After the Peloponnesian Wars, the Greeks who had a history ofdisunity were even more disjointed. Athens had been defeated bySparta, and Sparta was in turn defeated by Thebes which was theleading political power in Greece. Philip took advantage and builtup his military and reinforced his alliances. Demosthenes of Athenswho held a personal grudge with Philip after being snubbed at theMacedonian royal court spoke against the threat from Macedonia toAthenian hegemony.
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[10] When, Athenians,will you take the necessary action? What are you waiting for? Untilyou are compelled, I presume. But what are we to think of what ishappening now? For my own part I think that for a free people therecan be no greater compulsion than shame for their position. Or tellme, are you content to run round and ask one another, “Is there anynews today?” Could there be any news more startling than that aMacedonian is triumphing over Athenians and settling the destiny ofHellas?Demosthenes.Demosthenes with an English translation by J. H. Vince, M.A.Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William HeinemannLtd. 1930.
Also, while the Athenian allies may have had an advantage inquality, Philip had a greater advantage in numbers. The MacedonianArmy was larger and more modern. The phalanx infantry formationused by the Thebans to defeat Sparta was improved by theMacedonians with longer spears and ranks of sixteen instead ofeight. After an enemy had been broken up by the Macedonian phalanx,the Macedonian heavy cavalry charged in for the kill.
On the battlefield of Chaeronea, Macedonia and its Greek allies metwith the Athenians and their allies from the Greek city states….
As the eminent historian J. B. Burywrites:
If the chances ofanother issue to the battle of Chaeronea have been exaggerated,the significance of that event has been oftenmisrepresented. The battle of Chaeronea belongs to the samehistorical series as the battles of Aegospotami (405 B.C.) andLeuctra (371B.C.).
As the hegemony or first placeamong Greek states had passed successively from Athens to Sparta,and to Thebes, so now it passed to Macedon. The statement thatGreek liberty perished on the plain of Chaeronea is as true oras false as that it perished on the field of Leuctra or the strandof the Goat’s River. Whenever a Greek state became supreme,that supremacy entailed the depression of some states and thedependency or subjection of others. Athens was reduced to asecondary place by Macedon, and Thebes fared still worse; but wemust not forget what Sparta, in the day of her triumph, did toAthens, or the more evil things which Thebes proposed.
