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Siege of Lamia 322 BC

Recorded location from Wikidata; battle sites are often approximate.

Key facts

Year322 BCWikidata P585 (point in time)
EraAncient (before 500)derived from year
LocationGreeceNatural Earth (modern borders)
ContinentEuropeNatural Earth
Coordinates38.8972, 22.4311Wikidata P625

About the battle

The siege of Lamia occurred from 323 to 322 BC between the Macedonians led by Antipater and a coalition of armies mostly from central Greece led by Leosthenes. The siege gave its name to the Lamian War.

After Antipater was defeated at the Second Battle of Thermopylae, he shut himself in the city of Lamia. Leosthenes approached the city and with his army fortified a camp, dug up a deep ditch and constructed a palisade. Initially, Leosthenes would draw up his forces, and approach the city and directly challenge the Macedonians to battle. The Macedonians denied this challenge, prompting Leosthenes to launch daily attacks on the walls with his soldiers.

The Macedonians defended themselves from the daily attacks and were able to halt the Greeks' attacks, because of the abundance of missiles and protection from the walls. Since Leosthenes was unable to storm the city, he shut off all supplies entering the city, believing this would reduce the army because of hunger. He also built a wall and dug a deep, wide ditch, cutting off all escape routes for the Macedonians.

Text adapted from the Wikipedia article Siege of Lamia (revision 1370742780), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Changes: excerpted from the article lead section; shortened by selecting paragraphs and trimming at a sentence boundary; formatting and citations removed. No text added.

Location

38.8972, 22.4311 · Greece

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Nearby battles

Browse more: battles in Greece · Europe · Ancient battles

Further reading