Sea battle at Amorgos
| date | Summer 322 BC Chr. |
|---|---|
| place | Amorgos / Aegean Sea |
| output | Macedonian victory |
| consequences | Victory of the Macedonians in the Lamic War, maintenance of Macedonian hegemony over Greece |
| Parties to the conflict | |
|---|---|
|
Macedonia |
Athens |
| Commander | |
|
Euetion |
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| Troop strength | |
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| losses | |
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The sea battle at Amorgos was one in the summer of 322 BC. Battle of the Aegean island of Amorgos , which decided the Lamian War and with it ended the naval power of Athens .
background
Since the battle of Chaeronea in 338 BC BC the Macedonians , with King Philip II as the hegemon of the Corinthian League , exercised supremacy over the Greeks, with the exception of Sparta . This hegemony was asserted by Alexander the Great and, after him, by his deputy Antipater . But when Alexander 323 BC When he died in Babylon , Athens and the Aetolians tried to shake off the Macedonian hegemony, which led to the outbreak of the Lamic War .
After some initial successes by the Allies, including against Generals Leosthenes and Leonnatos , the Macedonians went under Antipater and Krateros in the spring of 322 BC. On the offensive and into the Aegean Sea, Cleitus the White sailed with a fleet.
The naval battle
When the war broke out, the Macedonian General Krateros was camped with the veterans of the Alexander train in Cilicia . At the news of the outbreak of fighting in Greece, he quickly set out on the march to Europe and crossed the Hellespont to come to the aid of Antipater with the veterans. Shortly afterwards, Leonnatos, marching directly from Babylon, had done the same.
Kleitos the White was one of the veterans of the Krateros, but he did not march on with him, but stayed behind in Cilicia, entrusted with building a fleet. Apparently at the beginning of summer 322 BC BC Kleitos had finished his armor and started the journey along the south coast of Asia Minor to the Aegean Sea to intervene in the war. Near the island of Amorgos , he met the Athenian fleet, which he was ultimately able to decisively defeat.
Sources, localization and dating
A main source on the years around Alexander's death, the Lamish war and the beginning of the Diadoch period is the eighteenth book of Diodorus' universal library . The otherwise very detailed and precisely reporting Diodorus only devoted two sentences to the sea battle, according to which Kleitos defeated the Athenian fleet under Euetion in two battles near the Echinaden archipelago. Other traditions make the reliability of this information appear questionable.
Both the marble Parium and Plutarch (in two places) name Amorgos as a place of battle, both of which also only speak of a battle. Diodorus probably combined two naval battles that took place within three quarters of a year and attributed the first battle to Clitus as the victor of the more important second battle. An Athenian inscription mentions a battle in the Hellespont, after which many Athenians had to be ransomed, apparently because they lost the battle and he was captured. Apparently two naval battles took place during the Lamian War, in which the Athenian fleet commander Euetion first took place in the autumn of 323 BC. BC should bring the Hellespont under control to prevent the crossing of the Krateros or the Leonnatos, but failed against a Macedonian fleet there, whereupon he turned to the southern Aegean to intercept Kleitos. He succeeded in a timely union of his fleet with that of the Hellespont and finally triumphed at Amorgos against the inferior Euetion.
The battle of Amorgos took place at the beginning of the summer of 322 BC. Because it is located in the time of the Archon Kephisodoros (323/322 BC) both by the marble Parium and by another Athenian inscription .
consequences
The defeat of Amorgos sealed the defeat of the Allied Greeks in the Lamic War, although they were on land in the autumn of 322 BC. After the battle of Krannon reached a draw. But the loss of their fleet and the threat of locking off Piraeus forced the Athenians to start peace talks with Antipater. As the de facto ruler of the Macedonians, he was able to maintain and consolidate his hegemony over the Greek pole ice world by replacing the anti-Macedonian-minded demos with oligarchic regimes that represented rulers who were dependent on him and were supported by Macedonian garrisons in the pole ice. In Athens this was especially Phocion , the old Macedonian enemy Demosthenes committed to suicide.
Athens had last appeared as a sea power in the Lamian War and tried to regain its supremacy in the Aegean that it had held in the days of the Attic League . The defeat of Amorgos not only undermined this goal, it suddenly ended its importance as a maritime power. His remaining ships were integrated into the Alexandrian-Macedonian fleet and were used, among other things, for the flight of Antigonos Monophthalmos in 321 BC. Used from Asia. Although Athens remained an important trading partner at sea , especially under the protection of Demetrios Poliorketes , in the absence of a larger navy it was no longer a serious power factor. The Aegean was ruled from now on by the fleets of the Diadochi and after them by Ptolemaic Egypt and Antigonid Macedonia, which in turn were followed by the Romans.
The "freedom of the Greeks" before the Macedonian hegemony and oligarchic coercion was in the from 321 BC. The beginning of the Diadoch Wars became an important slogan for the enemies of the Antipater's son Kassander , decisive for Polyperchon , Antigonos Monophthalmos and Demetrios Poliorketes. The descendants of the latter, however, now sitting on the Macedonian throne, should abandon this ideal and pursue a policy entirely in accordance with Filipino tradition.
additional
The naval battle of Amorgos is attributed to the battle of Salamis (306 BC) and the naval battle of Kos (around 263 BC), the installation of the Nike of Samothrace as a symbol of victory and thanksgiving to the Kabir deities of Samothrace .
literature
- Hermann Bengtson : The Diadochi. Munich 1987
- Johann Gustav Droysen : History of Hellenism. New, through. Edition 1952
- NG Ashton: The 'naumachia' near Amorgos in 322 BC In: The Annual of the British School at Athens (ABSA) Vol. 72 (1977), pp. 1-11
- JS Morrison: Athenian Sea-Power in 323/2 BC: Dream and Reality , in: The Journal of Hellenic Studies (JHS) Vol. 107 (1987), pp. 88-97
Individual evidence
- ↑ Diodorus 18, 15, 7–9.
- ^ Marble Parium, FrGrHist, 239 B9 and Plutarch, Demetrius 11, 3; Moralia 338a.
- ↑ Inscriptiones Graecae (IG) II² 398. This battle possibly took place near Abydos , as a citizen of this city had provided ransom for the ransom of the captured Athenians and was later honored for it by the city ( IG II² 493.19-21).
- ^ Marble Parium, FrGrHist, 239 B9 and IG II² 505.
- ↑ Diodorus 18, 23, 4.
- ^ AW Lawrence: The Date of the Nike of Samothrace , in: JHS Vol. 46 (1926), pp. 213-218