wrath not only of Olympias but of her son who with her took refuge in Epeiros. Kleopatra became the mother of a son. Her father Attalos rose high in the king's favour, and not a few of Alexander's friends were banished.

The feuds in his family formed no subject of pleasant thought to Philip himself, who sought to counteract their ill effects by arranging a marriage between his daughter Kleopatra and her uncle the Epeirot king Alexander, the brother of Olympias. The marriage feast was celebrated at Aigai. Clothed in a white robe, Philip was approaching the theatre when he was struck dead by the dagger of Pausanias, a man who, having been horribly wronged by Attalos, had in vain sought redress from the king. (336 B.C.)

It is certain that Alexander, if he mourned his father's death at all, can have deplored it only as involving himself in political difficulties; but he took care to act as if he were grieved by it and he avenged it, we are told, by putting out of the way all whose claims or designs might clash with his own. Among these was his cousin Amyntas, the son of Perdikkas, elder brother of Philip, together with the infant son of Kleopatra, who fell a victim herself to the unforgiving Olympias.

The Greeks of Thebes and Athens knew that they had now to reckon with one who could swoop on his prey with the swiftness of the eagle. Barely two months had passed from the death of his father, before the youth of twenty years stood with his army on the plains of Thessaly. The argument of the Makedonian phalanx was not to be resisted. The Thessalians recognised him as the Hegemon or leader of the Greeks; and the youthful king passed on to Thebes, and thence betook himself across the isthmus to Corinth, where Athenian envoys conferred on him honours more extravagant than any which had been paid to his father.

When a little while after his glorification at Corinth Alexander set out on an expedition across the mighty barrier of the Balkan range, he disappeared from the world of the Greeks. Silence led to rumours of his defeat, and the rumours of defeat were followed by more confident assertions of his death. The tidings were received by some with eager belief. The Theban exiles entered Thebes, obtained from the assembly a declaration of its autonomy, and summoned the garrison in the citadel to surrender. The answer was a blank refusal; and a

double line of circumvallation was drawn around the Kadmeia, while envoys were sent to call forth aid from every quarter. The belief in Alexander's death was dispelled not by any gradual reports of his escape from the barbarians, but suddenly by his own appearance at the Boiotian Onchestos. He had just defeated his enemies when he heard of the revolt of Thebes, and he determined to smite the rebels without turning aside to take even a day's rest at Pella. Within a fortnight he had occupied the pass of Thermopylai, and two days later his army was encamped on the southern side of Thebes. The defenders, who had refused to comply with his summons to surrender, were driven back into the city: the invaders burst in .with them, and the slaughter which followed was by no means inflicted by the Makedonians alone. The Plataians, Thespians, and Orchomenians felt that they had old scores to settle. To their decision and to that of the rest of his Greek allies Alexander submitted the treatment of the city. The sentence was promptly pronounced. The walls and every building within them were to be rased to the ground; its territory was to be shared by the allies; the people were to be sold as slaves, and such as had escaped were to be pronounced outlaws whom no Greek city should dare to harbour. As they had said, so was it done, the house of the poet Pindar alone being spared from demolition and his descendants alone being allowed to retain their freedom. Alexander's end was gained. The spirit of the Greeks was crushed. A great city was blotted out, and the worship of its gods was ended with its ruin. These gods were in due time, it was believed, to take vengeance on the conqueror. Dionysos, the lord of the wine-cup and the revel, the special guardian and patron of the Theban land, was not to be defied and insulted with impunity; and his hand was seen in the awful crimes committed in the far East by the drunken madman whose victories had led him to think himself a god.

But for the present the only hindrance to his eastern enterprise was removed from the path of Alexander. Six months later he set off from Pella, and crossing the Hellespont at Sestos, marched on, with not more perhaps than 30,000 infantry and 4,000 cavalry and with a treasure chest almost empty, to destroy the monarchy of Cyrus. (334 B.C.) With him went men who were to be linked with the memory of his worst crimes and of his most astonishing triumphs,-Hephaistion, Kleitos,

Eumenes, Seleukos, Ptolemy the son of Lagos, Parmenion with his sons Philotas and Nikanor.

