It was now that Philip first threw off the mask, and revealed his designs against the liberties of Greece. Hastily passing through Thrace at the head of a powerful army, he suddenly seized and commenced fortifying Elate'a, the capital of Phocis, which was conveniently situated for commanding the entrance into Bœotia. Intelligence of this event reached Athens at night, and caused great alarm. At daybreak on the following morning the Senate of Five Hundred met, and the people assembled in the Pnyx. Suddenly waking, at last, from their dream of security, from which all the eloquent appeals of Demosthenes had hitherto been unable fully to arouse them, the Athenians began to realize their danger. At the instance of the great orator they formed a treaty with the Thebans, and the two states prepared to defend themselves from invasion; but most of the Peloponnesian states kept aloof through indifference, rather than through fear. When the Athenian and Theban forces marched forth to give Philip battle, dissensions pervaded their ranks; for the spirit of Grecian liberty had already been extinguished. They gained a minor advantage, however, in two engagements that followed; but the decisive battle was fought in August of the year 338, in the plain of Chærone'a, in Bœotia. The hostile armies were nearly equal in numbers; but there was no Pericles, or Epaminondas, to match the warlike abilities of Philip and the young prince Alexander, the latter of whom commanded a wing of the Macedonian army. The Grecian army was completely routed, and the event broke up the feeble combination against Philip, leaving each of the allied states at his mercy. He treated the Thebans with much severity, but he exercised a degree of leniency toward the Athenians which excited general surprise--offering them terms of peace which they would scarcely have ventured to propose to him. Now virtually master of Greece, he assembled a Congress of the Grecian states at Corinth, at which all his proposals were adopted; war was declared against Persia, and Philip was appointed commander-in-chief of the Grecian and Macedonian forces. But while he was preparing for his great enterprise he was assassinated, during the festivities attending the marriage of his daughter, by a young Macedonian of noble birth, in revenge for some private wrong. * * * * * V. ACCESSION OF ALEXANDER THE GREAT.