death its commanders, Amyntas and Timolaus. Alexander offered pardon to the city on condition of absolute submission, and the delivering up of the principal offenders. The Thebans were obstinate, and the consequence was, that Thebes was taken by storm, and abandoned to the fury of the Macedonian troops, who plundered and destroyed it. Six thousand of the inhabitants were put to the sword, and thirty thousand sold to slavery. The priests, however, with their families, were treated with reverence; and while the streets and fortifications of the city were reduced to a mass of ruins, the conqueror showed his respect to the memory of Pindar, by preserving from destruction the great poet's house, which was still occupied by his descendants.

This exemplary severity struck terror throughout all Greece. The Athenians, elevated with the smallest glimpse of good fortune, were the first to show an abasement of spirit. They had received, after the fall of Thebes, a part of the fugitive citizens. For this act of humanity they now thought it necessary to apologise, by sending an embassy to Alexander, to deprecate his wrath, and to assure him of their sincere desire to maintain a friendly alliance. The Macedonian, contemning them the more for the meanness of this behaviour, made a peremptory demand that they should deliver up to him the persons of Demosthenes, Lycurgus, and six others of the principal demagogues, to whose seditious harangues he attributed the hostile spirit they had shown to all his measures. He did not, however, wish to push matters to extremity. The business was finally compromised

by a public decree, by which the Athenians pledged themselves to institute a strict inquiry into the alleged ground of offence, and to inflict such punishment as the crimes, if proved, should merit.

The submission of Athens was followed by friendly embassies, and offers of peace and alliance from all the states of Greece. Alexander now summoned a general council of deputies, from all the several republics, to assemble at Corinth, with the purpose of deliberating on a measure which regarded their common interests and honour. Here he formally intimated to them his design of following out the great project of his father, the conquest of Persia. The design was flattering to the Greeks, who had ever regarded the Persians as an irreconcilable enemy, the object of hereditary hatred and jealousy; and in whose destruction they pleased themselves with the prospect of regaining the honourable ascendency they had once enjoyed above all the contemporary nations. Animated with this feeling, they received the proposal of Alexander with exultation and already anticipating the triumphs to be gained under his banners, they hailed him commander-in-chief of the united armies of Greece.

The preparations commenced by Philip were continued by Alexander during the few months of winter that preceded the opening of this important campaign; but active as we may believe those preparations were, they bore no proportion to the magnitude of the enterprise. In fact, the chief prospect of its success arose, not from the strength of the invader, but from the weakness of the

invaded empire. We have already remarked* the very defective system of government in this extensive monarchy, and the total want of all principle of union between the members of so vast a body. The people, over whom their governors or satraps tyrannised with the most absolute authority, were quite indifferent to any changes that might take place in the seat of empire. Thus we have seen an eunuch depose and put to death one monarch with all his descendants, and place another on the throne, without producing any other effects than might have followed in other kingdoms, upon a sovereign changing his first minister. The truth is, that the general peace of the empire had ever arisen out of its general weakness. The provinces had as little communication with each other as they had with the capital; and these separate and independent bodies had not even the slight bond of union which arises from a common religion. A despot of high spirit and a vigorous mind might have kept in order this discordant mass; but such was not the character of the present monarch. Darius Codomannus, who owed his elevation to the eunuch Bagoas, was a prince possessed of many amiable qualities-of a gentle and humane disposition; who might have swayed with honour a pacific sceptre, in a nation enjoying a good political constitution, and governed by wholesome laws; but he was neither qualified to fill the throne of Persia, nor to be the antagonist of Alexander.

This prince, who in all his enterprises never

*See Chapter II. of this book, toward the conclusion.

indulged a doubt of his success, set out for Persia in the beginning of spring at the head of an army of thirty-five thousand men, and furnished with provisions only for a single month. He had committed to Antipater the government of Macedonia, in his absence. With this inconsiderable army, but excellently disciplined, and commanded by many brave and able officers, who had gained experience under the banner of his father Philip, he arrived in six days' march at the passage of the Hellespont, and crossed the narrow sea without opposition. While traversing Phrygia, he is reported to have visited the tomb of Achilles; and in an apostrophe to the shade of that great warrior is said to have expressed his envy of his happiness, who in life enjoyed the comfort of a faithful friend, and after his death had his name immortalised by the greatest of poets.

Darius, on the first intelligence of the advance of Alexander with this trifling force, resolved to crush at once this inconsiderate young man, and despatched immediately an army of a hundred thousand foot, and ten thousand horse, to the banks of the Granicus, a small river of Mysia, which discharges itself into the Propontis. This measure of the Persian monarch was contrary to the opinion of his ablest generals, who counselled him to follow a more protracted plan of warfare. They advised him to lay waste the provinces through which lay the course of the Macedonian army, and to limit all his attacks to a skirmishing warfare, merely with the view of harassing and wearing out the enemy by fatigue and want of provisions. This is said to have been the counsel of Memnon,

Darius's ablest general; who proposed at the same time to conduct an army to Greece and Macedonia, to retaliate upon the invaders in their own territory. But when Darius compared his own force and resources with those of his antagonist, it wore with him the aspect of a mean and dastardly policy, to ruin some of the finest provinces of his empire in the hope of starving the army of his. antagonist, instead of manfully encountering him in the field. The latter advice, of making a diversion in Macedonia, was more suitable to a manly spirit, and it was accordingly adopted.

Meantime, the Persians, under the command of the Satrap of Phrygia, were drawn up in formidable array upon the eastern bank of the Granicus to oppose the passage of the Greeks. The river is of inconsiderable breadth and depth, but of great rapidity. The Macedonians, therefore, with judicious precaution, entered the ford a great way higher than the place of the opposite shore on which they meant to land: and, crossing in an oblique direction, had the aid of the stream impelling forward their ranks, while its current gave a powerful obstruction to the enemy's entering the river and disputing with them the passage of the ford. Thus a large body of the Grecian army crossed the stream, with no other annoyance than what arose from the missile weapons of the Persians, and the spears that met the first ranks on gaining the opposite shore. No sooner, however, had these made good their ground, and by the spirit of their attack given full occupation to the opposing Persians, than the main body of the Grecian army passed without resistance. The