Battle of Ipsus - Prelude

Prelude

Lysimachus crossed over the Hellespont in 302 BC, intending to take advantage of Antigonus's absence in Syria by over-running Asia Minor. The cities of Lampsakos and Parion submitted to him, but he had to storm Sigeion, after which he installed a garrison there. He then sent Prepelaus with 7000 men to attack Aeolis and Ionia, while he besieged Abydos. This siege was unsuccessful however, since Demetrius sent the city reinforcements from Greece by sea. Lysimachus instead went on to win over Hellespontine Phrygia, and then captured the major administrative centre of Synnada. Meanwhile, Prepelaus captured Adramyttion, Ephesos, Teos and Colophon; he could not however capture Erythrae or Clazomenae, again due to sea-borne reinforcements. Finally, Prepelaus moved inland and captured Sardis, another major administrative centre.

When Antigonus received news of the invasion, he abandonded preparations for a great festival to be held in Antigonia, and quickly began to march his army northwards from Syria, thorugh Cilicia, Cappadocia, Lycaonia and into Phrygia. Lysimachus, hearing of the approach of Antigonus's army, held counsel with his officers, and decided to avoid open battle until Seleucus's arrival. The allies thus defended their camp with entrenchments and pallisades, and when Antigonus arrived offering battle, they remained within the camp. Antigonus therefore moved to cut off the allies provisions, forcing Lysimachus to abandon the camp and make a night-time march of some 40 miles to Dorylaion. There, the allies built a new, triple-pallisaded camp amongst the hills, with relatively easy access to food and water. Antigonus followed closely behind, and laid siege to the allied camp, bringing up catapults for the assault. Lysimachus sent sorties to try and disrupt the siege-works, but the Antigonid forces always ended with the upper hand in ensuing skirmishes. With the siege works nearing completion and food running low, Lysimachus decided to abandon the camp, and marched away during a night-time storm. Antigonus again attempted to follow, but as winter approached with further rain, conditions became difficult, and he abandoned pursuit and dispersed his men into winter quarters instead. The allied army marched on into Bithynia and went into winter quarters in and around the city of Heraclea.

Whilst settling his army for the winter, Antigonus heard the news the Seleucus was on route from the eastern satrapies to support Lysimachus. He therefore dispatched messengers to Demetrius, ordering him to being his army over to Asia to reinforce the Antigonid forces. Demetrius had in the meantime continued his campaign in Greece, and although Cassander had blocked the land-passes, Demetrius had entered Thessaly by sea. There had followed a somewhat inconsequential campaign of manouevre between the two armies in Thessaly, before Demetrius received his father's messages asking for reinforcements. Demetrius thus hastily arranged a truce with Cassander, and took his army by sea across the Aegean to Ephesos. He re-captured Ephesos, and marched north to the Hellespont, where he established a strong garrison and fleet to prevent European reinforcements reaching the allied army in Asia. Demetrius then also dispersed his army into winter quarters.

In the absence of Demetrius, Cassander now felt able to send further reinforcements to Lysimachus, under the command of his brother, Pleistarchus. Since Demetrius was guarding the easy crossing points at the Hellespont and the Bosphorus, Pleistarchus attempted to ship his men directly across the Black Sea to Heraclea, using the port of Odessos. The men had to be sent in batches due to a lack of ships, and although the first batch arrived safely, the second shipment was intercepted by Demetrius's fleet, and the third wrecked in a storm. Pleistarchus himself narrowly survived the wreck of his command ship, eventually being carried to Heraclea to recuperate over the winter. Similarly, the concentration of Antigonid forces in Asia now made Ptolemy feel secure enough to bring an army out of Egypt to try and conquer Coele Syria. He captured a number of cities, but while laying siege to Sidon he was brought false reports of an Antigonid victory, and told that Antigonus was marching south into Syria. He thus garrisoned the cities he had captured, and retreated into Egypt. At around the same time, Seleucus appears to have finished his march from the east, arriving in Cappadocia with his army, which he then sent into winter quarters.

Diodorus completes book XX of his Library at this point, saying that he will describe the battle between the Kings at the start of the next book. However, only fragments remain of books XXI onwards, and although some fragments of his description of the battle do remain, they do not form a coherent narrative. In his description of the battle, Plutarch does not describe the preliminary manoeuvring that must have occurred in 301 BC before the battle, so it is unclear how events unfolded. Lysimachus and Seleucus were probably anxious to bring Antigonus to battle, since their respective power-centres in Thrace and Babylon were vulnerable in their prolonged absence. The armies eventually met in battle around 50 miles north-east of Synnada, near the village of Ipsus. Bennett and Roberts hypothesise that Lysimachus was marching east from Bithynia to cut Antigonus's lines of communication with Syria. Antigonus was aware of Ptolemy's raid on Syria the previous year, and thus would have been loathe to be cut off from Syria and his capital in Antigonia, and thus moved to intercept the allied army. The exact location of the battle is unknown, but it occurred in a large open plain, well-suited for both the allied preponderance of elephants and the Antigonid superiority in cavalry numbers and training.