Brave to the point of recklessness, especially when it came to excessively exposing his own physical integrity during combat, Chares of Athens was a general who never enjoyed prestige or popular favor. The reason lies in his shady personality: not only did he not hide but boasted of his libertine behavior, he lacked scruples, did not treat his subordinates well, and seized any opportunity to enrich himself, whether it was legal or not. And, despite Plutarch considering him the best general of Athens, he never won a really important battle.

Regarding his dubious curriculum, it must be said that he lived in a difficult era, the 4th century BC, during which he coincided with none other than Philip of Macedonia, the man who laid the foundations of the empire that his son, Alexander the Great, would later inherit and expand. Yes, Chares of Athens faced the Macedonian several times, achieving victories in minor skirmishes but falling spectacularly in more significant clashes, the most notable being the famous Battle of Chaeronea.

The biographical data we have about Chares comes from classical sources, some contemporary and some later: Xenophon’s Hellenica, Diodorus Siculus’s Library of History, Arrian’s Anabasis of Alexander, Plutarch’s Phocion, and some speeches by Demosthenes. None of them specify anything about his personal life, focusing instead on his military career; thus, we do not know the dates and places of his birth and death. In fact, he does not appear in historical records until 367 BC, when he was sent at the head of a force to aid the city of Phlius.

Greece in the second half of the 4th century BC
Greece in the second half of the 4th century BC. Credit: Marsyas / Kordas / Wikimedia Commons

Phlius, sometimes also called Phliasia, was a polis in Argolis. Traditionally allied with Sparta, it was one of those that sent a contingent of warriors to help Leonidas at Thermopylae and also participated in the Battle of Plataea, later joining the Peloponnesian League. In the 4th century, it experienced a sharp sociopolitical polarization between democrats and oligarchs, which neighboring Argives and Arcadians exploited to besiege it. Chares arrived during this siege and forced the attackers to withdraw, in a campaign renowned for the participation of the famous orator Aeschines.

Next, Chares was entrusted with recapturing the port of Oropus, in the region of Attica, which had fallen into the hands of the Sicyonians, from which he again emerged victorious. Then there is a chronological leap to 361 BC: appointed strategos in place of Leosthenes, who had just been defeated by Alexander of Pherae, tyrant of Thessaly, he traveled to the island of Corcyra (modern Corfu), where he helped the oligarchs stage a coup against the democratic faction; a bloody uprising that caused antipathy towards Athens, but the bad thing was that Chares also did not maintain good relations with the oligarchy, and three years later, when the Social War broke out, the Athenians lost control of the island.

The previous year, Chares had received a new mission: appointed plenipotentiary, he had to force General Charidemus of Euboea to ratify a treaty signed with Athenodoros, which entailed the transfer of the Chersonese into Athenian hands. Having fulfilled the task, the aforementioned conflict began, and he was assigned command of the fleet under the orders of the famed strategos Chabrias. When Chabrias died in a punitive expedition to Chios, command fell to Chares, though shared with Iphicrates and Timotheus. This tripartite command was not going to work well.

Members of the Second Athenian League, an alliance led by Athens to defend itself first against Sparta and then against the Persian Empire
Members of the Second Athenian League, an alliance led by Athens to defend itself first against Sparta and then against the Persian Empire. Credit: Costas78 / Wikimedia Commons

Chares insisted on fighting a battle disregarding the threat posed by a severe storm and against the decision of his two colleagues not to fight under such conditions, which led to defeat. Considering that their omission had caused the final disaster, Chares took them to trial in Athens; quite bold, considering that Iphicrates and Timotheus had rendered valuable military services to the city and thus had the Athenians’ sympathy.

Iphicrates, among other innovations, had reformed the army by giving greater importance to the peltasts (light infantry), for which he replaced the heavy aspis shield with a light pelta, which gave them their name (a kind of wicker shield), substituted bronze armor with lighter linen ones, equipped the soldiers with sandals easier to put on, and lengthened the spears and swords. All this allowed him to defeat the feared Spartans more than once, just as Timotheus had repeatedly beaten them at sea with his fleet.

