CHAMBERS'S INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE. 



Philip of Macedon. 



Greece was ill prepared for the storm of danger 

 to her liberties that was gathering in the north. 

 1'hilip, who became king of Macedon about 360, 

 having established his power at home, next ex- 

 tended his influence over Thessaly. Greece was at 

 this time distracted by the Sacred War, occasioned 

 by the Phocians having seized on the temple of 

 Delphi, and then laid hands on its sacred treas- 

 ures. The miserable rivalries of the other Greek 

 states prevented united action, and Philip inter- 

 fered as the vindicator of the Delphian god. It 

 was in vain that Demosthenes sought to arouse 

 the Athenians to the necessity of vigorous meas- 

 ures : by means of their still powerful fleet they 

 might have barred the Pass of Thermopylae to 

 ionians ; but the cunning diplomacy of 

 Philip, and the bribes by which he corrupted 

 their envoys, paralysed all action, and the way 

 left open (346 B.C.). From that moment, 

 Philip was master of the situation. Some years 

 later (338 B.C.), Demosthenes roused the Athe- 

 nians, in conjunction with the Thebans, to make 

 one more struggle for liberty ; but Philip had 

 rendered the Macedonian phalanx stronger than 

 even the Theban, and on the fatal field of Chae- 

 ronea, the freedom of Hellas was lost for ever. 



SIXTH PERIOD: 338-300 B.C. 



Alexander the Great. 



Philip now announced his intention of leading 

 the united Greeks against Persia, avenging the 

 invasion of Xerxes, and liberating the Greeks of 

 Asia. But in the midst of his preparations, he 

 fell by the hand of an assassin (336 B.C.), and was 

 succeeded by his son Alexander, now twenty years 

 of age, and who had already held a Jiigh com- 

 mand in the battle of Chaeronea. After suppress- 

 ing with terrible severity some attempts at insur- 

 rection in Macedonia and Greece, Alexander 

 began the long-meditated invasion of Asia by 

 leading (334 B.C.) an army of 30,000 foot and 5000 

 horse across the Hellespont. Having overthrown 

 the Persian satraps of Asia Minor in the battle of 

 the Granicus, and liberated the Greek cities on 

 the coast, he marched eastward, and encountering 

 Darius at Issus, at the head of an army of 600,000, 

 gained a complete victory (333 B.C.). Proceeding 

 along the coast of Syria, he was received as a 

 deliverer, except by the cities of Tyre and Gaza, 

 the former of which resisted him for seven months, 

 and was terribly punished. He was next wel- 

 comed as a liberator by Egypt, which he visited 

 (331 B.C),"and where he laid the foundation of the 

 city of Alexandria. 



Darius had now collected a still more numerous 

 army, and Alexander, marching across Syria and 

 Mesopotamia, again defeated him near Arbela, a 

 little east from the Tigris, and southward from 

 the site of Nineveh (331 B.C.). Taking first pos- 

 session of Babylon, he proceeded to Susa and Per- 

 sepolis in Persia Proper, enriching his army with 

 the enormous treasures accumulated in those 

 cities. Continuing his progress eastward in pur- 

 suit of Darius, he overtook him, deserted and 

 expiring, his attendants having stabbed him (330 

 B.C.). Three years were next spent in subduing 

 the province's of Ariana, Bactria, and Sogdiana 

 (lying north-west from the Indus). Constant 



96 



success had by this time deteriorated the character 

 of Alexander ; he had come to relish the most 

 fulsome eastern adulation, and, like an eastern 

 despot, he transfixed, in a moment of passion, the 

 friend that had saved his life. He had not yet 

 reached the bounds of his ambition ; with an 

 army raised to 120,000 foot and 1 5,000 horse, he now 

 advanced to the conquest of India (327 B.C.). In 

 the Punjab, he was met by a powerful Indian prince, 

 Porus, whom he defeated and took prisoner ; but 

 his army refusing to cross the Hyphasis (Sutlej), 

 he proceeded down the Indus, and then returned 

 across the desert to Persepolis and Susa (325 B.C.). 



Revolving vast schemes, not only of conquest in 

 Italy, Carthage, and the west, but of improvements 

 commercial and agricultural, he entered Babylon, 

 intending to make it the centre of his empire ; 

 but in a short time he was seized with fever, and 

 died at the age of thirty-two, after a reign of less 

 than thirteen years. 



On the death of Alexander, his vast empire fell 

 asunder ; the generals, assuming the different 

 provinces as governments, carried on a bloody 

 struggle for ascendency and independent power. 

 This uninteresting and confusing contest ended in 

 confirming Ptolemy in the possession of Egypt ; 

 Seleucus in Syria, and eastward to the Indus ; 

 Lysimachus in Asia Minor ; and Cassander in 

 Macedon and Greece ; who then assumed the title 

 of kings (301 B.C.). 



Several attempts were made in Greece, before 

 and after the death of Alexander, to shake off the 

 Macedonian yoke, which ended in only riveting 

 it more closely. The last ray of lustre was shed 

 by the confederation known as the Achaean 

 League, which, under the guidance of Aratus 

 (245-213 B.C.), rose to considerable strength ; but 

 the jealous selfishness of Sparta once more led to 

 discord and strife, and the Macedonian king, 

 being called in as umpire, was once more master. 



But the Macedonian power was itself about to 

 be swallowed up by a yet greater power. The 

 Romans, having broken the strength of Carthage, 

 now turned their ambition eastward, and after a 

 protracted war (200-168 B.C.), Perseus, the last 

 king of Macedonia, adorned as a captive the 

 triumph of a Roman general. After this event, 

 the Greek republics were for a short time left 

 independent ; but quarrelling once more among, 

 themselves, they were finally reduced to a Roman 

 province, under the name of Achaia (146 B.C.). 

 The outlying cities of Hellas, in Sicily and else- 

 where, whose separate career our space forbids us- 

 to trace, sooner or later all shared the same fate. 



Though from this time politically one of the 

 least important of all the provinces of the Roman 

 Empire, Greece retained its pre-eminence in 

 learning and literature. No Roman youth of 

 rank and wealth was held to have perfected his 

 education without a visit to Athens, and a course 

 of study under its professors. The language of 

 Greece served, in later ages and other climes, to 

 communicate to mankind the civilising influences 

 of poetry, philosophy, and the Christian religion. 



Among the writers, thinkers, and artists pro- 

 duced by Greece during the later periods now 

 sketched, may be mentioned the historians, Thu- 

 cydides and Xenophon ; the philosophers, Plato, 

 Aristotle, Zeno, and Epicurus ; the orators, Demos- 

 thenes and yEschines ; the painters, Zeuxis and 

 Apelles ; and the sculptors, Praxiteles andLysippus. 



