The skeletons within the enclosure of the lion monument are generally accepted to be the remains of the Sacred Band, as the number given by Plutarch was probably an approximation. However, historians such as Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond, Karl Julius Beloch, and Vincenzo Costanzi do not believe that the lion monument marks the location of the Sacred Band dead. Hammond claims it was the place where Philip turned his army around during the Battle of Chaeronea and believes that it contains the members of the Macedonian right flank who perished. He argues that it is highly improbable that the Thebans would be able to commemorate their dead within Philip's lifetime with such a massive and obviously expensive monument.