The effects of Makedonian discipline on the ill-trained and ill-officered forces of the Persians were to be seen at once on the banks of the Granikos, a little stream flowing to the Propontis from the slopes of Ida. Losing, it is said, only 60 of his cavalry and 30 of his infantry, he annihilated the Persian force. The terror of his name did his work, as he marched southwards. The citadel of Sardeis was surrendered before he came in sight of the city; Ephesos was abandoned by its garrison; Miletos he carried by storm. The winter he spent in the conquest of Lykia, Pamphylia, and Pisidia, ending his campaign at Gordion. Here was preserved the ancient waggon of Gordios, the mythical Phrygian king. Whoever could untie the knot which fastened its pole to the yoke was, so the story ran, to be lord of Asia. Alexander, as much at a loss as others to unloose it, cut it with his sword: but the prophecy was none the less held to be fulfilled. If he was thus favoured by sentiment, he was favoured still more by the death of the Rhodian Memnon without whom the Persian fleet became practically useless, and by the infatuation which led Dareios to abandon the policy of defence by sea for offensive warfare by land. From all parts

of his vast empire was gathered a host which numbered, as some said, 600,000 men; and the despot was as much elated at the sight as Xerxes when he looked down on his motley multitudes at Doriskos. Between himself and the invader lay the huge range of Tauros and the passes of the Armenian, Kilikian, and Assyrian gates, all of them practically impregnable; but the warning of Memnon to confine himself to these defences was cast to the winds. Nay, so great was the contempt of Dareios for the few thousands of the enemy that he wished to give them a free path until they reached the plain from which, as he thought, he would sweep them away. When at length the invader set out on his march towards the southern Amanian pass, Dareios crossed the northern pass and took possession of Issos two days after Alexander had left it. (333 B.C.) He had placed himself in a trap. Alexander hurried back to the Kilikian gates and thence advanced to the slaughter, for battle it cannot be called. In a space barely more than a mile and a half in width, hemmed in by the mountains on the one side and the sea on the other, Dareios on his royal chariot, in the midst of multitudes

who had scarcely room to move, awaited the attack. Alexander fell suddenly on his right wing. The first onset was enough. The Persians broke and fled. Dareios, thinking himself in danger, turned his chariot and fled amongst the foremost. The Persian centre behaved well; but it mattered little now what they might do. Even the Greek mercenaries, the best troops in the Persian service, were pushed back and scattered. Four thousand talents filled the treasure-chests of the conqueror: and the wife, mother, and son of Dareios appearing before him as prisoners were told that they should retain their royal titles, his enterprise being directed not against Dareios personally but to decide fairly and openly who should be lord of Asia.

Marching southwards to Phenicia, Alexander replied to a letter in which Dareios demanded the restoration of his family and reproached him for his wanton aggression. His answer repeated what he had already said to his wife, adding that if he wrote again, Dareios must address him not as his equal but as his lord. 'I am now master of Asia,' he wrote, and if you will not own me as such, I shall treat you as an evildoer. If yo wish to debate the point, do so like a man on the field of battle I shall take care to find you wherever you may be.' island city of Arados was surrendered on his approach. opened her gates. Tyre underwent a siege of seven months. but the issue was certain, and Alexander on getting possession of the city hanged 2,000, it is said, on the sea shore. The survivors with the women and children were sold as slaves. (332 B.C.)

The

Sidor

Before the catastrophe of the great Phenician city Alexander had received a second letter in which Dareios offered him his daughter in marriage together with the cession of all lands to the west of the Euphrates. Were I Alexander,' said Parmenion (if we may believe the story), 'I should take these terms and run no further risk.' 'So should I,' answered Alexander, ‘if I were Parmenion: but as I am Alexander, I cannot.' So he wrote to Dareios after this fashion. You offer me part of possessions, when I am lord of all. I will not take it. If I choose to marry your daughter, I will do so, whether you like it or not. Come to me yourself, if you wish for gentle treatment.' Dareios sent no more letters. The issue, he saw, must be determined by the sword. For the present he was left to himself. Alexander's face was turned towards Egypt. The

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