with the king of Macedon and
conferred on him the command of all the Greek troops and navies. Every
Greek was prohibited making war on Philip on pain of banishment.

=Alexander.=--Philip of Macedon was assassinated in 336. His son
Alexander was then twenty years old. Like all the Greeks of good
family he was accustomed to athletic exercises, a vigorous fighter, an
excellent horseman (he alone had been able to master Bucephalus, his
war-horse). But at the same time he was informed in politics, in
eloquence, and in natural history, having had as teacher from his
thirteenth to his seventeenth year Aristotle, the greatest scholar of
Greece. He read the Iliad with avidity, called this the guide to the
military art, and desired to imitate its heroes. He was truly born to
conquer, for he loved to fight and was ambitious to distinguish
himself. His father said to him, "Macedon is too small to contain
you."

=The Phalanx.=--Philip left a powerful instrument of conquest, the
Macedonian army, the best that Greece had seen. It comprised the
phalanx of infantry and a corps of cavalry.

The phalanx of Macedonians was formed of 16,000 men ranged with 1,000
in front and 16 men deep. Each had a sarissa, a spear about twenty
feet in length. On the field of battle the Macedonians, instead of
marching on the enemy facing all in the same direction, held
themselves in position and presented their pikes to the enemy on all
sides, those in the rear couching their spears above the heads of the
men of the forward ranks. The phalanx resembled "a monstrous beast
bristling with iron," against which the enemy was to throw itself.
While the phalanx guarded the field of battle, Alexander charged the
enemy at the head of his cavalry. This Macedonian cavalry was a
distinguished body formed of young nobles.

=Departure of Alexander.=--Alexander started in the spring of 334 with
30,000 infantry (the greater part of these Macedonians) and 4,500
knights; he carried only seventy talents (less than eighty thousand
dollars) and supplies for forty days. He had to combat not only the
crowd of ill-armed peoples such as Xerxes had brought together, but an
army of 50,000 Greeks enrolled in the service of the Great King under
a competent general, Memnon of Rhodes. These Greeks might have
withstood the invasion of Alexander, but Memnon died and his army
dispersed. Alexander, delivered from his only dangerous opponent,
conquered the Persian empire in two years.