The battle of Chaeronea was fought in early August, 338 BC, between the forces of Macedon commanded by king Philip II and his eighteen-year-old son Alexander (not yet ‘the Great’) against an unlikely alliance of the forces of Athens and Thebes and other allies. It was, without doubt, one of the most decisive battles ever fought in the ancient world. It decided the fate of Greece – to come under Macedonian domination or remain free. The fate of Greece rested on two of her, hitherto, greatest military powers – Athens and Thebes.

The other great hoplite power, Sparta, had been humbled by Thebes twenty-five years earlier. The result of Chaeronea was, however, to be a crushing victory for Macedonia which kept all of Greece compliant to Macedonian will for the next fifteen years – this in turn allowed Alexander to embark on his unprecedented conquest of the Persian Empire in 334 BC and truly earn the epithet ‘the Great’. The history of the ancient world (and subsequent history) would have been very different had the result of the battle of Chaeronea been an Athenian and Theban victory.’

Written by Murray Dahm in 3610 The Battle of Chaeronea.