Although Iphicrates and Timotheus had had personal conflicts in the past, by 365 BC they had reconciled and even became related by marriage, as a son of the former, Menestheus, married the daughter of the latter (Menestheus, incidentally, was also part of the command in the battle that now put his father on trial). During the trial, Chares had the help of Aristophon of Azenia, a very popular legislator for having enacted beneficial laws and who had overcome up to seventy-five accusations against him without losing a single one.

A Agrian peltasta in an illustration by Johnny Shumate
A Agrian peltasta in an illustration by Johnny Shumate. Credit: Public domain / Wikimedia Commons

The trial ended with the partial acquittal of the accused, but they were fined one hundred talents each, an enormous amount that Timotheus could not pay, forcing him into exile, as he was also deposed from his position as strategos upon the discovery that he had been bribed by Chios and Rhodes. In the end, in recognition of his service record, the Athenians contributed nine-tenths of the money, and the last part was paid by another of his sons, Conon, who funded repairs to the Athenian wall.

Consequently, Chares remained as the sole strategos in command. Since he needed funds, he decided to work as a mercenary for Artabazus II, satrap of Hellespontine Phrygia, who had rebelled against the authority of Achaemenid King Artaxerxes III when he ordered his dismissal, distrusting the army he had assembled. Chares and Artabazus defeated the Persian forces and ventured into the region of Greater Phrygia, plundering it. With the addition of the Theban general Pammenes and five thousand more men, Artaxerxes found himself in danger and pressured Athens to order the return of its strategos.

The Athenians had viewed Chares’ adventure favorably because it saved them the expense of paying their troops, but now the Persian monarch threatened to support their enemies in other parts of Greece. Through the mediation of two politicians from the democratic party, the treasurer Eubulus and the logographer Isocrates, Chares was ordered to end the campaign and return. The disagreements that arose between Artabazus and Pammenes, which ended with the latter’s detention and the satrap’s flight to Macedonia, where he was sheltered by Philip, also helped.

Achaemenid King Artaxerxes III on a relief from Persepolis
Achaemenid King Artaxerxes III on a relief from Persepolis. Credit: AR VLD / Wikimedia Commons

The Macedonian king was soon to become an ardent antagonist of Chares. After Chares carried out a punitive expedition in 353 B.C. against Sestos and Cardia, two cities of the Thracian Chersonese that were defiant to Athenian authority, massacring the male population and selling women and children as slaves—earning him a reputation for cruelty—he had the opportunity to face Philip for the first time. This was in 348 B.C., during the Olynthian War, so named because it was sparked by the Chalcidian city of Olynthus (hence the title of Demosthenes’ work, the Olynthiacs, three pre-war speeches).

A year earlier, Philip had attacked it as part of his initiative to dismantle the Chalcidian League, and the city sought help from Athens, despite their past enmity and geographical distance. The Athenians realized the danger posed by the Macedonian after he conquered no fewer than thirty-two cities of the League, so they sent an army led by Chares, who was soon replaced by General Charidemus, only to later regain command due to criticisms of the other.

During this second campaign, Chares achieved some victories over Philip’s mercenary troops, something he celebrated in a way that could have cost him dearly: by organizing a feast funded with the treasure from the sanctuary of Delphi. He had unscrupulously plundered it, an act considered sacrilegious, and was accused of it in the euthyna (public examination) that General and orator Cephisodotus, a veteran of the wars against Sparta and the fight against pirates (the leader of whom had been a former friend turned enemy, the aforementioned Charidemus), opened against him in 347 B.C.

The Thracian Chersonese
The Thracian Chersonese. Credit: Rowanwindwhistler / Wikimedia Commons

Chares disappeared from the scene, and the Athenians had to desperately search for him to retake command of their forces in Thrace, as Philip continued his expansion and now threatened Cersobleptes, king of the Odrysian Thracians. It is likely that Chares took advantage of the precarious peace previously signed between Macedonia and Athens to conduct some private raids for personal gain. In any case, Athenians and Macedonians resolved the crisis diplomatically, much to the detriment of Cersobleptes, who in 341 B.C. was defeated and replaced on the throne by a puppet king appointed by Philip, Seuthes III.

During the following years, a veil of silence falls over Chares. The historian Theopompus of Chios asserts that he coincided with him in Sigeum, a Greek city in the northwest of Anatolia, which somewhat contradicts a speech by Demosthenes, titled On the Affairs of the Chersonese, where he testifies that Chares intervened in the councils of Athens and is believed to have successfully defended a strategos named Diopites (the father of the poet Menander) when he had to appear before the Athenian assembly accused by Philip of breaking the peace.

