ardon
soon afterward, he returned, and accompanied him in an expedition
against the Triballi, when he saved his life on the field. Philip,
being appointed generalissimo of the Greeks, was preparing for a war
with Persia, when he was assassinated (336 B.C.), and Alexander, not
yet twenty years of age, ascended the throne.

After punishing his father's murderers, he marched on Corinth, and in
a general assembly of the Greeks he caused himself to be appointed to
the command of the forces against Persia. On his return to Macedon, he
found the Illyrians and Triballi up in arms, whereupon he forced his
way through Thrace, and was everywhere victorious. But now the Thebans
had been induced, by a report of his death, to take up arms, and the
Athenians, stimulated by the eloquence of Demosthenes, were preparing
to join them. To prevent this coalition, Alexander rapidly marched
against Thebes, which, refusing to surrender, was conquered and razed
to the ground. Six thousand of the inhabitants were slain, and 30,000
sold into slavery; the house and descendants of the poet Pindar alone
being spared. This severity struck terror into all Greece. The
Athenians were treated with more leniency.

Alexander, having appointed Antipater his deputy in Europe, now
prepared to prosecute the war with Persia. He crossed the Hellespont
in the spring of 334 B.C. with 30,000 foot and 5,000 horse, attacked
the Persian satraps at the River Granicus, and gained a complete
victory, overthrowing the son-in-law of their king Darius with his own
lance. As a result of the battle, most of the cities of Asia Minor at
once opened their gates to the conqueror.

Alexander restored democracy in all the Greek cities; and as he passed
through Gordium, cut the Gordian-knot, which none should loose but the
ruler of Asia. During a dangerous illness at Tarsus, brought on by
bathing in the Cydnus, he received a letter insinuating that Philip,
his physician, had been bribed by Darius to poison him. Alexander
handed the letter to Philip, and at the same time swallowed the
draught which the latter had prepared. As soon as he recovered, he
advanced toward the defiles of Cilicia, in which Darius had stationed
himself with an army of 600,000 men.

He arrived in November, 333 B.C., in the neighborhood of Issus, where,
on the narrow plain between the mountains and the sea, the unwieldy
masses of the Persians were thrown into confusion by the charge of the
Macedonians, and