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| Chremonidean War | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Macedonia | Athens Sparta Ptolemaic Kingdom | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Antigonus II Gonatas | Chremonides Areus I † Ptolemy II Philadelphus Patroclus | ||||||
TheChremonidean War (Ancient Greek:Χρεμωνίδειος Πόλεμος) (267–261 BC) was fought by a coalition ofGreek city-states andPtolemaic Egypt againstAntigonid Macedonia. It ended in a Macedonian victory that confirmedAntigonid control overGreece. The conflict is considered a seminal event in thehistory of Greece during theHellenistic period, as it marked the last credible effort among the Greek city-states to re-establish their independence.[1]
The Chremonidean War is poorly documented and known mostly through fragmentary accounts by later historiansPausanias andJustin.[1]Athens andSparta sought a restoration of their former independence whilePtolemy Philadelphus's ambitions in theAegean were threatened byAntigonus Gonatas's fleet, so he built an anti-Macedonian coalition among the Greek city-states. He courted Athens by supplying the city with grain.
The anti-Macedonian faction in Athens, led by theStoic statesman and generalChremonides, took power and declared war on Macedon (possibly as early as the autumn of 268 BC). The first year of the conflict saw only minor confrontations which generally ended favourably for the anti-Macedonian coalition. After the indecisive campaign season of 266 BC, in which Athens was assisted by a Ptolemaic fleet underPatroclus, the war began to turn against the Greek city-states, and in 265 BC Antigonus won a decisive and crushing victory outsideCorinth during which the Spartan KingAreus I was killed.
With their primary ally defeated and too militarily weak to confront the Antigonids alone, the Athenians waited behind their walls, hoping the Ptolemies could send aid before the inevitable siege. Philadelphus would not be ready to mount a major expedition until after Athens had already been starved into surrender in either 262 BC or 261 BC. In the end it did not matter since when the Ptolemies finally tried to send aid and reinforcements to Athens, their fleet was defeated offCos (probably in 261 BC). This action, called theBattle of Cos, also features in the narrative of the second of theSyrian Wars with a strong alternative date of 258 or 255 BC.
After the end of the war, Athens lost her last pre-Hellenistic vestiges of political independence.
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