Page:The Story of Philosophy.pdf/82

 reaching this elevation Hermias invited Aristotle to his court; and in the year 344 he rewarded his teacher for past fa- vors by bestowing upon him a sister (or a niece) in marriage. One might suspect this as a Greek gift; but the historians has- ten to assure us that Aristotle, despite his genius, lived happily enough with his wife, and spoke of her most affectionately in his will. It was just a year later that Philip, King of Mace- don, called Aristotle to the court at Pella to undertake the education of Alexander. It bespeaks the rising repute of our philosopher that the greatest monarch of the time, look- ing about for the greatest teacher, should single out Aristotle to be the tutor of the future master of the world.

Philip was determined that his son should have every educa- tional advantage, for he had made for him illimitable designs. His conquest of Thrace in 356 had given him command of gold mines which at once began to yield him precious metal to ten times the amount then coming to Athens from the failing silver of Laurium; his people were vigorous peasants and warriors, as yet unspoiled by city luxury and vice: here was the combination that would make possible the subjugation of a hundred petty city-states and the political unification of Greece. Philip had no sympathy with the individualism that had fostered the art and intellect of Greece but had at the same time disintegrated her social order; in all these little capi- tals he saw not the exhilarating culture and the unsurpassable art, but the commercial corruption and the political chaos; he saw insatiable merchants and bankers absorbing the vital re- sources of the nation, incompetent politicians and clever ora- tors misleading a busy populace into disastrous plots and wars, factions cleaving classes and classes congealing into castes: this, said Philip, was not a nation but only a welter of indi- viduals—geniuses and slaves; he would bring the hand of order down upon this turmoil, and make all Greece stand up united and strong as the political center and basis of the world. In his youth in Thebes he had learned the arts of military strategy and civil organization under the noble Epaminondas;