The
Battle of Megalopolis was fought in
331 BC-Macedonia:* Alexander departs from Egypt and leads his forces towards Phoenicia. He leaves Cleomenes of Naucratis as the ruling nomarch to control Egypt....
between Sparta and Macedonia.
AlexanderAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
's regent
AntipaterAntipater was a Macedonian general and a supporter of kings Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. In 320 BC, he became regent of all of Alexander's empire.-Career under Philip and Alexander:...
led the Macedonians to victory over King
Agis IIIAgis III , son of Archidamus III, was the 20th Eurypontid king of Sparta. He succeeded his father in 338 BC, on the very day of the battle of Chaeronea. His reign was short, but eventful, coming as it did during a low period for Sparta, after it had lost significant borderlands to Philip II of...
.
In the fall of 333 BC, the Spartan King Agis III had met with the Persian commanders
PharnabazusPharnabazus was a Persian soldier and statesman. He was the son of Pharnaces, son of Pharnabazus of Phrygia, son of Artabazus; his male ancestors had governed the satrapy of Phrygia on the Hellespont from its headquarters at Dascylium since 478 BC. According to a discovery by Theodor Nöldeke, he...
and
AutophradatesAutophradates was a Persian who distinguished himself as a general in the reign of Artaxerxes III and Darius Codomannus. In the reign of the former he made Artabazus, the revolted satrap of Lydia and Ionia, his prisoner, but afterwards set him free...
, somewhere in the
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, and revealed to them his plans for a war against Alexander—in Greece itself. The Persians agreed to support Agis – with a mere 30 talents and just 10 ships.
The
Battle of Megalopolis was fought in
331 BC-Macedonia:* Alexander departs from Egypt and leads his forces towards Phoenicia. He leaves Cleomenes of Naucratis as the ruling nomarch to control Egypt....
between Sparta and Macedonia.
AlexanderAlexander III of Macedon, popularly known as Alexander the Great , was an Ancient Greek king of Macedon who created one of the largest empires in ancient history...
's regent
AntipaterAntipater was a Macedonian general and a supporter of kings Philip II of Macedon and Alexander the Great. In 320 BC, he became regent of all of Alexander's empire.-Career under Philip and Alexander:...
led the Macedonians to victory over King
Agis IIIAgis III , son of Archidamus III, was the 20th Eurypontid king of Sparta. He succeeded his father in 338 BC, on the very day of the battle of Chaeronea. His reign was short, but eventful, coming as it did during a low period for Sparta, after it had lost significant borderlands to Philip II of...
.
Background
In the fall of 333 BC, the Spartan King Agis III had met with the Persian commanders
PharnabazusPharnabazus was a Persian soldier and statesman. He was the son of Pharnaces, son of Pharnabazus of Phrygia, son of Artabazus; his male ancestors had governed the satrapy of Phrygia on the Hellespont from its headquarters at Dascylium since 478 BC. According to a discovery by Theodor Nöldeke, he...
and
AutophradatesAutophradates was a Persian who distinguished himself as a general in the reign of Artaxerxes III and Darius Codomannus. In the reign of the former he made Artabazus, the revolted satrap of Lydia and Ionia, his prisoner, but afterwards set him free...
, somewhere in the
Aegean SeaThe Aegean Sea is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea located between the southern Balkan and Anatolian peninsulas, i.e., between the mainlands of Greece and Turkey respectively. In the north, it is connected to the Marmara Sea and Black Sea by the Dardanelles and Bosporus...
, and revealed to them his plans for a war against Alexander—in Greece itself. The Persians agreed to support Agis – with a mere 30 talents and just 10 ships. But Agis managed to recruit the Greek mercenary survivors of
IssusThe Battle of Issus occurred in southern Anatolia, in November 333 BC. The invading troops, led by the young Alexander of Macedonia, defeated the army personally led by Darius III of Achaemenid Persia in the second great battle for primacy in Asia...
- who had served in the Persian army – a force of 8000 seasoned men hungry for revenge. In the summer of 331 BC, Agis defeated Corrhagus, the Macedonian general over the Peloponnese and garrison commander of
CorinthCorinth, or Korinth Corinth, or Korinth Corinth, or Korinth (Greek Κόρινθος, Kórinthos is a city in Greece. In antiquity it was a city-state, on the Isthmus of Corinth, the narrow stretch of land that joins the Peloponnesus to the mainland of Greece. To the west of the isthmus lies the Gulf of...
.
Meanwhile Antipater, Alexander's
regentA regent, from the Latin regens "reigning", is a person selected to act as head of state because the ruler is a minor, not present, or debilitated. Thus, the common use is for an acting deputy governor....
in Macedonia, was occupied in
ThraceThrace is a historical and geographic area in southeast Europe. As a geographical concept, Thrace designates a region bounded on the north by the Balkan Mountains, on the south by the Rhodope Mountains and the Aegean Sea and on the east by the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmara...
where the Macedonian general
MemnonMemnon may refer to:* Saint Memnon the Wonderworker — early Christian saint from Egypt, hermit and hegumen of one of Egyptian monasteries* Memnon and those erroneously named after him in the Graeco-Roman era:...
was somehow involved in a rebellion. After that was solved, Antipater marched against King Agis. Antipater had recruited a large force, over 40,000 strong, with a small Macedonian nucleus and substantial numbers of
barbarianBarbarian is a term for an uncivilized person, often used pejoratively, either in a general reference to a member of a nation or ethnos, typically a tribal society as seen by an urban civilization either viewed as inferior, or admired as a noble savage...
s from the northern fringes of the empire, reinforced with troops from his Greek allies.
Battle
The final battle, fought near
MegalopolisMegalopolis may refer to:* Megalopolis , an extensive metropolitan area or a long chain of continuous metropolitan areas....
in
MesseniaMessenia or Messinia is a prefecture in the Peloponnese, a region of Greece. Messenia is bounded on the east by Mount Taygetus, on the north by the river Neda and the Arcadian Mountains, and on the west and south by the Mediterranean Sea, more specifically on the west by the Ionian Sea, and on the...
, was a rout of the Spartans. King Agis faced Antipater with 22,000 troops who were at their very best that day. Early in the battle Antipater's lines broke, but in the end it was the sheer weight of numbers that brought victory to the Macedonians. It is written 5,300 died on the Spartan side and 3,500 on the Macedonian side. For the Spartans that meant a death toll of over 25 percent. But even for Antipater's side normal battle statistics would indicate that up to 90 percent of the Macedonian army might have been wounded, as Curtius Rufus records.