Philip's most important achievement was the creation of the Macedonian army, which he led to the conquest of Greece and which his son was to lead to the conquest of the World. Taking a hint from the tactics of Epaminondas, Philip trained his infantry to fight by columns, but with sufficient intervals between the files to permit quick and easy movements. Each man bore an enormous lance, eighteen feet in length. When this heavy phalanx was set in array, the weapons carried by the soldiers in the first five ranks presented a bristling thicket of lance-points, which no onset, however determined, could penetrate. The business of the phalanx was to keep the front of the foe engaged, while horsemen rode into the enemy's flanks. This reliance on masses of cavalry to win a victory was something new in warfare. Another novel feature consisted in the use of engines called catapults, able to throw darts and huge stones three hundred yards, and of battering rams with force enough to hurl down the walls of cities. All these different arms working together made a war machine of tremendous power--the most formidable in the ancient world until the days of the Roman legion. CONQUESTS OF PHILIP Philip commanded a fine army; he ruled with absolute sway a territory larger than any other Hellenic state; and he himself possessed a genius for both war and diplomacy, With such advantages the Macedonian king entered on the subjugation of disunited Greece. His first great success was won in western Thrace. Here he founded the city of Philippi [2] and seized some rich gold mines, the income from which enabled him to keep his soldiers always under arms, to fit out a fleet, and, by means of liberal bribes, to hire a crowd of agents in nearly every Greek city. Philip next made Macedonia a maritime state by subduing the Greek cities on the peninsula of Chalcidice. [3] He also appeared in Thessaly, occupied its principal fortresses, and brought the frontier of Macedonia as far south as the pass of Thermopylae. 40. DEMOSTHENES AND THE END OF GREEK FREEDOM DEMOSTHENES, 384-322 B.C. Philip for many years had been steadily extending his sway over Greece. In the face of his encroachments would Athens, Sparta, and Thebes, so long the leading cities, submit tamely to this Macedonian conqueror? There was one man, at least, who realized the menace to Greek freedom from Philip's onward march. In Demosthenes Greece found a champion of her threatened liberties. [Illustration: DEMOSTHENES (Vatican Museum, Rome) A marble statue, probably a copy of the bronze original by the sculptor Polyeuctus. The work, when found, was considerably mutilated and has been restored in numerous parts. Both forearms and the hands holding the scroll are modern additions. It seems likely that the original Athenian statue showed Demosthenes with tightly clasped hands, which, with his furrowed visage and contracted brows, were expressive of the orator's earnestness and concentration of thought.]