During the first few years after the Phocian War Philip collected allies in Greece. For example, when the Lacedaemonians pointlessly attempted to (re)conquer Messenia, Philip took the opportunity to make alliances with Messenia and Argos (Dem. VI 13 and 15) as well as with the Arcadians (Dem. XIX 261). Not every diplomatic endeavor of Philip’s met with success, however; an attempt to send troops to Megara to intervene in civil strife there and to cement an alliance with that state failed when the Athenian general Phocion intervened first (Dem. XIX 295; Plut. Phoc. 15). Nothing makes it particularly probable that every such effort of Philip’s receives a mention in the sources; but the ones that are mentioned give an indication of how frenetically Philip’s agents were working throughout Greece.
Militarily Philip continued to tighten his grip on the lands to the north and northwest of Greece. He invaded Epirus, expelled its king, Arybbas, and installed his brother-in-law Alexander, Arybbas’ nephew, on the throne (Diod. XVI 72). In 342 and 341 Philip fought a long, successful campaign in Thrace, after which he annexed it (Diod. XVI 71).
The conquest of Thrace alarmed the Athenians whose possessions on the Chersonese it threatened. The Athenian commander there, Diopeithes, attacked
The town of Cardia, a Macedonian ally, and made raids on Thracian territory. At the urging of Demosthenes, the Athenians refused to condemn Diopeithes ([Dem.] XII 3 and 11; Dem. V 25 and VIn passim). Instead, with Demosthenes at the forefront, they formed an alliance with Byzantium (Dem. XVIII 302). Rhodes and Chios, moreover, apparently promised aid (Dem. IX 71) and on Euboea, the Athenians with support from Chalcis and Megara took Oreus and won Eretria as an ally. Chalcis, Eretria, and Oreus now formed a new league-state which allied itself with Athens (Aesch. III 94-105 and Schol. to III 85).
As the Athenians strove to put a coalition together that could defeat Macedonia, Philip, fresh off the conquest of Thrace, in 340 moved to attack Perinthus, an ally of Byzantium’s on the Chersonese. With help from Byzantium and from Arsites, the satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, the Perinthians managed to repel Philip (Diod. XVI 74-76). Philip then marched on Byzantium. Up until now Philip and the Athenians had, at least officially, been at peace, but now the Athenians formally voted that Philip had broken the Peace. With Athenian aid the Byzantines repelled every Macedonian attempt to take their city, and Philip, at long last, gave up (Dem. XVIII 87). He had suffered one of the few setbacks of his career. He remained in Thrace over the winter of 340 to 339, and in the spring carried out a long campaign to the south of the Danube’s delta (Just. IX 2,3,1-3).
The Athenians meanwhile made all possible preparations for the coming war (Aesch. III 22; Philochorus, BNJ 328, Fr. 53-55). By now Athens’ finances had recovered dramatically from their nadir after the Social War. In 341 the annual revenues had reached 400 talents (up from 130 in the late 350s) (Dem. X 38; Theopompus, BNJ 115, Fr. 166). This recovery was due primarily to the unfortunately obscure work of one man, Eubulus, who through unclear processes had brought most of Athenian financial administration under the control of one board, the Theoric Commission (Aesch. III 25; Plut. Precepts of Statecraft, p. 812sq). Moreover, a law prevented the use of the funds under the Theoric Commission’s control for military purposes (Dem. I 19-20; III 10-11), so money had steadily been collecting. By 339, however, the law had apparently been modified, and, with Demosthenes moving the motion, the stockpiled money was now applied to the coming war against Philip (Philochorus, BNJ 328, Fr. 56a).
Philip for his part was laying the diplomatic groundwork for a campaign against Athens. In the Amphictionic Council, which Philip dominated, one of his allies, the Locrians, in 340 accused the Athenians of sacrilege: while the Phocians held Delphi the Athenians had restored an old dedication there which the Plataeans had made “out of the booty from the Medes and the Thebans, when they fought against the Greeks” (Aesch. III 116). Technically the Athenian act, because of when it had taken place, was a sacrilege. The accusation, moreover, was calculated to secure Boeotian support - the Thebans did not care for reminders of how they had fought for the Persians against the Greeks. Philip planned to have the Amphictiony declare a Sacred War against Athens.
