Between Heathenism and Christianity - College of Stoic Philosophers

Plutarch and the Greece of His Age
man version made by Kaltwasser just one hundred
years ago, is an excellent piece of work. The Lives
have been frequently translated.
About sixty miles northwest of the city of Athens
near the road leading from Delphi to Lebadeia, mid
way between the gulf of Corinth and the northern
end of the Euripus, lies to=day the town of Chaeroneia,
or rather its modern representative. Capraena.
Though never a municipality of much importance, its
inhabitants, before the time of Plutarch, had been the
spectators of many stirring events. Epaminondas
called the plain near it the dancing-plot of Ares, an
epithet that was abundantly justified by preceding
and succeeding occurrences. Lying in a measure
between northern and southern Greece it was rich in
historical reminiscences and in traditions. Already
known to Homer as Arne, it subsequently witnessed
the countless hosts of Dareius and Xerxes pass be
neath its walls. Near it Philip of Macedon com
pletely overthrew the allied Thebans and Athenians,
B. c. 338. In Plutarch s time the mound erected in
honor of the king s soldiers who lost their lives here,
was still in a fair state of preservation, and the oak
under which Alexander had erected his
tent was yet
standing. In 279 the Gauls passed over the plain of
Chaeroneia leaving desolation in their track. Twentyeight
years later the Boeotians were defeated near
the town in a battle with the Aetolians. Still later,
by a century and a half, Sulla inflicted a crushing
blow on his enemies, for the most part Greeks, under
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