The first instance of this sort of thing was the destruction of Thebes in 335 B.C. At the accession of Alexander a year earlier, all Greece had seethed with insurrection. Philip was dead in the full vigor of manhood, and a stripling of twenty was about to take his place. By a prompt advance southward Alexander nipped the threatened revolt in the bud; and to secure himself for the future, he put a garrison in the citadel of Thebes, where the most manifest disaffection had existed. A few months later, however, while he was cleansing his northern frontiers, preparatory to attacking Persia, the Thebans, acting on the false report that he had fallen in battle, and in conjunction with Athens and other Greek cities, revolted a second time. With almost incredible secrecy and celerity Alexander came upon Thebes, took it by assault, sold the inhabitants into slavery, and razed the city to the ground. No such disaster had overtaken a Greek city (outside of unhappy Sicily) since the destruction of Miletus by the Persians in 493 B.C. It showed beyond the shadow of a doubt what the Greeks had to expect if they continued to make trouble while Alexander was absent in Asia. And on this occasion one object lesson was contained within another: by sparing the house of Pindar, the destroyer of Thebes proclaimed his regard for Hellenic civilization; distinguished himself clearly from the destroyers of Miletus and other barbarians. Next year, when about to open his attack on the Persian empire, Alexander sent his army across the Hellespont by the usual route from Sestus to Abydus; but he himself proceeded to Elaius where he sacrificed at the tomb of Protesilaus, and prayed that he might have a better fate than was his who first of Agamemnon's men set foot on the soil of Asia. Then crossing the Hellespont to Harbor of the Achæans, he went up to Ilium where he dedicated his armor to Athena Ilias and took in its place some weapons said to have been used in the Trojan War. After appeasing the _manes_ of Priam and entreating them to forgive him, a descendant of Neoptolemus, Priam's slayer, he laid a wreath on the tomb of Achilles, while his bosom friend, Hephæstion, laid another on that of Patroclus. Whereupon he proceeded to rejoin his army. The incident stirred in every Greek a thousand memories. He saw another Agamemnon set out to take another Troy; another champion of the Hellenes in their eternal struggle with the peoples of Asia. In no way could Alexander more clearly identify his undertaking with the long cherished dreams of the whole Greek race. It was the nearest that a ruler of that time could come to proclaiming a holy war.