Philip always led from the front in battle, and he incurred many injuries, including the loss of his right eye at the siege of Methone in 354 BC. But the Macedonian legend begins in 338 BC, at the battle of Chaeronea. On a plain beneath Mount Parnassus, Philip defeated the venerable city-states of Athens and Thebes, breaking the heart of the Athenian orator Demosthenes, who had spent years warning his compatriots that the Macedonians were coming. Philip’s son Alexander, at the age of only eighteen, displayed courage and skill in combat.
