was easy for his enemies to represent his conduct in an odious light.
Three years after Chæroneia, Alexander, after a successful expedition into Thrace, and a victory over the barbarous and warlike Getæ on the further bank of the Danube, hurried with marvellous rapidity southwards to crush a movement of revolt in Thebes. There was, as we have seen, a Macedonian garrison in the city. There was, too, a powerful political party which urged prompt submission. Alexander himself was particularly anxious not to drive matters to extremities. But the party which had instigated the movement knew that they could not hope for mercy; and, by appealing to the cause of Greek freedom, persuaded the people to reject all offers of peace. The unhappy city was captured by assault, and every house but that of the poet Pindar and those of his descendants was razed to the ground.
"The great Emathian conqueror bade spare
The house of Pindarus, when temple and tower
Went to the ground."
It was a terrible doom, but it was approved by the towns of Bœotia; and but for the brief grandeur to which Thebes rose under Epameinondas, and her share in the battle of Chæroneia, we may almost say it was deserved. She had been a traitor to the common cause in the great struggle with Persia; and afterwards, with a peculiar baseness, she had urged Sparta to slaughter, in cold blood, the brave Platæans, whose only crime was, that they had sided with Athens in the Pelopon-
