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of the Grecian forces to act against Persia. Having in this capacity 

 settled with the Amphyctionic body the quota of troops and money 

 to be furnished by the respective states of Greece for that impor- 

 tant expedition, he dismissed the assembly, and, retiring to Mace- 

 don, devoted his whole time and attention to insure success to the 

 daring project ; but, while Philip was thus eagerly engaged in plan- 

 ning the downfal of the Persian monarch, he himself fell a victim 

 to the private revenge of an insulted courtier, to whom he had 

 neglected to render the essential justice which atrocious guilt de- 

 manded*. The honour of subjugating Persia was therefore reserved 

 for a son, who, with his father's genius and ambition, possessed a 

 mind superior to the baseness of fraud ; a son, who, with all the 

 numerous faults which disgraced him, disdained to conquer by 

 bribes where the sword could prove ineffectual. 



During the extended period in which the Macedonian kingdom 

 was holden in tributary chains by the Persian monarchs, there had 

 not been wanting one or two striking proofs how ill the sovereigns 

 of the former brooked the insolence of the latter; and, though 

 compelled to submit to their control, how sincerely attached they 

 were, at heart, to the great cause of Greece and liberty. The first, 

 a very violent one indeed, was given in the reign of Amyntas, the 

 ninth sovereign of Macedonia, and given too by an ALEXANDER, 

 a name fatal to Persia from the beginning ! When, in the reign of 

 the first Darius, the Persian general, Mardonius, was on his return 

 from the conquest of Thrace, he dispatched seven noblemen, 

 officers of high rank in his army, to demand from Amyntas the 

 usual tribute of earth and water, as an acknowledgement of the 



* The disgusting story of the abused Pausanias is told at length in the 16th book of Dio- 

 dorus ; but, though this uuredressed grievance was the alleged cause of the murder of Philip, 

 it probably was not the real one, which may, with more justice, be referred to the secret 

 machinations of the jealous court of Persia, which had its emissaries in every city of Greece. 



