nd 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.

Alexander led the Greeks into Asia, and in ten years had conquered Egypt
and all the Persian dominions, and decreed that Babylon should be the
capital of this vast empire of his own creating. He founded Alexandria and
other cities, which are still great centres of commerce. Not satisfied
with this, he was pressing down into Arabia, when after a night's debauch
he suddenly died (aged thirty-two years), and his vast scheme of empire
perished with him.

The world is still feeling the results of those ten years of conquest.
Every Greek province in the Sultan's dominions to-day is such because of
Alexander of Macedon.

Four of Alexander's generals divided his empire among themselves--the
kingdom of Macedonia, the kingdom of Egypt, and two Asiatic kingdoms.
Egypt fell to the share of Ptolemy, who was the first of a line of kings
which ended with the last Ptolemy, who married the famous and fated
Cleopatra (30 B.C.).

The Greeks poured into the two Asiatic kingdoms, and Greek culture and
civilization spread over the Orient (or East). But while Asia was thus
Hellenized, Hellas, the source of this splendid civilizing power, was
moving surely toward annihilation.

Another world-conquering power was coming into e