=Macedon.=--Sparta and Athens, exhausted by a century of wars, had abandoned the contest against the king of Persia. A new people resumed it and brought it to an end; these were the Macedonians. They were a very rude people, crude, similar to the ancient Dorians, a people of shepherds and soldiers. They lived far to the north of Greece in two great valleys that opened to the sea. The Greeks had little regard for them, rating them as half barbarians; but since the kings of Macedon called themselves sons of Herakles they had been permitted to run their horses in the races of the Olympian games. This gave them standing as Greeks. =Philip of Macedon.=--These kings ruling in the interior, remote from the sea, had had but little part in the wars of the Greeks. But in 359 B.C. Philip ascended the throne of Macedon, a man young, active, bold, and ambitious. Philip had three aims: 1. To develop a strong army; 2. To conquer all the ports on the coast of Macedon; 3. To force all the other Greeks to unite under his command against the Persians. He consumed twenty-four years in fulfilling these purposes and succeeded in all. The Greeks let him alone, often even aided him; in every city he bribed partisans who spoke in his favor. "No fortress is impregnable," said he, "if only one can introduce within it a mule laden with gold." And by these means he took one after another all the cities of northern Greece. =Demosthenes.=--The most illustrious opponent of Philip was the orator Demosthenes. The son of an armorer, he was left an orphan at the age of seven, and his guardians had embezzled a part of his fortune. As soon as he gained his majority he entered a case against them and compelled them to restore the property. He studied the orations of Isæus and the history of Thucydides which he knew by heart. But when he spoke at the public tribune he was received with shouts of laughter; his voice was too feeble and his breath too short. For several years he labored to discipline his voice. It is said that he shut himself up for months with head half shaved that he might not be tempted to go out, that he declaimed with pebbles in his mouth, and on the sea-shore, in order that his voice might rise above the uproar of the crowd. When he reappeared on the tribune, he was master of his voice, and, as he preserved the habit of carefully preparing all his orations, he became the most finished and most potent orator of Greece.