Page:A history of architecture on the comparative method for the student, craftsman, and amateur.djvu/106

 48 COMPARATIVE ARCHITECTURE. fourth and fifth centuries b.c. there are the more or less critical histories of Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and others. The cities of Greece had by this time settled down in their several forms of government — tyrannic, aristocratic, or democratic — and most of their colonies had been founded. The Persians under Cyrus, having captured Sardis, overthrew the kingdom of Lydia ; whereupon the Greeks of Asia Minor became subject to Persia. It was the revolt of these lonians in b.c. 499-493 which led to the Persian wars. The first great Persian invasion resulted in the victory of the Greeks at the battle of Marathon, b.c 490 ; and the second invasion by Xerxes terminated in the naval victory of Salamis (b.c 480). National exaltation caused by the defeats of the Persians is largely responsible for the fact that all the important temples now found in Greece were built in the " fifty years " which succeeded the battles of Salamis and Plataea. The wonderfully rapid growth of Athens excited the jealousy of the slower Spartans, and the Peloponnesian war, which followed, lasted from b.c 431 to 404. The rule of Pericles (b.c 444-429) marks the climax of Athenian prosperity. The Peloponnesian war left Sparta the chief power in Greece ; but her arbitrary and high-handed conduct roused other states against her, and the supremacy passed successively to Thebes and Macedonia. The latter had hitherto been considered a half-barbarian state ; but thanks to the ability of Philip King of Macedonia and of his son Alexander the Great, it rose to a leading position in Greece. In b.c 334 Alexander set out on his great expedition, and in six years he subdued the Persian Empire, having besieged and taken Tyre en route and received the submission of Egypt, where he founded and gave his name to the famous city of Alexandria. His conquests extended to Northern India, and the effect of these was most important, for Hellenic civilization was thus introduced far and wide throughout Asia. On his death at Babylon in b.c 323, the empire he had created was split up among his Generals, Egypt falling to the share of Ptolemy, who founded a dynasty (page 12), In Greece itself the formation of leagues, as the Achaean and ^tolian, between cities was attempted ; but the Roman interference had commenced, and gradually increased until in b.c 146 Greece became a Roman province. The isolation and mutual animosity of the Greek conununities afforded all too good an opportunity for the intrusion of the better-centralized and more united power of Rome. En revanche, where arts not arms were concerned, " Grsecia capta ferum victorem cepit et artes Intulit agresti Latio."