Battlefield Chaironeia Page 1

where the battle was The Battle of Chaironeia, of 338BC was the decisive Macedonian victory which opened to way to Macedonian control of all Greek territory to the south. The battlefield is located directly north of Livadia, on the main road noth to Lamia 125 km from Athens just as we turn right for Orchomenos and at the entrance to the wide valley of Boetian Kefissos.

This famous battlefield is where Philip II of Macedon lead an army of 50,000 --30,000 infantry armed with spears and 20,000 cavalry, led by the 18th year old Alexander III (the Great, son of Philip).

The opposing army of Athenians,Thebans and Peloponnesians which they defeated there was led by the Athenian firebrand orator Demosthenes who basically could have avoided the whole encouter by keeping his mouth shut. With this battle the old city states came to an end, their power passing into the hand of the Macedonians, and later the Romans. The fallen Macedonians were buried in a big tumulus; and the Theban members of the Sacred Band in a common tomb called the Polyandiron, but the Athenian corpses were burned and the ashes sent to Athens.

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