Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/68

 46 HISTORY" OF GREECE. the better right to it ; next he had also expelled his youngei brother Philippus from his subordinate principality. To restore Amyntas the son of Philippus, was one of the purposes of the Thrakian prince Sitalkes, in the expedition undertaken conjointly with Athens, during the second year of the Peloponnesian war. 1 On the death of Perdikkas (about 413 B. c.), his eldest or only legitimate son was a child of seven years old ; but his natural son 2 Archelaus was of mature age and unscrupulous ambition. The dethroned Alketas was yet alive, and had now considerable chance of reestablishing himself on the throne ; Archelaus, inviting him and his son under pretence that he would himself bring about their reestablishment, slew them both amidst the intoxication of a ban- quet, lie next despatched the boy, his legitimate brother, by suf- focating him in a well ; and through these crimes made himself king. His government, however, was so energetic and able, that Macedonia reached a degree of military power such as none of his predecessors had ever possessed. His troops, military equip- ments, and fortified places, were much increased in numbers ; while he also cut straight roads of communication between the various portions of his territory, a novelty seemingly every- where, at that time. 3 Besides such improved organization (which unfortunately we are not permitted to know in detail), Archelaua founded a splendid periodical Olympic festival, in honor of the Olympian Zeus and the Muses, 4 and maintained correspondence with the poets and philosophers of Athens. He prevailed upon the tragic poets Euripides and Agathon, as well as the epic poet Choerilus, to visit him in Macedonia, where Euripides especially was treated with distinguished favor and munificence, 5 remaining pulsion of an elder brother, renders it less wonderful that the beginning of his reign should be differently stated by different authors ; though these au- thors seem mostly to conceive Perdikkas as the immediate successor of Alexander, without any notice of Alketas. 1 Thucyd. i, 57: ii, 97-100. 2 The mother of Archelaus was a female slave belonging to Alketas ; it ;'B for this reason that Plato calls Alketas deairorqv nal ftelov of Arch elans (Plato, Gorgias, c. 26. p. 471 A.) 3 Thucyd. ii, 100. 66oi>( eiiSeiaf ere/ze, etc. See the note in fjh. Ixlx, p 17 of Vol. ix. Plutarch, DC Vitioso Pudore, c. 7. p. 531 E.
 * Arrian, i, 11 ; Diodor. xvii, 16.