Page:Xenophon by Alexander Grant.djvu/65

Rh the world: this was the secret of the essential weakness of the Persian empire. Henceforth, as Mr Grote observes, all the military and political leaders of Greece—Agesilaus, Jason of Pheræ, and others, down to Philip and Alexander—were firmly persuaded that, with a tolerably numerous force, they could at any moment succeed in overthrowing the Persian power. This conviction waited for time and opportunity to give it effect. For two generations Persia maintained an influence over the affairs of Greece by subsidising one state against another. But when all the Greek states had fallen under the rule of Macedonia, then the hour struck. Alexander the Great went forth to conquer Persia, and in so doing he changed the face of the world and the course of history. But nothing is more clear than that the revelations of Xenophon had taken hold of his mind, and that the idea of the expedition of Alexander sprang originally from the 'Anabasis' of Xenophon.