What if the Greeks had won at Chaeronea?
In 338 BC the allied army of Athens and Thebes lost to Philip II of Macedon at Chaeronea, effectively ending the independence of the Greek city-states. What if the allies had won?
What actually happened
Philip II, king from 359 BC, turned Macedon within twenty years from a small kingdom on the northern fringe of Greece into its strongest state. With a phalanx armed with the sarissa, a pike of nearly six metres, the Companion cavalry and money from the gold mines of Mount Pangaion, he took Chalcidice, Thessaly and Thrace in turn. In Athens Demosthenes fought him with speeches, and in 346 BC the Peace of Philocrates briefly halted the war.
In autumn 339 BC, using as pretext a call from the Delphic Amphictyony to punish Amphissa, Philip seized Elatea in Phocis, two days' march from Thebes. In On the Crown Demosthenes recalls that in the Athenian assembly that day the herald asked “Who wishes to speak?” and no one rose. He went to Thebes and brought about an alliance between the two old enemies, and that winter the allies won a few small engagements.
In August 338 BC the decisive battle was fought on the plain of Chaeronea in western Boeotia. According to ancient accounts Philip deliberately drew back his right wing, and when the Athenian hoplites broke ranks to pursue, a force led by eighteen-year-old Alexander struck the Thebans through the gap. The Theban Sacred Band fell almost to a man where it stood, and according to Diodorus a thousand Athenians were killed and two thousand captured. Philip was lenient to Athens and harsh to Thebes, and the next year he founded the League of Corinth to bind the Greek cities.
The turning point
Chaeronea was not a battle one side dominated from the start. Diodorus writes that the fighting was long and evenly balanced, and the two armies are thought to have been of similar size. What decided it was the moment the Athenian line fell for the retreat of the Macedonian right. There is a story that the Athenian general Stratocles shouted “On to Macedonia!” The fact that Chares and Lysicles, rather than more experienced generals, led the Athenians is also counted a weakness.
Whether Macedon would have collapsed even if the allies had won that day is doubtful. Historians of Philip such as Ian Worthington stress that his power came not from one battle but from twenty years of army reform, gold mines and control of Thessaly and Thrace. On the other hand, the alliance of Athens and Thebes was itself a rare thing, and some argue that if one victory had cemented it, the Greek cities would have won time to defend themselves.
The world that might have been
In Crown & Plough the alternative reads: when Philip drew back his right, the Athenian hoplites did not break ranks, and Alexander's horsemen, stopped by the spears of the Sacred Band, wheeled away. At dusk the Macedonians withdrew towards Elatea, and Philip went back north through Thessaly. In the game Thessaly, Chalcidice and the Odrysians of Thrace are freed from Macedon, and the alliance of Athens and Thebes endures.
The game's altered world then runs like this. In 337 BC Athens holds a council of allies, and in 336 Philip falls to a dagger at Aegae and Alexander takes the throne; Philip's assassination did in fact happen at Aegae in 336. In 335 Thebes takes Thessaly, and in 333 the young King Alexander marches south to avenge his father's defeat. In 331 peace is made at Thermopylae, and in 330 Alexander turns his back on Greece and sets off for Asia alone. Around 324 the alliance of Athens and Thebes comes to an end.
In this world Alexander's conquests do not vanish; they are delayed and made smaller. Instead of a campaign under the banner of the Greek allies it becomes Macedon's own, and the Greek cities remain independent states rather than members of the League of Corinth. Demosthenes ends his life not as the orator of a defeated city, as he really did, but as an elder statesman of a victorious one.
Ripples through time
Chaeronea is the last turning point of the Classical Greece era. Even in worlds where earlier turning points changed, Macedon rises, but its Philip spent his years as a hostage somewhere other than in reality: in Sparta in a world where Sparta won at Leuctra, in Athens in a world where Athens took Syracuse.
In real history Chaeronea is seen as the end of Classical Greece. In 335 BC Alexander razed Thebes after it rebelled, and after his death in 323 the Lamian War launched by Athens also failed, and Demosthenes took poison on the island of Calauria. In a world where the allies won, those last scenes do not happen.
Play this turning point
Choose the scenario The Last Speech, which begins as Demosthenes in 346 BC. Spying in Pella, diplomacy back and forth across the Peloponnese, Euboea and Byzantium, and persuading Thebes all add to the allies' odds. In 339 BC a chest of gold sent by the Great King at Susa arrives. Accept it secretly and divert it to the allies' pay, and the odds rise sharply, though you will later be called a bribe-taker; accept it openly before the assembly and they rise a little less.
If you started the Classical Greece era in another position, when news of Elatea comes in 339 BC you can stand in the allied ranks or pay for arms and food. On Philip's side you can stand in the king's ranks or carry gifts to Thebes. This turning point opens in a world where Philip has risen, while Athens survives and Macedon has not yet taken Greece.
Play this turning point → Start the scenario “The Last Speech” →
Questions and answers
What is the Lion of Chaeronea?
A marble lion erected on the battlefield, generally thought to mark the grave of the Thebans who died in the battle, usually identified as the Sacred Band. When the grave beneath the lion was excavated in the 19th century, 254 skeletons were found.
What did Alexander do at Chaeronea?
Eighteen-year-old Alexander faced the Thebans on the Macedonian left, and his force is said to have been the first to break the allied line. Many think he led the cavalry, but the ancient accounts are not detailed and the point is debated.
Did Demosthenes fight at Chaeronea?
He is said to have fought as a hoplite, and his political enemies accused him of throwing away his shield in the rout. Even so, Athens chose him to give the funeral oration for the dead.
Sources and further reading
Demosthenes, On the Crown; Aeschines, Against Ctesiphon; Diodorus, Library of History, book 16; Polyaenus, Stratagems, book 4. Modern accounts: Ian Worthington, Philip II of Macedonia; N. G. L. Hammond, Philip of Macedon.
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