The First Battle of Lamia was fought in 209 BC between the forces of

Philip V of Macedon Philip V ( grc-gre, Φίλιππος ; 238–179 BC) was king ( Basileus) of Macedonia from 221 to 179 BC. Philip's reign was principally marked by an unsuccessful struggle with the emerging power of the Roman Republic. He would lead Macedon a ...

and the Aetolians led by Pyrrhias. The Aetolians were aided by a small Roman force and a force from the kingdom of Pergamon. The Macedonians were victorious. Another battle was fought at Lamia within the year. In the First Battle of Lamia the Aetolian league suffered almost 1,000 casualties.

Background

In the spring of 210 BC, Laevinus again sailed from Corcyra with his fleet, and with the Aetolians, captured

Phocian Phocis was an ancient region in the central part of Ancient Greece, which included Delphi. A modern administrative unit, also called Phocis, is named after the ancient region, although the modern region is substantially larger than the ancient o ...

Anticyra Antikyra or Anticyra ( el, Αντίκυρα) is a port on the west coast of the Gulf of Antikyra named after it. That gulf is a north-coast bay of the Gulf of Corinth. The settlement was made basically on a floor and beach fringing the northeast ...

. Rome enslaved the inhabitants and Aetolia took possession of the town. Although there was some fear of Rome and concern with her methods, the coalition arrayed against Philip continued to grow. As allowed for by the treaty, Pergamon, Elis and Messenia, followed by Sparta, all agreed to join the alliance against Macedon. The Roman fleet, together with the Pergamene fleet, controlled the sea, and Macedon and her allies were threatened on land by the rest of the coalition. The Roman strategy of encumbering Philip with a war among Greeks in Greece was succeeding, so much so that when Laevinus went to Rome to take up his

consul Consul (abbrev. ''cos.''; Latin plural ''consules'') was the title of one of the two chief magistrates of the Roman Republic, and subsequently also an important title under the Roman Empire. The title was used in other European city-states throu ...

ship, he was able to report that the legion deployed against Philip could be safely withdrawn. However, the Eleans, Messenians and Spartans remained passive throughout 210 BC, and Philip continued to make advances. He invested and took Echinus, using extensive siege works, having beaten back an attempt to relieve the town by the Aetolian '' strategos''

Dorimachus Dorimachus ( grc, Δωρίμαχος) was an Aetolian general who took an active part in the Social War (220–217 BC) The Social War, also War of the Allies and the Aetolian War, was fought from 220 BC to 217 BC between the Hellenic League un ...

and the Roman fleet, now commanded by the proconsul Publius Sulpicius Galba. Moving west Philip probably also took Phalara the port city of Lamia, in the Maliac Gulf. Sulpicius and Dorimachus took Aegina, an island in the Saronic Gulf, which the Aetolians sold to Attalus, the Pergamene king, for thirty talents, and which he was to use as his base of operations against Macedon in the

Aegean Sea The Aegean Sea ; tr, Ege Denizi ( Greek: Αιγαίο Πέλαγος: "Egéo Pélagos", Turkish: "Ege Denizi" or "Adalar Denizi") is an elongated embayment of the Mediterranean Sea between Europe and Asia. It is located between the Balkans ...

. In the spring of 209 BC, Philip received requests for help from his ally the

Achaean League The Achaean League ( Greek: , ''Koinon ton Akhaion'' "League of Achaeans") was a Hellenistic-era confederation of Greek city states on the northern and central Peloponnese. The league was named after the region of Achaea in the northwestern P ...

in the Peloponnesus who were being attacked by Sparta and the Aetolians. He also heard that Attalus had been elected one of the two supreme commanders of the Aetolian League, and rumours that he intended to crossover the Aegean from

Asia Minor Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...

.Livy, 27.29. It was due to this that King Philip decided to march south into

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

References

Bibliography

Livy Titus Livius (; 59 BC – AD 17), known in English as Livy ( ), was a Roman historian. He wrote a monumental history of Rome and the Roman people, titled , covering the period from the earliest legends of Rome before the traditional founding in ...

, ''From the Founding of the City'', Rev. Canon Roberts (translator), Ernest Rhys (Ed.); (1905) London: J. M. Dent & Sons, Ltd. * Polybius
''Histories''

Evelyn S. Shuckburgh Evelyn Shirley Shuckburgh (12 July 1843 – 10 July 1906) was an English academic and schoolmaster, known as classical scholar and translator. Life Born at Aldborough, Norfolk on 12 July 1843, he was the third and eldest surviving son in the fa ...

(translator); London, New York. Macmillan (1889); Reprint Bloomington (1962). 200s BC conflicts 209 BC Battles of Philip V of Macedon Battles involving Pergamon First Macedonian War History of Lamia (city) Lamia Lamia {{AncientRome-battle-stub