However, the “tribe” of the lonians had two votes on the Council, and since the Athenians, as Ionians, by custom held one of those two votes, an Athenian delegation was present at the Council when the Locrians made their accusation. The head of the Athenian delegation, Aeschines, parried it by pointing out that citizens of the West Locrian town of Amphissa were plowing the sacred land of Apollo in the valley south of Delphi. He then demanded that the Amphictionic Council take immediate action. Aeschines had caught the Locrians red-handed, and the Council voted in favor of his proposal (Aesch. III 107-124).
Early in 339, the Council declared the Fourth Sacred War against Amphissa, but proved incapable of forcing Amphissa to pay a fine (Aesch. III 128-129; Dem. XVIII 151). Philip meanwhile had decided that any Sacred War was sufficient pretext for bringing an army into central Greece. The Amphictionic Council, no doubt with Philip’s active connivance and against the Athenians’ wishes, voted to appoint Philip commander of the war against Amphissa (Aesch. III 128-129; Dem. XVIII 151). Although the season by now was advanced, Philip, having completed his campaign on the Danube, marched southwards. The Boeotians held Thermopylae (Didymus, trans. Harding, Pp. 83-85), but Philip went around it (presumably following the course of the Asopus River - cf. Hdt. VII 199 and 216) and entered the Doris (Philochorus, BNJ 328, Fr. 56). No one in Greece had expected him to appear so quickly, much less by another route than the pass at Thermopylae.
The next few months saw frantic negotiations between Philip and Boeotia on the one hand and Athens and Boeotia on the other (Dem. XVIII 169-179; Philochorus, l. c.; Didymus, l. c.). Which side would the Boeotians take? Formally, they were allied to Philip, and for a generation the Athenians had been their bitter enemies. But if they aided Philip against Athens, it was plain that Philip would dominate Greece, to their detriment as well as to everyone else’s. The Boeotians cast in their lot with Athens.
Early in 338 the Athenian army joined up with the Boeotian army; together with additional troops from other Greek states they entered Phocis while a mercenary army under the command of Chares and Proxenus took possession of Amphissa (Poly. IV 2,8). In two minor battles the Greeks did prevent Philip from entering Phocis, but they could not drive him from the Doris (Dem. XVIII 216). Finally, Philip exploited the physical division of his opponents’ forces. With his entire army he marched from the Doris into Western Locris, fell upon the mercenary army, and cut it to pieces (Aesch. III 146-147). Amphissa surrendered, and Philip occupied Delphi.
Now Philip marched into Phocis, around the Athenians’ and Boeotians’ army, and forced it to make a tactical retreat to Chaeroneia in western Boeotia. To keep Philip from Boeotia, the Greeks would have to fight him here and they did so. With some 30,000 battle-hardened professional troops Philip faced his opponents’ citizen armies. Commanding on Philip’s left - which led the attack - stood Philip’s eighteen-year-old son Alexander; and this teenager broke through the Boeotian line opposite. The Boeotians’ ensuing flight allowed Alexander to attack the Athenians (on the Greek right) from behind, and when Philip himself advanced, the affair dissolved into a rout (Diod. XVI 85-86).
Philip had achieved what had eluded Xerxes a century and a half earlier. At Chaeroneia he crushed the last Greek army capable of resisting his. For years his agents had been active diplomatically all across Greece, so in every state prominent politicians were ready to make a sensible and realistic settlement with the Macedonians or, depending on one’s point of view, to collaborate with the occupying army. Both the Boeotians and the Athenians accepted Philip’s terms and surrendered. Athens had to give up whatever was left of the second Athenian League (Paus. I 25), though it retained Lemnos, Imbros, Scyros, and Samos ([Arist.] Ath. Pol. 61 and 62; Diod. XVIII 56).
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