Philip of Macedon

Amphissa, a Locrian town, having been declared by the Amphictyonic council guilty of sacrilege, Philip was appointed by the council as their general to inflict punishment on the inhabitants of the guilty town. Accordingly he marched southwards early in B.C. 338; but instead of proceeding in the direction of Amphissa, he suddenly seized Elatea, the chief town in the eastern part of Phocis, thus showing clearly enough that his real design was against Boeotia and Attica. Intelligence of this event reached Athens at night, and caused extraordinary alarm, In the following morning Demosthenes pressed upon the assembly the necessity for making the most vigorous preparations for defence, and especially recommended them to send an embassy to Thebes, in order to persuade the Thebans to unite with them against the common enemy.

The details of the war that followed are exceedingly obscure. Philip appears to have again opened negotiations with the Thebans, which failed; and we then find the combined Theban and Athenian armies marching out to meet the Macedonians. The decisive battle was fought on the 7th of August, in the plain of Chaeronea in Boeotia, near the frontier of Phocis (B.C. 338). In the Macedonian army was Philip's son, the youthful Alexander, who was intrusted with the command of one of the wings; and it was a charge made by him on the Theban sacred band that decided the fortune of the day. The sacred band was cut to pieces, without flinching from the ground which it occupied, and the remainder of the combined army was completely routed. Demosthenes, who was serving as a foot-soldier in the Athenian ranks, has been absurdly reproached with cowardice because he participated in the general flight.

The battle of Chaeronea crushed the liberties of Greece, and made it in reality a province of the Macedonian monarchy. To Athens herself the blow was almost as fatal as that of AEgospotami. But the manner in which Philip used his victory excited universal surprise. He dismissed the Athenian prisoners without ransom, and voluntarily offered a peace on terms more advantageous than the Athenians themselves would have ventured to propose. Philip, indeed, seems to have regarded Athens with a sort of love and respect, as the centre of art and refinement, for his treatment of the Thebans was very different, and marked by great harshness and severity. They were compelled to recall their exiles, in whose hands the government was placed, whilst a Macedonian garrison was established in the Cadmea.

William Smith, A Smaller History of Ancient Greece

Phillip of Macedon, B.C. 359-336

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