Page:History of Greece Vol III.djvu/278

 2G2 HISTORY OF GREECE. between the Greeks on one side, and Asia as represented by tha Persians on the other, which were uppermost in the minds of himself and his contemporaries. It was in the case of Croesus that the Greeks were first called upon to deal with a tolerably large barbaric aggregate under a warlike and enterprising prince, and the result was such as to manifest the inherent weakness of their political system, from its incapacity of large combination. The separated autonomous cities could only maintain their independence either through sim- ilar disunion on the part of barbaric adversaries, or by superior- ity on their own side of military organization as well as of geographical position. The situation of Greece proper and of the islands was favorable to the maintenance of such a system, not so the shores of Asia with a wide interior country behind. The Ionic Greeks were at this time different from what they be- came during the ensuing century, little inferior in energy to Athens or to the general body of European Greeks, and coul.l doubtless have maintained their independence, had they cordially combined. But it will be seen hereafter that the Greek colonies, planted as isolated settlements, and indisposed to political union, even when neighbors, all of them fell into dependence so soon as attack from the interior came to be powerfully or- ganized; especially if that organization was conducted by leaders partially improved through contact with the Greeks themselves. Small autonomous cities maintain themselves so long as they have only enemies of the like strength to deal with : but to resist larger aggregates requires such a concurrence of favorable cir- cumstances as can hardly remain long without interruption. And the ultimate subjection of entire Greece, under the kings of Mac- edon, was only an exemplification on the widest scale of this same principle. The Lydian monarchy under Croesus, the largest with which the Greeks had come into contact down to that moment, was very soon absorbed into a still larger, the Persian ; of which the Ionic Greeks, after unavailing resistance, became the subjects. The partial sympathy and aid which they obtained from the in- dependent or European Greeks, their western neighbors, fol lowed by the fruitless attempt on the part of the Persian king to add these latter to his empire, gave an entirely new turn to Gre-