Sulla Sacks Athens — Chaeronea and Orchomenus
Sulla's army reached Greece in early 87 BCE. He stripped the sacred precincts of Olympia, Delphi, and Epidaurus of their treasures to pay his troops — an act of sacrilege that horrified Greeks. He cut timber from the groves of the Academy and Lyceum (the very schools of Plato and Aristotle) to build siege works. Athens fell on 1 March 86 BCE when a traitor revealed a weak point in the walls. Sulla's troops poured in at night and killed without restraint. Plutarch says the blood flowed to Ceramicus and beyond. When prominent Athenians begged Sulla to spare the city, he relented, citing the glory of Athens's past. Sulla then crushed the main Pontic field army. At Chaeronea he faced Archelaus with perhaps 110,000 men, including scythed chariots. Sulla deployed his infantry with ditches to prevent envelopment. When the chariots charged, the Romans parted ranks and drove them back; the stampeding horses wrecked the Pontic line. Roman casualties: 14 men. A reinforcing Pontic army at Orchomenus was destroyed in a second engagement. These battles ended Mithridates' control of mainland Greece.
- Year: 86 BCE
- Category: Military
