Page:History of Greece Vol X.djvu/49

 SUBJECTION OF ASIATIC GREEKS. 27 of recovery nor redress ; and Grecian women, if not more beaut> ful than many of the native Asiatics, were at least more intelli- gent, lively, and seductive, as we may read in the history of that Phokaen lady, the companion of Cyrus, who was taken cap- tive at Kunaxa. Moreover, these Asiatic Greeks, when passing into the hands of Oriental masters, came under the maxims and sentiment of Orientals, respecting the infliction of pain or torture, maxims not only more cruel than those of the Greeks, but also making little distinction between freemen and slaves. 1 The dif- ference between the Greeks and Phoenicians in Cyprus, on this point, has been just noticed ; and doubtless the difference between Greeks and Persians was still more marked. While the Asiatic Greeks were thus made over by Sparta and the Perse-Spartan convention of Antalkidas, to a condition in every respect worse, they were at the same time thrown in, as reluctant auxiliaries, to strengthen the hands of the Great King against other Greeks, against Evagoras in Cyprus, and above all, against the islands adjoining the coast of Asia, Chios, Samos, Rhodes, etc. 2 These islands were now exposed to the same hazard, from their over- whelming Persian neighbors, as that from which they had been rescued nearly a century before by the Confederacy of Delos, and by the Athenian empire into which that Confederacy was trans- formed. All the tutelary combination that the genius, the energy, and the Pan-hellenic ardor, of Athens had first organized, and so long kept up, was now broken up ; while Sparta, to whom its 1 Isocrat. Or. iv, Paneg.) s. 142. ' OZf (to the Asiatic Greeks after the peace of Antalkidas) OVK ^apKei Saa- af uKpoirofais Appv iitrb TUV e%&puv KOTexopevaf, d/lAd if Koivaif avfj.tf>opaif 6eivoTepa irdaxovct. TUV Trap' jjfj.lv ap-yvpuv^Tuv ap fyzwv OVTWS aiKi&Tai TOVS ot/ceraf, a>f EKEIVOI TOVZ tfevdepovt; KO- 2 Isokrat. Or. iv, (Paneg.) s. 143, 154, 189, 190. How immediately the inland kings, who had acquired possession of the continental Grecian cities, aimed at acquiring the islands also, is seen in Herodot. i, 27. Chios and Samos indeed, surrendered without resisting, to the first Cyrus, when he was master of the continental towns, though he had no naval force (Herod, i, 143-169). Even after the victory of Mykale, the Spartans deemed it impossible to protect these islanders against the Per- sian masters of the continent (Herod, ix, 106). Nothing except the energj and organization of the Athenians proved that it was possible to do so