Ламийската война и идеята за автономия на полиса
The Lamian War and the idea of the polis autonomy

Summary/Abstract: The Lamian War was an attempt to free ancient Greece from the hegemony of the Macedonians, but it was also one of the last attempts to establish the universal idea of the autonomy of the Greek city-state. One of the main reasons for the defeat of the Greeks was their inability to unite against a common enemy. Sparta and many of the Peloponnesian city-states, for one reason or another, did not take part in the coalition, which is the other negative side of the idea of autonomy. A few years earlier, Sparta had tried to overthrow the Macedonian hegemony, but was not supported by Athens and other leading powers, and suffered a severe defeat that it had not yet recovered from. Another major problem for the Greeks was their inability to keep all their troops ready for battle throughout the whole war. After the first successes, most of the Greeks left the coalition forces and left the Athenians and mercenaries almost alone to fight the enemy. This amorphous nature of the coalition was one of the main reasons for its defeat, which was also a consequence in a sense of the basic concept of autonomy. Another aspect of this weakness was the rapid disintegration of the coalition after the first major defeat at the Battle of Crannon. Every Hellenic polis that fought against the Macedonians tried to save itself and negotiate the best possible peace terms with the victors, which is to some extent a consequence of the dominant concept of autonomy characteristic of the polis as a state-political system.

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