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138 War. Thebes was now blotted out of existence. Again Athens trembled. Alexander, there was reason to believe, was magnanimous; but it was impossible to say how he might deal with a city which had been so persistently hostile to his father. At the suggestion of Demades, an embassy of congratulation was sent to him. The people were to express their joy not only on his safe return from the Danube, but on the extinction of Thebes. It was, as Dr Thirlwall happily calls it, "impudent obsequiousness." Alexander's answer was a demand for the surrender of the nine chief anti-Macedonian orators,—Demosthenes, of course, included. But the demand was waived, chiefly, it seems, through the opportune intervention of Phocion, whom Alexander highly respected.

The next year he crossed the Hellespont into Asia. Four years from that time sufficed for the overthrow of the Persian empire. Darius, the last king of Persia, was murdered in 330 B.C. That same year witnessed an abortive attempt in Greece against Macedonian supremacy. It was bravely led by a king of Sparta, who fell in a hard-fought battle near Megalopolis with Antipater, to whom Alexander had intrusted his kingdom during his absence. Greece could now no longer even dream of independence. Anything like an anti-Macedonian policy would be preposterous; and there was thus an opportunity at Athens of attempting to rouse popular feeling against any statesman who had advocated that policy, the end of which had been so fatal to Greece.

It was under these circumstances that Æschines