arraigned the Athenians on the ground of impiety for setting up these offerings without going through the usual ceremonies of re-consecration; and Eschines, as he tells us, felt instinctively that this charge could be effectually met only by prompt retort. From the lofty platform of the temple he could look down on the haven of Kirrha enlivened with the ships which brought crowds of pilgrims to the Delphian shrine, and surrounded by the olive groves and corn fields which interposed a girdle of verdure between the city and the dreary desert beyond them. From this pleasant and busy scene he could draw the eyes of his hearers to the brazen plate on the wall hard by, which recorded the sentence of the Amphiktyonic judges in the days of Solon. If he wished to rekindle the slumbering fires of religious fanaticism, he had but to point the contrast between the prosperity of the pilgrims' haven and the desolation to which the whole plain had been doomed for ever. Seeing that he could thus turn the tables on the accusers of Athens, Æschines hesitated not for an instant. There, on the wall before them, was the fatal record; and there, on the plain below, they might see the groves which bore witness to the impiety of generations, and the haven where the dock-owners enriched themselves by tolls the gathering of which was a profanation. It is for you,' he said, addressing the Council, 'to take vengeance for the sacrilege; and if you fail to do so, you can no longer with a clear conscience take part in the worship of the god.' His words roused in his hearers an ungovernable wrath; but the day was wearing on, and time was lacking to finish the work before the sun went down. With the dawn, however, the whole Delphian people must be ready with their pickaxes and their spades, to thrown down the accursed walls and uproot the hateful vineyards. Such was the bidding of the herald; and on this errand of destruction in the tranquil light of a spring morning the Delphians streamed forth from their gates, burning with rage against a people for whom but a few hours ago they would have expressed no feelings but those of kindly friendship. In amazement the Lokrians of Amphissa beheld the distant flames as they rose from the harbour and the houses of Kirrha. Hurrying down with all speed, they caught the plunderers red-handed and drove them back to Delphoi.

The wrath of the crusaders was now turned against the Amphissians. These were godless rebels who must be forcibly

put down the Athenians were champions of the god, deserving all honour. The Demos on the return of Eschines were naturally tempted to lay this flattering unction to their souls, and to resent the freedom with which Demosthenes warned them that Eschines was bringing an Amphiktyonic war within the borders of Attica itself. But it was no hard task to convince them that the building of the city of Kirrha and the cultivation of the land around it were offences only against the sentence of men who had been dead well-nigh two hundred years, while they vastly promoted the comfort and security of the pilgrims who crowded to the Delphian festivals; and thus schines found himself foiled by the resolution of the people to have nothing to do with the special Amphiktyonic meeting to which he had invited them.

At the regular meeting held in the autumn the Athenian envoys were, it seems, present. As a member of the brotherhood, Philip had a right to interfere in person; but instead of hastening through the desolate Phokis to Delphoi, he paused by the way to re-fortify the dismantled town of Elateia. Any further attempt to keep up the pretence of Amphiktyonic execution against the Lokrians would now have been absurd. The mask was therefore flung aside, and his envoys appeared at Thebes to say that he was going to punish the Athenians, and to demand their aid in the enterprise. Of their compliance he entertained no doubt, and assuredly he would not have been disappointed, if at this moment Æschines could have carried the Athenians with him.

The Prytaneis were seated at their evening meal when the messenger reached Athens with the tidings that Philip had established himself at Elateia. At once they cleared the market-place, and sent the herald to summon the people to the assembly at break of day. When however the senate had explained the reason for the summons and the citizens were invited to speak, there was for a while a dead silence. All felt, says Demosthenes, that neither patriotism nor wealth could supply the lack of the one thing needful in a counsellor at this crisis, the knowledge, namely, of the real motives by which Philip was guided. Conscious that he had divined these motives but too well, Demosthenes at length came forward to cheer them with the assurance that they might yet, if they bestirred themselves, check him in his triumphant career. They

might suppose or they might have been told that the Thebans were to a man on Philip's side. The very fact that he was fortifying Elateia conclusively refuted such a notion. The hearty support of the Thebans would have rendered that task superfluous. But Philip had not this support; and it remained for the Athenians to determine whether they would avail themselves of the friendly feeling which many Thebans assuredly entertained for them. If they chose to harp upon the miserable quarrels of their past history, the golden opportunity would soon be lost if on the other hand they would offer to help them at once and with all their forces and unconditionally, he felt assured that their offer would be joyfully welcomed, and a foundation laid for harmonious action which might lead to true and permanent union.

