility for the fall of Thebes at the same time Alexander, as whose friend he described himself, to exonerate from this. So there are doubts about the credibility of Ptolemy, even though in the end word is against word and the actual course of events before Thebes can no longer be verified.

According to Diodorus, after three days of waiting, Alexander finally let the first battle line advance against the phalanx of the Thebans, while the second marched directly against the palisade wall. The struggle turned out to be unexpectedly lossy for the Macedonians, and a breakthrough through the ranks of the desperately fighting Thebans would not succeed. Then Alexander decided to lead his third line of battle, held back as a reserve, into battle. During the battle the Macedonians noticed that a city gate adjacent to the palisade wall was opened, the one in front of the Temple of Amphion, from which the Thebans apparently intended to carry out a sortie on the flank of the Macedonians. Alexander recognized the danger, which also harbored an opportunity, and ordered Perdickas and his troops to attack this gate immediately, who also made the decisive advance into the city there. According to Arrian / Ptolemaios, Perdiccas was injured by an arrow and had to be carried back to the camp, which is why his men had to advance a second time without him against the gate; another attempt to belittle his memory? In any case, when the Macedonians broke into the city, the crew of the Kadmeia also intervened and broke out towards the Amphion Temple and the palisade wall, whereby the Thebans were now harassed from two sides. They could no longer withstand this, and many warriors were literally massacred. The panicked city was pillaged by the enemy pouring in, and the vengeful Boiotic troops in particular showed no consideration for civilians; only a few were able to save themselves in the temples.

consequences

Timokleia before Alexander the Great. Painting by Domenichino around 1615, Louvre Museum , Paris .

After the end of the fight, Alexander presented the decision on the fate of Thebes to the representatives of the Hellenic League for consultation. Since they were mainly Boiotic cities, over which Thebes had exercised an oppressive rule in previous years, their verdict was swift and clear. In addition to the apostasy from the Hellenic League, the traditionally ambiguous attitude of Thebes towards the hated Persians, against whom the Hellenic League had actually committed itself to fight, was discussed. They had not forgotten that Thebes during the Persian Wars to the Great King Xerxes I had been allied and with sitting in judgment Plataeans and Orchomenäer had multiple destruction of their home towns by Thebes in the last hundred years (Plataea: 479, 426 and 376 v . Chr .; Orchomenos: 364 and 349 BC) still in memory. And since the Hellenic League has been growing since 338 BC BC was in a state of war with Persia - troops under Parmenion were already fighting in Asia Minor - the defection of Thebes had to be regarded as high treason against the koiné eiréne . Instead, the city should now be destroyed, their land divided between the Boiotic cities and the urban population sold into slavery. Furthermore, all escaped Thebans were ostracized and denied entry to Greek cities. In return, the cities of Orchomenos and Plataiai should be rebuilt as a reward for their citizens' loyalty to the federal government. About three months after their fall, Thebes was in October 335 BC. In ruins. Only those Thebans who were known for their Pro-Macedonian attitude and who had voted against the war in the council were excluded from the example. Of the buildings, only the house of the poet Pindar, who was highly revered by the Greeks, was to be exempted from destruction and his descendants spared from slavery. Alexander himself pardoned a woman named Timokleia , who had been the sister of the last commander of the holy host , Theagenes, who had fallen at Chaironeia. She had killed a Thracian during the fight who had raped her earlier.

News of the fall of Thebes reached Athens at the beginning of the autumn of 335 BC. When the mysteries were being celebrated. These were ended immediately, the city was put into defense readiness and the Ekklesia convened. Compared to Alexander, who actually marched on Attica , the support of the renegades was passed off as a private action by Demosthenes. Alexander demanded extradition of his and his followers, which the city refused. An impending conflict was prevented by the diplomatic skill of the Macedonian friends Phokion and Demades, who vouched to Alexander for Athens' loyalty to the Hellenic League. Alexander was satisfied with the banishment of one of Demosthenes' comrades and allowed Theban exiles to be accepted. Demosthenes himself was spared, apparently through a personal expression of loyalty to the treaties of the Hellenic League, as Beloch suspected; however, ancient scoffers believed that he bribed Demades with five talents for a good word with Alexander. Thereupon Alexander withdrew with his army to Macedonia and prepared the campaign to Asia. By renouncing a criminal court over Athens, he maintained the claim of a panhellenic campaign of revenge against the Persians , which would only have been counteracted with the destruction of Athens.

