Lion of Chaeronea, Ancient marble monument in Boeotia, Greece
The Lion of Chaeronea is a marble grave marker set on the Boeotian plain in central Greece, on a rectangular stone base. The statue represents a seated lion with its head raised, assembled from several large blocks placed one on top of another.
The monument was erected after the Battle of Chaeronea in 338 BCE, when Philip II of Macedon defeated an alliance of Greek city-states. The grave it marks held the soldiers buried collectively at the site of the fighting.
The lion stands directly above the burial ground of the soldiers it commemorates, which makes the connection between the statue and the fallen unusually direct. Visitors today can walk right up to the base, with no barrier separating them from the stone.
The monument stands just off a road near the modern village of Chaeronea and can be reached on foot without difficulty. There is very little shade around the site, so visiting in the early morning or late afternoon makes the experience more comfortable.
When the monument was rediscovered in the 19th century, it lay scattered across the ground in hundreds of pieces. The 1902 restoration reassembled those fragments and placed the lion back on its original spot, which is not common for ancient monuments of this size.
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