First he lost his ships and then he lost his
army, and the few surviving Athenians were thrown into the
stone-quarries of Syracuse, where they died from hunger and
thirst.
The expedition had killed all the young men of Athens.
The city was doomed. After a long siege the town surrendered
in April of the year 404. The high walls were demolished.
The navy was taken away by the Spartans. Athens ceased to
exist as the center of the great colonial empire which it had
conquered during the days of its prosperity. But that wonderful
desire to learn and to know and to investigate which
had distinguished her free citizens during the days of greatness
and prosperity did not perish with the walls and the
ships. It continued to live. It became even more brilliant.
Athens no longer shaped the destinies of the land of Greece.
But now, as the home of the first great university the city began
to influence the minds of intelligent people far beyond
the narrow frontiers of Hellas.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
ALEXANDER THE MACEDONIAN ESTABLISHES
A GREEK WORLD-EMPIRE, AND
WHAT BECAME OF THIS HIGH AMBITION
WHEN the Achaeans had left their homes along the banks of
the Danube to look for pastures new, they had spent some
time among the mountains of Macedonia. Ever since, the
Greeks had maintained certain more or less formal relations
with the people of this northern country.
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