Page:General History of Europe 1921.djvu/153

Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic Age 103 of Sparta, formed a league and elected Alexander as its leader and general. As a result they all sent troops to increase his army. 156. Alexander, the Champion of Hellas against Asia. The Asiatic campaign which Alexander now planned was to make it clear that he was the champion of Hellas against Asia and its Persian rulers. Leading his army into Asia Minor, he stopped at Troy and camped upon the plain where the Greek heroes of the Homeric songs had once fought. Here he worshiped in the temple of Athena and prayed for the success of his cause against Persia. He thus contrived to throw around himself the heroic memories of the Trojan War, till all Hellas beheld the dauntless figure of the Macedonian youth as if he had stepped out of that glorious age which in their belief had long ago united Greek arms against Asia. 157. Battle of the Granicus (334 B.C.) and Conquest of Asia Minor. Meantime the Persian king had hired thousands of Greek heavy-armed infantry, and they were now to do battle against their own Greek countrymen. At the river Granicus, in his first critical battle, Alexander had no difficulty in scattering the forces of the western Persian satraps. Marching southward he retook the Greek cities which had long before been conquered by the Persians and freed all western Asia Minor forever from the Persian yoke. Alexander then pushed boldly eastward and rounded the north- east corner of the Mediterranean. Here, as he looked out upon the Fertile Crescent, there was spread before him the vast Asiatic world where the family of the Great King had been su- preme for two centuries. In this vast arena he was to be the champion for the next ten years (333-323 B.C.). 158. Defeat of Darius III at the Battle of Issus (333 B.C.). At this important point, by the Gulf of Issus (see map, p. 104), Alexander met the main army of Persia, under the personal com- mand of King Darius III, the last of the Persian line. The Macedonians swept the Asiatics from the field (see Ancient Times, Fig. 202), and the disorderly retreat of Darius never stopped until the Euphrates had been crossed. The Great King then