her had won.
Demosthenes, the celebrated orator, stirred up Athens to revolt. Thebes
sprang to arms and attacked the Macedonian garrison in the citadel.

They did not know the man with whom they had to deal. Alexander came
upon Thebes like an avalanche, took it by assault, and sold into slavery
all the inhabitants not slain in the assault. The city was razed to the
ground. This terrible example dismayed the rest of Greece.
Submission--with the exception of that of Sparta--was universal. The
independence of Greece was at an end. More than two thousand years were
to pass before that country would again be free.

_ALEXANDER THE GREAT AND DARIUS._

In the citadel of Gordium, an ancient town of Phrygia in Asia Minor, was
preserved an old wagon, rudely built, and very primitive in structure.
Tradition said that it had originally belonged to the peasant Gordius
and his son Midas, rustic chiefs who had been selected by the gods and
chosen by the people as the primitive kings of Phrygia. The cord which
attached the yoke of this wagon to the pole, composed of fibres from the
bark of the cornel tree, was tied into a knot so twisted and entangled
that it seemed as if the fingers of the gods themselves must have tied
it, so intricate was it and so impossible, seemingly, to untie.

An oracle had declared that the man who should untie this famous knot
would become lord and monarch of all Asia. As may well be imagined, many
ambitious men sought to perform the task, but all in vain. The Gordian
knot remained tied and Asia unconquered in the year 333 B.C., when
Alexander of Macedon, who the year before had invaded Asia, and so far
had swept all before him, entered Gordium with his victorious army. As
may be surmised, it was not long before he sought the citadel to view
this ancient relic, which contained within itself the promise of what he
had set out to accomplish. Numbers followed him, Phrygians and
Macedonians, curious to see if the subtle knot would yield to his
conquering hand, the Macedonians with hope, the Phrygians with doubt.

While the multitude stood in silent and curious expectation, Alexander
closely examined the knot, looking in vain for some beginning or end to
its complexity. The thing perplexed him. Was he who had never yet failed
in any undertaking to be baffled by this piece of rope, this twisted
obstacle in the way of success? At length, with that angry impatience
which was a leading element in his charac