At length the Athenians and Thebans, aroused by the oratory of Demosthenes and by some fresh encroachments of the Macedonians, united their forces, and met Philip upon the memorable field of Chæronea in Boeotia. The Macedonian phalanx swept everything before it. The Theban band was annihilated. The power and authority of Philip were now extended and acknowledged throughout Greece (338 B.C.). PLAN TO INVADE ASIA.--While the Greek states were divided among themselves, they were united in an undying hatred of the Persians. They were at this time meditating an enterprise fraught with the greatest importance to the history of the world. This was a joint expedition against Persia. The march of the Ten Thousand Greeks through the very heart of the dominions of the Great King had encouraged this national undertaking, and illustrated the feasibility of the conquest of Asia. At a great council of the Grecian cities held at Corinth, Philip was chosen leader of this expedition. All Greece was astir with preparation. In the midst of all, Philip was assassinated during the festivities attending the marriage of his daughter, and his son Alexander succeeded to his place and power (336 B.C.). ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.--Alexander was only twenty years of age when he came to his father's throne. The spirit of the man is shown in the complaint of the boy when news of his father's victories came to him: "Friends," said he to his playmates, "my father will possess himself of everything and leave nothing for us to do." For about two years Alexander was busy suppressing revolts against his power among the different cities of Hellas, and chastising hostile tribes on the northern frontiers of Macedonia. Thebes having risen against him, he razed the city to the ground,--sparing, however, the house of the poet Pindar,--and sold thirty thousand of the inhabitants into slavery. Thus was one of the most renowned of the cities of Greece blotted out of existence. ALEXANDER CROSSES THE HELLESPONT (334 B.C.).--Alexander was now free to carry out his father's scheme in regard to the Asiatic expedition. In the spring of 334 B.C., he set out, at the head of an army numbering about thirty-five thousand men, for the conquest of the Persian empire. Now commenced one of the most remarkable and swiftly executed campaigns recorded in history. [Illustration: THE BATTLE OF ISSUS. (From a Mosaic found at Pompeii.)] Crossing the Hellespont, Alexander routed the Persians at the important battle of the Granicus, by which victory all Asia Minor was laid open to the invader.