The allied army assembled in the neighbourhood of Thermopylae. Antipater now advanced from the north, and offered battle in the vale of the Spercheus; but being deserted by his Thessalian cavalry, who went over to his opponents during the heat of the engagement, he was obliged to retreat and threw himself into Lamia, a strong fortress on the Malian gulf. Leosthenes, desirous to finish the war at a blow, pressed the siege with the utmost vigour; but his assaults were repulsed, and he was compelled to resort to the slower method of a blockade. From this town the contest between Antipater and the allied Greeks has been called the Lamian War. The novelty of a victory over the Macedonian arms was received with boundless exultation at Athens, and this feeling was raised to a still higher pitch by the arrival of an embassy from Antipater to sue for peace. But the Athenians were so elated with their good fortune, that they would listen to no terms but the unconditional surrender of Antipater. Meantime Demosthenes, though still an exile, exerted himself in various parts of the Peloponnesus in counteracting the envoys of Antipater, and in endeavouring to gain adherents to the cause of Athens and the allies. The Athenians in return invited Demosthenes back to his native country, and a ship was sent to convey him to Piraeus, where he was received with extraordinary honours. Meanwhile Leonnatus, governor of the Hellespontine Phrygia, had appeared on the theatre of war with an army of 20,000 foot and 2500 horse. Leosthenes had been slain at Lamia in a sally of the besieged; and Antiphilus, on whom the command of the allied army devolved, hastened to offer battle to Leonnatus before he could arrive at Lamia. The hostile armies met in one of the plains of Thessaly, where Leonnatus was killed and his troops defeated. Antipater, as soon as the blockade of Lamia was raised, had pursued Antiphilus, and on the day after the battle he effected a junction with the beaten army of Leonnatus.