Telesphorus (in Greek Tελεσφoρoς; lived 4th century BC) was a general in the service of Antigonus Monophthalmus, the king of Asia, who was sent by him in 313 BC, with a fleet of fifty ships and a considerable army to the Peloponnese, to oppose the forces of Polyperchon and Cassander. His arms were at first very successful; he drove out the Macedonian garrisons from all the cities of the peninsula, except Sicyon and Corinth, which, were held by Polyperchon himself; but having joined with Medius in an attempt to relieve Oreus, to which Cassander had laid siege, they were defeated, with the loss of several ships.¹ The following summer (312 BC) Antigonus having conferred the chief direction of the war in the Peloponnese upon his nephew Ptolemy, Telesphorus was so indignant that he shook off his allegiance, and having induced some of his soldiers to follow him, established himself in Elis on his own account, and even plundered the sacred treasures at Olympia. He was, however, soon after, induced to submit to Ptolemy.²

References

• Smith, William (editor); Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, "Telesphorus", Boston, (1867)
  

Notes

• 1 Diodorus Siculus, Bibliotheca, xix. 74, 75
  
• 2 Ibid., 87
  

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This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1867).