VII
THE GREATER HELLENISM
Death of King Philip II.—Accession of Alexander the Great, B.C. 336—Effect of Alexander's Eastern campaigns—Battle of the Granicus and the settlement of Asia Minor—Syria and Egypt B.C. 334-3—In Central Asia, B.C. 331-323—Effect of the death of Alexander, B.C. 323—Formation of independent kingdoms—Consequences to the Greeks—Spartan resistance to Alexander, B.C. 333—The Lamian war and subjection of Greece, B.C. 323-2—The new settlement of Greece—Athens under the successors of Alexander—Determination in Greece—The Celtic invasion, B.C. 280-279—The Greeks in Italy—The Greeks in Sicily—Timoleon in Sicily—Agathocles of Syracuse, B.C. 317-289—Pyrrhus in Sicily, B.C. 278—The Romans in Sicily, B.C. 262-242—The whole of Sicily a Roman province, B.C. 212—Literature in Sicily.
THE meaning of Philip's triumph as interpreted by those friendly to him is expressed in the letter addressed to the king by the aged Athenian orator, Isocrates. He had pacified the states, united the nation, and was a great Panhellenic sovereign. Isocrates therefore exhorted him to make it his aim to crush Persia, the hereditary enemy of Greece. Philip had already let it be known that this was his purpose, and by his nomination as "general with absolute power" (στρατηγὸς αὐτοκράτωρ) by the con-
226
