Two parties were thus created in the Greek states, and in a dispute which occurred about 420 B.C., the friends of the Spartans or Aristocratic ideal ranged themselves on the one side, and those of the Athenian or Democratic on the other.

From this arose the long conflict known as the Peloponnesian War, which lasted for twenty-seven years, its real cause being that Sparta was determined to lead Greece.

It was in vain that the Athenians fought with the energy of despair.  Their beautiful city—­the City of the Gods—­was at last surrendered, and the scoffing Spartans (404 B.C.) took possession of the treasures they scorned.

Athens had fallen, but her real kingdom was indestructible.  She was to be forever Queen in the empire of ideas, of literature, and of art!

The coarse, harsh rule of Sparta lasted less than a century.  Then Thebes, another powerful Greek state, arose to the leadership of discontented Greece.  And so Hellas, the land in which they all gloried, had become a mass of quarrelling, struggling states, until it was seized by the rough hand of a master.

In the north of Greece was the State of Macedonia.  It was not composed of a multitude of free cities like the rest of Greece, but its people were diffused throughout the state, and all governed by one king.

Compared with the Athenians, these unpolished, rude Macedonians were almost barbarians.

But in the year 359 B.C. a man came to the throne of this state, who was not going to be satisfied with being merely a Greek among Greeks.  He was resolved to be the head of the Greeks.  This was Philip of Macedon.  He bent all the energies of his strong, crafty mind toward making himself master of Greece.

Demosthenes, the great Athenian orator, in a desperate effort to save his people from this man, delivered a set of orations denouncing Philip.  These are the famous “Philippics,” of which you will often hear.

The Philippics were in vain.  Greece yielded to this dominating King Philip, and was led into a war of conquest against the Persians.  But the fates intended that a stronger hand than Philip’s should lead the expedition into Asia.  Philip was assassinated on the eve of his departure, and his son Alexander, just twenty years old, succeeded to his father’s throne and projects.

There have been three men who have been called “Masters of the World.”  Alexander of Macedon was the first of these (323 B.C.), Julius Caesar the second (30 B.C.), and Charlemagne the third (800 A.D.).  Napoleon Bonaparte came very near making the fourth in this brief list, but failed.

Among the stories of Alexander’s boyhood is that of the “Gordian knot,” which it was said could only be untied by the person who was destined to conquer Asia.  After striving in vain to loosen this famous knot, it is said Alexander impatiently drew his sword and cut it—­thus prefiguring what that sword was to do.