The Philippics were in vain. Greece yielded to this dominating King
Philip, and was led into a war of conquest against the Persians. But the
fates intended that a stronger hand than Philip's should lead the
expedition into Asia. Philip was assassinated on the eve of his departure,
and his son Alexander, just twenty years old, succeeded to his father's
throne and projects.

There have been three men who have been called "Masters of the World."
Alexander of Macedon was the first of these (323 B.C.), Julius
Cæsar the second (30 B.C.), and Charlemagne the third (800
A.D.). Napoleon Bonaparte came very near making the fourth in
this brief list, but failed.

Among the stories of Alexander's boyhood is that of the "Gordian knot,"
which it was said could only be untied by the person who was destined to
conquer Asia. After striving in vain to loosen this famous knot, it is
said Alexander impatiently drew his sword and cut it--thus prefiguring
what that sword was to do.

Alexander led the Greeks into Asia, and in ten years had conquered Egypt
and all the Persian dominions, and decreed that Babylon should be the
capital of this vast empire of his own creating. He founded Alexandria and
other cities, which are still great centres of commerce. Not satisfied
with this, he was pressing down into Arabia, when after a night's debauch
he suddenly died (aged thirty-two years), and his vast scheme of empire
perished with him.

The world is still feeling the results of those ten years of conquest.
Every Greek province in the Sultan's dominions to-day is such because of
Alexander of Macedon.