About sixty miles northwest of the city of Athens near the road leading from Delphi to Lebadeia, midway 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 beneath its walls. Near it Philip of Macedon completely 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. Twenty-eight 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 the command of Archelaus, the lieutenant of Mithridates. It was two citizens of Chaeroneia who performed for the Roman general a service similar to that rendered to Xerxes by Ephialtes. In order to leave a memorial of his success he erected a trophy on the summit of an adjacent hill. Another trophy, dating from this time and of special significance to the Chaeroneans, was the statue of Lucius Lucullus, a Roman commander, that stood in their marketplace. They had become involved in a quarrel with their old enemies, the Orchomenians, on the charge of having caused the death of a Roman officer and several of his attendants; but through the interposition of Lucullus had obtained a verdict from the home government in their favor.