Battle of Sellasia
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The Battle of Sellasia was a battle that took place in 222 BC between the armies of Antigonus III Doson, King of Macedonia, and Cleomenes III, King of Sparta. The Spartan Forces were massacred and Cleomenes fled to Egypt.
Antigonus Doson and the Hellenic League with Cleomenes III
Upon taking the throne in 235 BC after the death of Leonidas II, Cleomenes III undertook an ambitious political restoration of Sparta's power by returning to a legendary political tradition of Lycurgus.The king of Macedonia, Antigonus III Doson, responded and regained the influence lost from the Peloponnese since almost two decades. In 224, he signed an alliance with the Achaeans, Boeotians, Thessalians and the Acarnanians. Antigonus drove out the Spartans from Argos and took Orchomenos and Mantineia. In 223, Cleomenes attacked and invaded Megalopolis, thus returning to military practices which had disappeared from Greece since the beginning of the 3rd century BC.
In 222 BC, Ptolemy ceased financial support for Cleomenes.
Forces
Cleomenes had 10,000 infantrymen, composed by hoplites, perioikoi and about 650 cavalry. The Spartan phalanx, under the command of Cleomenes, was arranged on a hill named Olympus, near Sellasia, and were supported by a body of light infantry mercenaries. The allied troops of Sparta and the perioikoi phalanx were led by commander Eucleidas, and located on the other hill, called Evas, at the left wing. The centre was made up of Spartan cavalry, supported by other light infantrymen. Cleomenes probably hoped for a higher tactical position that would compensate numerical inferiority: it had dug a ditch and raised the palisade all along the front line.
Antigonus, on his side, could count up to a superior force, with the total of around 30,000 men. For the first time since the beginning of the 3rd century BC, the Macedonians aligned with this countryside against the national army of Sparta and without their infantry. Antigonous alone had 20,000 men. The allies had provided him consequent contingencies, notably the cavalry: 1,000 Achaeans, as much the Megalopolitans.
Antigonus placed the Macedonian phalanges facing at the Spartan phalanges at Olympus hill, with the order to tighten on 32 rows. It laid out a screen of light infantry in front of the phalanges. Its own cavalry, a mixture of Macedonians, Achaeans (led by Philoppemenes), the Boeotians and its mercernaries under the commander of Alexander, were placed in front of the Spartan cavalry in the centre. The Macedonian right wing on Evas hill, whose slopes were strong, did not form phalange, but adopted a more flexible formation to facilitate the progression on the difficult ground. It was there that also the Illyrian allies of Antigonus and their head, Demetrius of Pharos, had a commandment of all of his right wing.
Ancient sources
- Polybius Histories, ii. 65-70
- Plutarch Life of Cleomenes , 27-28
- Pausanias Description of Greece, ii. 9. § 2, 10. § 7, iv. 29. § 9, vii. 7. § 4, viii. 49. § 5.
References
- E Will Histoire politique du monde hellénistique or the Political History of the Hellenistic World, Paris, 1075
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