Philip and his friends looked on at first in silence and anxiety for the result; till seeing him turn and come back rejoicing and triumphing for what he had performed, they all burst out into acclamations of applause; and his father, shedding tears, it is said, for joy, kissed him as he came down from his horse, and in his transport said: "O my son look thee out a kingdom equal to and worthy of thyself, for Macedonia is too little for thee!"[8] It was evident that Alexander would not submit to be controlled in what he did, but that a steady guiding hand was needed to develop his best nature, and so Philip sent for the philosopher Aristotle, who was his tutor for four years. Aristotle taught him the best that Greece could offer in literature, philosophy and natural science. Alexander had no small {345} opinion of his own powers, and considered himself quite the equal, if not the superior, of the best minds of his time, and he wanted to be recognized as such. Later, when Aristotle had published some of his writings, Alexander wrote to him: "You have not done well to publish your books of oral doctrine; for what is there now that we excel others in, if those things which we have been particularly instructed in be laid open to all?"[9] Alexander had been born with a love for study, and his education gave him a real appreciation of all that was best in Greek thought. He used to sleep with a copy of Homer under his pillow, and he told Aristotle that he would "rather excel others in the knowledge of what is excellent than in the extent of his power and dominion."[10] Alexander grew to love his tutor greatly, and in after years he would say that as from his father he had received life, so from Aristotle had he learned to lead a good life. Such a personality soon made Alexander the idol of Macedonia, but, as in the case of his father, that was not enough; Macedonian, and therefore in the eyes of Greece a half-barbarian, he wanted to be accepted by the Greeks as a Greek and to receive their hero-worship. Like Philip, he was determined to march into Asia, subdue the Persian King and become a world ruler, but it was necessary that he should subdue Greece first. He did this very quickly, and in 335 B.C., one year after he became King, he marched against Thebes, which had organized a revolt against him. He came upon the city {346} with almost magical swiftness, for in thirteen days he had transported his army two hundred and fifty miles. A rumour had spread in Greece that he was dead, but suddenly, there he was before the walls of Thebes. In two days all was over. The city was razed to the ground, and the inhabitants either slain or sold into slavery. Yet in the midst of all the horror, Alexander gave an order which seized upon the Greek imagination: the house of Pindar was to be left untouched for no war was being waged against Greek civilization.