counsel, to any of the private soldiers he commanded; and he led them—to slaughter.

Of Epaminondas, the great name alone survived; the tactics, by which he had so often conquered, had fallen into disuse, or, worse yet! had been adopted by the enemy; the veterans, whom he had taught to regard battle and victory as the same, slept with him the last cold sleep of oblivion. Of Pelopidas remained the memory-remained the Sacred Band, which he had instituted, and which alone did its duty on the day of "that dishonest victory."

In everything Philip was the superior, in strategy, in numbers, in the quality of his troops, and in the confidence, which, most of all things, tends to victory. In the action which ensued, he gave the command of one wing of his army to Alexander, whom he fortified with his best and oldest generals; and it is said that the crisis of the battle was his charge upon the sacred band of the Thebans, every one of whom lay dead where he fell, with his wounds all in front, worthy to the last of the name they had won under abler leaders; and in the days of Plutarch*—about 66 A.D., or three hundred years later the oak-tree was shown on the banks of the Kephisos, beneath which his tent was pitched and hard by it, the polyandrion, or general tomb of the Makedonians, who fell in the engagement.

The details of this battle are nowhere very clearly stated, and even Plutarch gives the facts in relation to his hero as a rumor only; but the results prove how decisive was the victory, and that Alexander did here achieve high distinction, may be received as a historic truth.

In the following year all Greece having sunk into apathy and virtually submitted itself to his authority after the battle, Philip met the assembled delegates of all the Hellenic states at the isthmus, where he easily prevailed on them to declare war on Pers.a * Plut. Vit. ix.

under the old pretext of revenging the desecration of the temples of Greece by the elder Darios, and was forthwith elected the autocratic general of the forces, in behalf of all Hellas. After this he set on foot great preparations for the invasion of Persia; appointed to every state the contingent which it should send; and returned to his own court to complete his armament.

There, surrounded by the din of martial preparation, and by grand pomps, processions, and games, in honor of the Gods who had given him what, though really indefinite and susceptible of two meanings, he chose to accept as a* favorable response from Delphoi, having already sent forward his lieutenants, Attalus and Parmenion, with part of his forces, to liberate the Ionian cities of Asia Minor, he was murdered by one Pausanias, as he went into the theatre; as some believed at the instigation of his repudiated wife, Olympias; and not, it is also hinted, without the connivance of Alexander.

It is pleasant, however, to be able at once to acquit the young man, and probably his mother also, of all participation in an act so atrocious, which may be attributed, on the concurrence of all trustworthy authorities, to private and personal motives on the part of the murderer, who was slain on the spot by some of the king's body-guard.

It was toward the latter end, therefore, of the first year of the hundred and first Olympiad, B. C., 336, that Alexander as cended the throne of his father; but his accession was surround ed with troubles and difficulties, and his throne was shared by a hateful participant-Attalos, the brother of Kleiopatra, the young wife of Philip, in behalf of whom he had repudiated Olympias, and who, either a few days before, or a few days after, the king's death--for authorities differ on the point—had borne him a son ; so that, his own mother being repudiated, it was not unlikely that his succession would be disputed.

*Diod. Sic. XVI. 91.

Attalos, moreover, was in command of the veteran army sent into Ionia by the late king; and it soon became certain that he had shaken the allegiance of the troops, and was treating with the Athenians for the restoration of Greek independence-probably with a view only to his own interest and ambition. In other parts of Greece, a spirit of revolt was clearly manifest, the states believing themselves able to vindicate their liberty against a mere youth, new in office, and unskilled in judgment, and the arts of government.

The youth speedily undeceived them. In the second year both of that Olympiad and of his own reign, having taken vengeance of his father's murderers, he sent one Hekataios, his own confidential friend, with a few trusty soldiers to Asia, with orders either to bring Attalos, without delay, alive to Makedonia, or to take him off privately-the latter of which designs was speedily performed—and the army brought back to loyalty.

