GREAT MEN OF ANCIENT TIMES. 127 



born in 356 B. C, and was the son of Philip II of Macedon, who 

 was born 382 B. C. He therefore comes in class b. When con- 

 trasted with his father there can be no doubt but that Philip 

 was the greater man mentally. It was Philip who taught x\lexan- 

 der the art of war. who invented the celebrated Macedonian pha- 

 lanx, who by skill, ability and diplomacy raised Macedonia to 

 supremacy in Grecian affairs, and who furnished all of the material 

 which Alexander afterwards used in his conquests. Philip had 

 already planned, and partly organized, the Persian invasion that 

 his son subsequently carried out, and if he had not been assassi- 

 nated at his daughter's wedding it might have been Philip the Great 

 instead of Alexander the Great. 



PHILIP OF MACEDON. 



Philip was the son of Amyntas II, who was the son of 

 Alexander I, son of Amyntas I. We are not informed when 

 Amyntas II was born, but we learn that he contested the right 

 to the throne forty-seven years before his son was born. Whether 

 Philip be placed in class A or one of the sub-classes A 2 or A 3 will 

 depend upon how young Amyntas II was when he made this con- 

 test. It will no-t do to make him very young, as that would remove 

 him an unreasonable distance from his grandfather, because, when 

 he did subsequently become king, it was 106 years after his grand- 

 father had ascended the throne. If Amyntas II was ten years old 

 at the time of this contest, Philip would be in sub-class A 3 , and he 

 is placed there as a reasonable estimate. 



ARISTOTLE. 



Aristotle was born 384 B. C., and was the son of Nichomachus, 

 friend and physician in ordinary to King Amyntas II. The "phy- 

 sician in ordinary" to a king is not likely to be a young man, 



