The Third Holy War began in 356 BC and lasted until 346 BC. C, between the armies of Fócida and Tebas by the control of Delphi. This war was longer and more violent than the Second Holy War.
Fócida was fined by the Amphictyons (religious league that grouped twelve towns of Greece) which angered the leader of Fócida called Philomelo, who occupied the power of Delphi. The military power of Fócida was weak, for that reason Filomelo used the treasure of the sanctuary of Delphi to recruit an army of other Greek states. This army was defeated by the Boeotians and the Thessalians in 354 BC. After this defeat Philomelo committed suicide, leaving Onomarco as leader, who was defeated and hanged by Philip II at the Battle of the Saffron field.
Failo, brother of Onomarco, took the leadership of the army and stood at Thermopylae to begin the defense, but could not continue to maintain his army, which is why the Peace of Philocrates was signed between Philip II and Athens.
Causes of the Third Sacred War
The Phocidians, led by Philomelo, in whose territory the sanctuary of Delphi was located, were fined by the Amphictyons of the Amphictynia of Delphi in the year 357, without knowing for sure if they had committed any fault or if they had been the Thessalians, or their old hatred, the ones who had caused the punishment to be meted out.
The fault, rather the excuse, was the sacrilegious use they made of the land belonging to the sanctuary of Delphi. The punishment was that, if they did not pay the imposed fine, their lands would be confiscated, the same thing happened with the Spartans, condemned for taking the Cadmea, the acropolis of Thebes.
Philip II conquered Potidaea in 355, and Methone in 354. He also conquered Stagira, Aristotle's homeland, with the help of Olinthus, a city formerly an ally of Athens, despite Demosthenes' exhortations for Athens to help her allies.
In the year 353, Larissa's proposal reached him, which gave Philip II the excuse to start his way south and impose himself on the Greeks. At this time Filipo II defeated Filomeno, who did not bear the defeat by committing suicide, after this Onomarco took power. And it was precisely fighting against Onomarco, to whom the tyrants of feras asked for help, when the first and only defeat of Philip II of Macedonia in Greece took place. .
Philip II, Tagós de Tesalia
Philip II was appointed Tagos of Thessaly in 352, by the Thessalians who opposed the Phocid Pheras coalition, defeating Onomarchus and his troops at the Battle of the Saffron Field . With this, Philip II suppressed the Tyranny of Feras, took the port of Págasas, achieved definitive control of a large part of Thessaly (and with it its economic resources, cavalry, ports and tributes especially) and its strategic control of the road to the North and Pontus. In 349, he took and razed Olynthus and in 348, perhaps at the instigation of Philip II, Euboea seceded from Athens. Once Olinto was lost, and with it the possibilities of taking Amphipolis, which, as we have said, was almost the key to the north and to Pontus, he sought peace.
The Peace of Philocrates (346 BC)
After the death of Onomarco, Failo, his brother, took the leadership of the army of Fócida, but he could not continue to maintain his army that was very weak after new years of war, signing peace.
The peace of the year 346, called Philocrates, signed between Philip II and Athens, was made on the basis of recognition of the definitive loss by Athens of Amphipolis and Potidaea (whose conquest by Macedonia meant the opening of great possibilities for the development of this country's fleet) and determined the defensive alliance between Athens and Macedonia, perhaps, in Diodorus's opinion, because Philip was already planning a campaign against the Persians, although at this time there is still no concrete evidence. This alliance continued even after the death of Philip II, meaning the recognition by Athens of all the conquests of Philip II in Chalcidica and the Thracian littoral, leaving only the Thracian Chersonese in Athenian hands.
ConsequencesoftheThirdHolyWar
The historical importance of this Third Sacred War lies in the fact that it gave Philip II of Macedon the possibility of intervening in the affairs of Greece , named by the Thessalians first and then by the Boeotians. At the end of the war, the Phocidians, defeated, were removed from the Amphictyony of Delphi and the amphictyonics gave their votes to the Macedonians. As Philip II was the victor in 346, instead of the Thebans, who were exhausted, it was he who took the prize for which the Thebans had provoked the war:First place among the Greek States. He not only had military supremacy in central Greece, but also now belonged to the Council of the Amphictyony of Delphi:In addition to imposing himself on the Greeks, he had ceased to be a barbarian. Over time, the cities of Phocis were rebuilt with the help of the Athenians and Thebans, before the Chaeronea disaster in 338, when Philip II defeated the Greeks.