The proposal was carried without a dissentient voice. Even Æschines felt that in the supreme exaltation of the moment he dared not put before them his poisoned cup of flattery and treason. He saw that for once the people were in earnest, and to his dismay he learnt that the same spirit had been kindled in the Thebans. Nor was the disappointment of Philip less keen than that of his worshipper. At Athens Demosthenes had at length acquired an influence scarcely less than that which had been exercised by Perikles, and by his advice everything was made to give way to the indispensable needs of the hour.

During the ten months which passed between the fortification of Elateia and the catastrophe which closed the struggle, the allies were not idle. On the other hand Philip fulfilled the mission which the Amphiktyons had laid upon him; and the Amphissians were driven into exile. Of the incidents immediately preceding the fatal fight of Chaironeia we know nothing, of the battle itself little more than the result. (338 B.C.) It is enough to say that on the one side was the most consummate general of the age, on the other no one commander of more than average military talent, and that among the allies citizens who had to overcome a strong repugnance to personal service were pitted against veteran mountaineers such as those which won for the elder Cyrus a hundred victories. The struggle was fierce and obstinate; but at length the youthful Alexander saw the Sacred Band borne down beneath his father's hosts, and

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the iron discipline of his northern warriors shatter the hopes of Thebes and Athens.

The loss on the side of the allies, both of the slain and of prisoners, was terrible. The two Athenian leaders escaped from the field; but by a practice which had now become a habit the people summoned Lysikles before their bar and condemned him to death. The Theban general Theagenes was among the dead: but his countrymen stigmatized him as a traitor. If some in like manner taunted Demosthenes with cowardice, the fact that his influence was increased rather than abated proves conclusively that the charge was not credited by the Athenians generally. Either by his advice or by that of Hypereides decrees were passed ordering the country population to take refuge in the outlying forts or within the walls of Athens; and all that was needed for the repair of the walls or fortifications was done with the rapidity which had always characterised Athenian workmen.

For the present, however, they had nothing to fear. Philip's wrath burst not on the Athenians but on the people who had changed sides when it was too late and had appeared with his enemies on the field of Chaironeia. His Theban prisoners were sold into slavery: and when Thebes itself fell into his hands, many of the citizens were slain, many banished, and the old despotism of the days of Phoibidas was restored, with only the difference that the Kadmeia was held by a Makedonian instead of by a Spartan garrison. The Athenians, he saw, might be made more useful by taking another course. It was his purpose to combine the forces of the chief Hellenic cities under his own command; and to men like Æschines, who could share the drunken revels which celebrated his victory, he must look for the success of his scheme.

From the mission which he had offered to undertake, Æschines came back with loud praises of the generosity which consented to release without ransom all the Athenian prisoners and to restore their frontier fortress of Oropos, on the one condition that they should acknowledge Philip as supreme chief of all the Hellenes in peace and in war. The terms were accepted; and probably even Demosthenes felt that further resistance was for the present at least impossible.

There was, in fact, not much more work to be done. Philip passed on into Peloponnesos, and treating with contempt the refusal of the Spartans to acknowledge his supremacy, sum

moned a congress of his dependent allies to meet him at Corinth and discuss a plan for the conquest of Persia. Among these subjects appeared the Athenians, to sanction his scheme of overthrowing the power of the Persian king,—an enterprise which the achievements of the Ten Thousand had shown to be practicable, if not easy.

CHAPTER III.

ALEXANDER THE GREAT.

THE young Alexander, commonly called the Great, was born when his father had just entered on his career of successful war and still more successful diplomacy. (356 B.C.) He inherited the qualities of both his parents, and the result was the combination of a boundless ambition with sober and practical wisdom in dealing with the exigencies of the moment. His genius was moulded in a far greater degree by that of Aristotle. At the age of thirteen he became for three years the pupil of a man who had examined with keen scrutiny the political growth and the constitutions of a crowd of states, and who had brought together a vast amount of facts and observations for the systematic cultivation of physical science. During these three years the boy awoke to the knowledge that a wonderful world lay before him of which he had seen little, and threw himself with eagerness into the task of gathering a collection for the study of natural history. While his mind was thus urged in one direction, he listened to stories which told him of the great quarrel still to be fought out between the East and the West, and learnt to look upon himself as the champion of Hellas against the barbarian despot of Sousa.

The future conqueror was sixteen years of age when he was left at home as regent while his father besieged Byzantion and Perinthos. (340 B.C.) Two years later the alliance of Thebes and Athens was wrecked on the fatal field of Chaironeia. But the prospects of Alexander himself became now for a time dark and uncertain. The admiration which Philip had once felt for Olympias, Alexander's mother, had long given way to dislike. The Molossian princess was divorced, and Kleopatra the daughter of the Makedonian Attalos took her place. This act roused the