Amphoterus (admiral)

Amphoteros (Greek Ἀμφοτερός; † after 331 BC ), son of Alexandros and brother of Craterus was a Macedonian fleet commander ( nauarchos ) Alexander the Great.

Amphoteros participated since 334 BC at the Asia campaign. In the winter of the year 333 BC, he was sent by Alexander of Phaselis to the generals Parmenion by Gordion, with instructions to arrest the traitor Alexander the Lynkesten. A few months later he was commissioned along with Hegelochos to return to the Hellespont, in order to build a fleet, with the Aegean Sea should be brought under control. Together they conquered the following year the islands of Mytilene, Chios and Tenedos, where they captured the Persian admiral Pharnabazos. With sixty ships Amphoteros took a self Kos Island.

Amphoteros and Hegelochos clashed with their fleet in winter 332 BC in Egypt back to Alexander, where Amphoteros BC took over in the spring of 331 the sole command of the fleet. According to Arrian, he was on secondment from Alexander with its reinforced hundred Phoenician ships fleet to the Peloponnese to the Greek cities there, those who were loyal to the Macedonian cause, against the Spartan king Agis III. to support. This statement applies in the literature as problematic as it is believed that Alexander BC, when he already was in Susa until at least late in 331, from the war of Agis III. have experienced. Curtius Rufus noted, however, that Amphoteros was BC emitted from Tyros with his fleet against Crete in the spring of 331, to rid the island and then to combat the piracy. It is possible that Amphoteros was first sent by Alexander to Crete, but then turned from there on its own initiative against the Peloponnese, after he learned of the struggles of Antipater against Sparta.

Probably transported Amphoteros in the year 331 BC, after the end of the war against Sparta, the military contingent of Amyntas of Macedon to Syria. Anyway, he will be, as otherwise things Alexander fleet in the Mediterranean, after this year no longer mentioned.