Page:A General Sketch of Political History from the Earlist Times.djvu/73

 ATHENS AND SPARTA 61 to nominate him as general-in-chief, to organise and conduct a great war of the Hellenes against the Persian Empire. Athens had in the meantime recovered something of her former prosperity, though nothing approaching her old ascendency. Athens proved herself the most serious obstacle in Philip's progress, because in Athens the party which was headed by the great orator Demosthenes saw «..,... j t Demosthenes, that Philip was aiming at empire, and opposed his aims with all his might. The party was patriotically opposed to a Macedonian supremacy, but a Macedonian supremacy was now the only possible means to the formation of a strong Greek federation ; and this was an idea which now was, in fact, gaining ground. The idea of an anti-Persian union was making head- way, and the preference of Demosthenes for a Persian alliance rather than a Macedonian ascendency probably accounted in part for the strength of the party opposed to him. But Philip's bribes, direct or indirect, probably counted for more in securing him adherents. Philip, however, did not achieve his object without an Athenian war, in which the most im- •, .1 i , 338 B.C. portant single engagement was the battle of Chaeronea, in which the young prince Alexander, a boy of sixteen, greatly distinguished himself. The resistance of the Greek states which supported Athens was steadily overcome, and so at last Philip was recognised as the leader of the Greeks. He at once set about organising the projected war against Persia, though it is probable that his real intention was to use that war as a pretext for consolidating for himself a Greek dominion. But whatever his personal intentions may have been, they were frustrated by the hand of an assassin in 336 B.C.