: MAP OF MACEDON AND GREECE.]

There was also Thebes. Thebes was farther north than Athens and
Corinth. It was situated on an elevated plain, and had, like other
ancient cities, a strong citadel, where there was at this time a
Macedonian garrison, which Philip had placed there. Thebes was very
wealthy and powerful. It had also been celebrated as the birth-place
of many poets and philosophers, and other eminent men. Among these was
Pindar, a very celebrated poet who had flourished one or two centuries
before the time of Alexander. His descendants still lived in Thebes,
and Alexander, some time after this, had occasion to confer upon them
a very distinguished honor.

There was Sparta also, called sometimes Lacedaemon. The inhabitants of
this city were famed for their courage, hardihood, and physical
strength, and for the energy with which they devoted themselves to the
work of war. They were nearly all soldiers, and all the arrangements
of the state and of society, and all the plans of education, were
designed to promote military ambition and pride among the officers and
fierce and indomitable courage and endurance in the men.

These cities and many others, with the states which were attached to
them, formed a large, and flourishing, and very powerful community,
extending over all that part of Greece which lay south of Macedon.
Philip, as has been already said, had established his own ascendency
over all this region, though it had cost him many perplexing
negotiations and some hard-fought battles to do it. Alexander
considered it somewhat uncertain whether the people of all these
states and cities would be disposed to transfer readily, to so
youthful a prince as he, the high commission which his father, a very
powerful monarch and soldier, had extorted from them with so much
difficulty. What should he do in the case? Should he give up the
expectation of it? Should he send embassadors to them, presenting his
claims to occupy his father's place? Or should he not act at all, but
wait quietly at home in Macedon until they should decide the question?

Instead of doing either of these things, Alexander decided on the very
bold step of setting out himself, at the head of an army, to march
into southern Greece, for the purpose of presenting in person, and, if
necessary, of enforcing his claim to the same post of honor and power
which had been conferred upon his father. Considering all the
circumstances of the case, this was p