The invasion of Persia by Greece.  At length Philip, the King of Macedon, projected a renewal of these attempts, under a far more formidable organization, and with a grander object.  He managed to have himself appointed captain-general of all Greece not for the purpose of a mere foray into the Asiatic satrapies, but for the overthrow of the Persian dynasty in the very centre of its power.  Assassinated while his preparations were incomplete, he was succeeded by his son Alexander, then a youth.  A general assembly of Greeks at Corinth had unanimously elected him in his father’s stead.  There were some disturbances in Illyria; Alexander had to march his army as far north as the Danube to quell them.  During his absence the Thebans with some others conspired against him.  On his return he took Thebes by assault.  He massacred six thousand of its inhabitants, sold thirty thousand for slaves, and utterly demolished the city.  The military wisdom of this severity was apparent in his Asiatic campaign.  He was not troubled by any revolt in his rear.

The Macedonian campaign.  In the spring B.C. 334 Alexander crossed the Hellespont into Asia.  His army consisted of thirty-four thousand foot and four thousand horse.  He had with him only seventy talents in money.  He marched directly on the Persian army, which, vastly exceeding him in strength, was holding the line of the Granicus.  He forced the passage of the river, routed the enemy, and the possession of all Asia Minor, with its treasures, was the fruit of the victory.  The remainder of that year he spent in the military organization of the conquered provinces.  Meantime Darius, the Persian king, had advanced an army of six hundred thousand men to prevent the passage of the Macedonians into Syria.  In a battle that ensued among the mountain-defiles at Issus, the Persians were again overthrown.  So great was the slaughter that Alexander, and Ptolemy, one of his generals, crossed over a ravine choked with dead bodies.  It was estimated that the Persian loss was not less than ninety thousand foot and ten thousand horse.  The royal pavilion fell into the conqueror’s hands, and with it the wife and several of the children of Darius.  Syria was thus added to the Greek conquests.  In Damascus were found many of the concubines of Darius and his chief officers, together with a vast treasure.

Before venturing into the plains of Mesopotamia for the final struggle, Alexander, to secure his rear and preserve his communications with the sea, marched southward down the Mediterranean coast, reducing the cities in his way.  In his speech before the council of war after Issus, he told his generals that they must not pursue Darius with Tyre unsubdued, and Persia in possession of Egypt and Cyprus, for, if Persia should regain her seaports, she would transfer the war into Greece, and that it was absolutely necessary for him to be sovereign at sea.  With Cyprus and