That was a bloody and a bad commencement of a reign. The act was a murder, and the manner of it scarce less exceptionable than the act. Yet it must be observed, in justice to Alexander, that in semi-barbarous royal families like his, tainted with all the corruptions of polygamous unions, and haremlike concubinage, and the co-ordinate curse of spurious relationships and kindred animosities, fraud and even murder appear almost of necessity to prevail; and that not to kill is in most cases to be killed by the heir apparent to the throne. More, therefore, of this his first crime may be ascribed to the morals, the manners, the necessities indeed, of his tribe, country, and station, than to any defect in his own temper or character. And it is very probable, that neither by himself nor by any one of his confederates was this deed ever regarded as a crime, but as an act of self-defence, and a legitimate assertion of just authority. And thus it is, to maintain true historic justice, that the characters of men must be meted, weighed, and judged of, by the measures, with the balance, ac

cording to the lights, which they had and used, not with others that they knew not of. Thus, therefore, I, in this case, would judge Alexander-almost innocent.

In the meantime the Athenians had heard of Philip's death with joy, and invited by their great orator and patriot Demosthenes, were ready to deny that they had ever yielded the supremacy of Greece to Makedon; the Aitolians passed a decree to recall the exiles of Philip from Akarnania; the Ambrakiots had cast out the Makedonian garrison; the Thebans had voted to expel Philip's guards from the Kadmeia; the Arkadians had never submitted to Philip, nor now submitted to his son; and of the other Peloponnesians, the Argives, the Eleans, and the Lakedaimonians were all bent on the recovery of their independence, now that fortune appeared to favor an effort.

Then, at once, Alexander showed both of what race he came, and of what stuff he was made; for, without giving the revolutionists time to mature their plans, he speedily effected a reconciliation with the Thessalians and Ambrakiots; and then, marching down with his Makedonian troops in full array of battle, entered the pass of Thermopylai, and persuaded the Amphictyonik council, there in session, to confer on him the leading of the Greeks by a unanimous vote. Thence he entered Boiotia, and encamping close to the Kadmeia, held the city of Thebes in immediate terror of an assault, until the Athenians, perceiving that their opinion of this young man was entirely contradicted by the decision, energy, and rapid enterprise, which they now perceived to be his characteristics, repented of their inconsiderate haste, and atoned for it by decreeing him General-in-Chief, and empowering him to make war on the Persians until they should have made atonement to Greece, for all the wrong they had done her. Content with this, he led back his power into Makedonia, and striking without notice or delay at the Thrakian malcontents, he reduced with unheard of celerity the revolted tribes of

Paionians, Illyrians, and other barbarians conterminous with them, to obedience; and, this scarcely accomplished, hearing that the Thebans were again mutinous and in arms, he bestirred himself with such rapidity that he actually sat down before the city, while the inhabitants were beleaguering the Makedonian garrison in the citadel, or Kadmeia, and before they were aware that he had a force on foot within the defiles of Thermopylai. Some of those who had instigated the revolt insisted for a while that the Makedonian army had come with Antipater, insisting that Alexander was dead; or, that, if any Alexander were present, it was the son of Aëropos, and not the king of Makedon.

On the day following his sudden appearance on the heights above Onchestos, near the Copaic lake, he descended to the sacred territory of Iolaos, where he again encamped, willing to give time to the Thebans to repent of their misdeeds; but so little desirous were they of conciliating, or even accepting his clemency, that they sallied with their light troops and cavalry, and advancing to his outposts, skirmished with them sharply and killed several of the Makedonians, until Alexander detached some targeteers and archery, who easily drove them back to their gates. Still, however, he would not attack them hastily, for he preferred conciliating to destroying them; and proceeded leisurely to encamp, a third time, close before the gates leading by Eleutherai to Athens, in order to be at hand to reinforce the garrison of the Kadmeia, which was blockaded by the Thebans with double lines of circum and contra vallation. But, in spite of the advice of their wisest and best citizens, the refugees and others, who believed that no mercy was to be had at the hands of Alexander, induced the Thebans to march out and offer battle. And even then Alexander would not attack the city; but, according to Ptolemy* the son of Lagos, Perdikkas, who com

* Arrian. Anab. I. viii. Quoted by Arrian, I. viii.