Page:History of Art in Persia.djvu/40

 Relations of Pkrsia with Greece. 25 between two Persian satraps — one stationed at Sardes, close to the Smyrniaii and Mylcsian s^ulfs ; the other at Daskylon, on the Propontis, whence the luiropean sides of the Hellespont and Bosphorus could almost be descried. Then the two continents, one represented by a monarchy whose frontiers were further apart than those of any the Mast had yet seen, the other by the small communities of Greece, in the midst of which civic life was at once intense and full of passionate ardour, were brought face to face and close to each other, as two wrestlers about to close in ; the eyes of each fixed upon his antagonist, watching his lightest movement, so as to parry or forestall it. Such a strained situa- tion as this could not but give rise to frequent affrays, interrupted, no doubt, by intervals of peace of longer or shorter duration, but yet constantly renewed. Sometimes they would meet in deadly contlict, at other times their intercourse was that of good neighbours, almost friends; but, one way or another, contact was perpetual. Except in the brief space of forty years or thereabouts, during which the maritime supremacy of Athens was fully recognized, Ionia, the cradle of Grecian arts, submitted to the iron rule of the Persians. The war-ships of Darius and Xerxes swept the /lgean, whilst their armies invaded Thessaly, Boeotia, and Attica. Even when obliged, somewhat later, to keep on the defensive, they were so actively mixed up with the internal feuds of the Ionian Greeks as to have frequent opportunities to sojourn in their towns, and contemplate at leisure the finest monuments.* Similar visits were returned by the Greeks. Before Alexander, however, the attacks they had led against the Persian empire had produced no more effect than to graze its epidermis, if the expression be allowed. The advance of their boldest general, Agesilaus, did not extend beyond the western border of Phrygia ; but the mercenaries in the pay of the Great King or his rebellious satraps went much farther. Did not the small corps known to history as the Ten Thousand cross Taurus and the Euphrates, and, after marches in all directions in Mesopotamia, find thdr way to the coast, after fifteen months spent on Persian soil ? True, the heroic adventure was not repeated ; but none the less, thousands of soldiers of fortune lived and died in the him visited Italy, Tarentus, and Crotona adding that **fiom tiie day of Darius Hjrttaspes, Sidonian galleys were often so employed" (til 136, 137). Digitized by Google
 * Herotlotus tells of a Persian envoy who " took ship with Democedes, and with