Once the death of Alexander became known in June 323 BC, most states in mainland Greece revolted and founded the Hellenic League, recalling the alliance forged during the Persian Wars; this time with Macedonia in the role of the foreign invader.

The Greeks were initially successful under their Athenian commander in chief Leosthenes, who managed to besiege Antipater, the Macedonian general in Europe, in the city of Lamia, which gave its name to the war.

At the head of a large merged army, Antipater defeated the Greeks in Thessaly at the battle of Krannon, after which he received the surrender of every city state in central Greece.

While Antipater was turning his forces west to deal with the Aetolian League, the last member of the Greek alliance still fighting, he was called back to Asia by the beginning of the Wars of the Diadochi between Alexander's generals.

The main ancient source on the Lamian War is the Greek historian Diodorus of Sicily, who composed a very large work, the Bibliotheca historica, at the very end of the Roman Republic.

Modern historians have been very critical of Diodorus, for his careless treatment of chronology, inability to deal with conflicting sources, insertions of his own opinions as facts, omission of entire years of events, etc.

His books dealing with the Lamian War drew extensively on Hieronymus of Cardia, the main historian of the beginning of the Hellenistic era, who also played a historical role and met many of the generals of Alexander the Great.

[5] It was chosen by the Greeks in order to recall their victorious war against the Persian Empire in the first half of the 5th century, thus placing Macedonia in the role of Persia.

[4] In his biography of Phocion, Plutarch writes "Hellenic War", because his source was Duris of Samos, who wrote a history book of the period in the 270s, at a time when it was still the common name.

Walsh notes that such epics became fashionable during the Hellenistic era and that Choerilus might have been a member of the court of Antipater, the Macedonian regent in Europe, also a man of letters.

[12] In 338 BC, the Macedonian king Philip II defeated a coalition of Greek states led by Thebes and Athens at the battle of Chaeronea.

Four years later, the Spartan king Agis III led another war of liberation against Macedonia, which was defeated by Antipater at the battle of Megalopolis.

[22][23][24] The life of Leosthenes before the Lamian War has long been debated by scholars, who describe him as having served either Alexander or Darius, then acting as either a private mercenary leader or a strategos (an elected magistrate at Athens).

[27] Other allies from the area joined successively in this chronological order: Thessaly except Pelinna, Oetaea except Heraklea, Achaea Phthiotis except Phthiotic Thebes, Malis except Lamia, Doris, Locris, Phokis, Ainis, Alyzeia, Dolopia, Athamania, the island of Leukas in the Ionian Sea, some of the Molossians in Epirus.

[30] In the Peloponnese, Argos, Sicyon, the Acte peninsula including Epidaurus and Troezen, Phlius, Elis, and Messenia joined the Hellenic League.

[38] Nevertheless, very few states in Greece remained loyal to Macedonia, apart from the Euboean League, still resentful at Athens for its recent interventions in the island, and Boeotia.

From Taenarum, he moved to Aetolia, where he received the command of 7,000 Aetolians, then to Boeotia in order to join his troops with that of Athens, which had sent 5,000 hoplites, 2,000 mercenaries, and 500 cavalry.

[46] In order to prevent the revolt from spreading to Thessaly, Antipater moved south with the Macedonian army of 13,000 hoplites and 600 cavalry,[47] while his navy of 110 triremes followed him with supplies along the coast.

Antipater managed to turn back with his phalanx still intact and entered in Lamia (15km north of the Thermopylae), the only city of the area that had remained faithful to Macedonia.

[15] In a short passage, Diodorus Siculus, the main source of the Lamian War, tells that Cleitus the White defeated the Athenian admiral Euetion in two battles off some islands called the Echinades.

[67] Another Athenian defeat might have taken place near the Hellespont (now called the Dardanelles), as Athens had to bring corn supplies from the Black Sea through these narrow straights, which shores were controlled by Macedonia.

[68] At an unknown date, an Athenian army commanded by Phocion repelled an amphibious Macedonian raid led by Mikion on the town of Rhamnous in Attica.

[76] Antipater merged his army with that of Leonnatus and that of Craterus, who had just arrived from Cilicia with 10,000 hoplites (including 6,000 veterans), 1,500 cavalry, and 1,000 Persian archers and slingers.

[84] The generals of the Greek Antiphilus and Menon first wished to negotiate for the entire alliance, but Antipater only wanted to deal with each city individually.

The Athenian delegation to Antipater was composed of Demades and Phocion, the two leading politician who had spoken against the war with Macedonia, as well as Xenocrates of Chalcedon, the head of Plato's Academy.

Demades carried the subsequent motion in the ecclesia sentencing to death these leaders, of whom the most prominent included Demosthenes, Hypereides, and Eucrates, who were hunted by Macedonian henchmen throughout Greece.

[91] Finally, Athens lost the city of Oropus and the sanctuary of the Amphiareion on its northern border, which had been given by Philip from Thebes in 338 BC after the battle of Chaeronea.

[92] Antipater carefully avoided dealing with Samos, and referred the matter to Perdiccas, who de facto controlled the empire after the death of Alexander.

[95] The 19th-century radical politician and historian George Grote considered the outcome of the Lamian War a calamitous tragedy, marking the extinction of an "autonomous Hellenic world".

Nevertheless, the war, in spite of its disastrous result, was a "glorious effort for the recovery of Grecian liberty, undertaken under circumstances which promised a fair chance of success."