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84 assailed their liberties, and in the failure of their attempt Miletus was destroyed. The Athenians, as Ionians themselves, were kinsmen and close allies of these Asiatic Greeks; and the fall of their leading city was a heavy blow to Athens, especially as she had made the Ionian cause her own by that enterprise of almost incredible courage, in which her troops burnt the royal city of Sardis, and so brought upon Greece the two gigantic invasions which were repelled at Marathon and Salamis. It was the fall of Miletus which Phrynichus chose for his subject, and so far as its importance went, it was a truly tragic theme; but it came home too closely to the feelings of the Athenians—they could not bear to see the sufferings of their friends so vividly represented, the sympathy exacted was too painful, the drama too like reality; so they fined Phrynichus a large sum for breaking the rules of his art, and giving pain to his audience. Not unnaturally, when the fall of Miletus had been amply revenged, Phrynichus hastened to atone for his error by representing the triumph. He produced a drama founded on the Persian war, two years after Salamis;—as soon, that is, as it could be safely said that Persia was finally defeated. We may not doubt that on this latter occasion the Athenian audience forgot the violation of an unwritten canon of art, in their exultation at the picture of their successes; but we may be sure, at the same time, that Phrynichus was unable to give to his play the same heroic and ideal greatness which we find in that of Æschylus.

We have said that the paramount importance of the Persian war made it a fit subject for tragedy, and we