Page:Greece from the Coming of the Hellenes to AD. 14.djvu/114

86 B.C. 540 all the Greek states in Asia, Æolian, Ionian, and Dorian alike—were tributary to the great king, and their citizens liable to serve in his armies. The change to these cities was not great; they had been tributary to Croesus, they were now tributary to the King of Persia. Under Croesus they had enjoyed an internal independence and the administration of their own laws, under Cyrus they had the same privileges. But the Persian satraps at Sardis insisted as often as they could on the establishment of single rulers or tyrants in the several cities, who being chiefly dependent on Persian support for the maintenance of their authority, would be subservient to the Persian court. In other respects the substitution of Persian for Lydian supremacy does not appear to have been inimical to the prosperity of the cities. Miletus was still strong and more independent than the others, and Ephesus was rendered prosperous, and on the whole content, by being the starting-place of the great road which the Persians constructed to Ecbatana. The islands felt the yoke less than the towns on the mainland, and one of them at least rose to considerable power. This was Samos under Polycrates (535–522), who for a brief time maintained a powerful fleet and made foreign alliances, as with Amasis of Egypt. But his fate is an example of Persian policy. In B.C. 525, Cyrus had been dead three years (having ten years before added the Babylonian kingdom to his empire), and his son Cambyses (B.C. 528–521) had secured Phoenicia with its naval resources and was invading Egypt. Polycrates duly sent his contingent to aid Cambyses in