Although the destruction of a conquered city was a common practice in ancient Greece (e.g. Plataiai and Orchomenos), the fall of Thebes turned out to be a beacon with a high shock effect. This is mainly explained by the historical importance of this city, which a few generations earlier had held a hegemonic position. Along with Sparta and Athens, she was considered one of the “three heads of Hellas”. Because Alexander left the holding of the criminal court to the representatives of the Hellenic League, he had exonerated himself as the sole person responsible for the destruction of the city. Nevertheless, it is considered an eyesore in his biography, especially since the judgment was completely in his mind, as a constant warning against future troublemakers among the Greeks. He was apparently aware of this himself when he later captured several Theban mercenaries who were captured for Darius III in Asia. had fought, released them unconditionally, with reference to the difficult fate that their city has already met. Unimpressed by the fate of Thebes, the Spartans, themselves once archenemies of the city, appeared after Alexander's departure from Europe in 334 BC. BC raised with the aid of Athens in the " mouse war " against the Macedonians and were defeated themselves. However, her city was treated more gently afterwards.

Thebes was born in 316 BC. Rebuilt by Kassander and resettled with ransomed citizens, but it never regained its historical significance. The reconstruction was politically not without controversy. Antigonos Monophthalmos , who was hostile to Cassander, saw this as favoring traditional enemies of Greek unity. His son Demetrios Poliorketes intended the city after its conquest in 290 BC. Chr. To destroy again, was stopped from this plan by his own son Antigonos Gonatas .

literature

  • Julius Beloch : Attic politics since Pericles . Leipzig 1884.
  • Alexander Demandt : Alexander the Great - Life and Legend . Munich 2009.
  • Robin Lane Fox : Alexander the Great - Conqueror of the World . Hamburg 2010.
  • Joseph Roisman: Ptolemy and His Rivals in His History of Alexander , In: The Classical Quarterly , Vol. 34 (1984), pp. 373-385.

Individual evidence

  1. Diodorus 17, 4, 9.
  2. Arrian , Anabasis 1, 7, 3; Demades , the twelve years 17.
  3. Arrian, Anabasis 1, 7, 1-2.
  4. Diodorus 17: 9, 5; Plutarch , Demosthenes 23, 1; Aeschines , Against Ctesiphon 239.
  5. Aischines, Against Ctesiphon 240; Deinarchos , Against Demosthenes 18.
  6. Diodorus 17, 8, 6.
  7. Deinarchus, Against Demosthenes 18; Plutarch, Phocion 17, 1.
  8. Arrian, Anabasis 1, 7, 3-6.
  9. Arrian, Anabasis 1, 7, 6. Alexander, son of Aeropos, was actually present in the Macedonian army, he had contributed a Thracian contingent to this as governor of Thrace.
  10. Deinarchos, Against Demosthenes 18-21; Arrian, Anabasis 1, 10, 1.
  11. Diodorus, 17, 8, 4.
  12. Diodorus, 17, 8, 7. The Kadmeia commander Philotas is not to be confused with Philotas, son of Parmenion .
  13. Diodorus 17: 9, 2; Plutarch, Alexander 11, 7.
  14. Diodorus 17, 9, 4-5; Plutarch, Alexander 11, 8.
  15. Diodorus 17:11 , 1; Arrian, Anabasis 1, 8, 1.
  16. See Roisman, pp. 374-375.
  17. Diodorus 17, 11, 3-5.
  18. Diodorus 17:12 , 1.
  19. Diodorus 17, 12, 3.
  20. Arrian, Anabasis 1, 8, 3.
  21. Diodorus 17, 12, 5.
  22. Diodorus 17:14 , 2; Justin 11, 4.
  23. Diodorus 17:14 , 4; Arrian, Anabasis 1, 9, 9; Plutarch, Alexander 34.
  24. marble Parium B2. In the year of Archon Euainetus 335/334 BC Chr.
  25. ^ Arrian, Anabasis 1, 9, 9.
  26. Plutarch, Alexander 12 and Moralia 259d – 260d = Mulierum Virtutes 24.
  27. Arrian, Anabasis 1, 10, 2-3.
  28. Diodorus 17, 15, 3-4; Plutarch, Phokion 17, 4.
  29. Arrian, Anabasis 1, 10, 6.
  30. See Beloch, p. 243. Diodor 17, 15, 3; Plutarch, Demosthenes 23, 6.
  31. See Demandt, p. 101.
  32. Plutarch, Moralia 181b.
  33. ^ Pausanias 7: 6, 9.
  34. Diodorus 19, 61, 2.
  35. Plutarch, Demetrios 33.