Bagoas has risen to such power in Persia that he has become the real master of the Achaemenid Empire, Artaxerxes doing nothing without his advice.

In 338, Bagoas murders Artaxerxes—poisoned by his physician at the order of the eunuch—and all the king's sons except the youngest, Arses, whom he places on the throne.

Persia begins to lapse into anarchy.

Chares had accomplished little as commander of Athenian forces against Macedon in 349 BCE, 348 BCE, and 340 BCE, and Philip again defeats him at Amphissa in 338 BCE.

The Amphisseans push back the Delphians, and …

…Philip, missing no opportunity for expansion, “aids” the league by seizing Elatea in northern Boettia.

Philip's latest action prompts Demosthenes' famous rallying call to Athens (reported by its author nearly a decade later in the speech On the Crown).

He urges sending an embassy to Thebes at this moment of danger for Greece as well as for Athens.

Phocion, a political opponent of Demosthenes, has urged a rattled Athens to seek accommodation with Philip, but Demosthenes succeeds in rallying the wavering Athenians to the anti-Macedonian cause in 338, when Athens and its longtime enemies, …

…the Thebans, responding magnificently (and heeding their own instinct of self-preservation), unite against Macedon.

Philip's destruction of a combined army of Athenians and Thebans on the field of Chaeronea in Boeotia, a victory gained by decisive blows of Philip's cavalry, decisively ends Greek liberty in August 338 BCE by destroying.

His real skill as a general can be seen in a maneuver of controlled retreat aimed at dislocating the advancing Greeks and creating gaps for the cavalry to strike.

Chares participates in the battle on the Athenian side, as does Demosthenes, who, according to Plutarch, flees after dropping his arms.

Whether or not Demosthenes has disgraced himself in this way, the people choose him to deliver the funeral oration over the bodies of those slain in the battle.

No accurate account survives of the course of the battle, but it ends in a total victory for Philip.

Tradition insists (probably rightly) on the valuable contribution of Alexander on the Macedonian left and suggests (perhaps wrongly) that Philip executed a feigned retreat.

The Theban Sacred Band, broken by a cavalry charge led by Alexander, simply ceases to exist.

Athens is treated mildly, its prisoners being allowed to return home without ransom.

Demades, an Athenian orator who has risen from humble origins to a leading place in politics through his vigorous speeches and shrewd ability to fathom popular opinion, had opposed Demosthenes' attempt to arouse the Athenians against Philip, but fought against the Macedonians at Chaeronea and is taken prisoner.

On his release, he helps negotiate peace between Macedonia and Athens.

Archidamus III, the Eurypontid Spartan king leading a mercenary army to help Tarentum against the Lucanians in 338, falls with most of his troops at the nearby Apulian town of Manduria.

Manlius leads the Roman forces in decisively defeating the Latin rebels at the Battle of Trifanum in 338.

Taras (modern Taranto, Italy), one of the leading cities of Magna Graecia (Greek colonies in southern Italy), had reached its zenith of military power and prosperity in the first half of the fourth century BCE under the great philosopher, scientist and major Pythagorean mathematician Archytas, who served for seven years as commander in chief of his city.

After his death, however, the city has suffered in a series of wars.

The Messapian-Lucanian alliance had led to the conquest of Eraclea and Metaponto in 356 BCE and the subsequent intervention in support of Taras by the Spartan king Archidamus III, who ultimately finds his death in battle just below the walls of the Messapian city of Manduria in 338 BCE.