Perhaps Chares’ residence was back and forth, as a year later he was tasked with aiding Byzantium against the threat of the Macedonian monarch. However, the Byzantines distrusted his bad reputation and did not want to receive him; rightly so, because during the campaign he devoted himself to looting his own allies and ended up being replaced by Phocion, who enjoyed great prestige and had been militarily trained alongside Chabrias, holding the record for appointments as strategos (forty-five times). An austere man, he was often mocked by someone as frivolous as Chares.

Diagram of the Battle of Chaeronea
Diagram of the Battle of Chaeronea. Credit: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

Phocion did a good job against the enemy, but Philip was already on the verge of opening a new era and in 338 BC defeated Chares at Amphissa (a polis in Phocis) and Chaeronea (in Boeotia), the latter well-known because it was where Alexander the Great made his debut as a commander alongside his father. Although the Battle of Chaeronea was a disaster for Athens and Thebes, he was not put on trial; his colleague Lysicles was not so lucky, ending up condemned to death (the Theban strategos, Theagenes, either died fighting according to Plutarch or defected to the enemy according to Dinarchus).

As we can see, Alexander was already beginning to emerge and soon occupied his father’s throne when the latter was assassinated in 336 BC. The following year, the young Macedonian monarch settled scores with all those who had tried to take advantage of the usual succession confusion and began an unstoppable campaign in which he seized the regions of Illyria and Thrace, reinforced dominance over Thessaly, and marched against Attica; along the way, he razed Thebes, leaving only the house of the poet Pindar – his favorite – standing and massacring its defenders with the sole exception of Timoclea, the sister of the aforementioned Theagenes.

Athens, seeing the fate of Thebes, refused to let him in. He proposed to enter alone, without the army, accompanied only by his escort of hetairoi. He left the decision in the hands of a group of generals he himself proposed, one of whom was Chares if we follow the account of Arrian, although Plutarch does not mention him. Finally, the orator Demades managed to convince the Macedonian that only one person should decide, and the chosen one was Charidemus, who agreed to his entry on behalf of the Athenians. Alexander, recognized as hegemon (ruler of all Greece), just as Philip had been, then had his famous encounter with Diogenes.

“Step aside; you’re blocking my sun.” The meeting between Alexander and Diogenes as seen by the painter Paride Pascucci. Credit: Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

With the Hellenic territory pacified, the ambitious Macedonian sovereign had his hands free to tackle the great dream of conquering Persia. His idea was to involve all the Greeks, and although he had no shortage of detractors (with the recalcitrant Demosthenes being the spearhead, metaphorically speaking), he also had enthusiasts willing to follow him. Chares’ stance was ambivalent. He had returned to his residence in Sigeum when, in 334 BC, he received news that Alexander had just crossed the Hellespont and was heading to Troy to honor Achilles’ tomb.

Chares, like other notable figures from the Ionian cities, went to meet him to show respect. However, he did not join his ranks and remained in Sigeum. In fact, a year later, Achaemenid king Darius III hired him to defend the city of Mytilene; it had been besieged by another mercenary, Memnon of Rhodes (defeated at the Granicus by Alexander) and finally conquered by admirals Pharnabazus III and Autophradates (Memnon died during the siege). But the fleet had to weigh anchor to operate in the Aegean islands and could not do so leaving the city defenseless.

Unfortunately for Chares, the monarch was disastrously defeated by the Macedonians at Issus and Gaugamela, losing his authority and empire to Alexander. Chares had to surrender Mytilene and probably returned to his beloved Sigeum, disappearing from history for good.

This article was first published on our Spanish Edition on June 24, 2024: Cares, el general ateniense que mantuvo el poder para enriquecerse a sí mismo y a sus partidarios sin ganar nunca una batalla importante

SOURCES

Jenofonte, Helénicas

Diodoro de Sicilia, Biblioteca histórica

Plutarco, Vidas paralelas

Lucio Flavio Arriano, Anábasis de Alejandro Magno

Demóstenes, Discursos ante la Asamblea

Wikipedia, Cares de Atenas

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