Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/273

IX themselves, allow the common enemy to be called in. In this case, indeed, the Naxian democracy were for the present let alone, nor do we know what became of the exiled oligarchs; for Aristagoras and Artaphernes fell out, and the former, fearing the consequences, and hoping as leader of the Greeks to make himself "king," i.e. tyrant of Miletus, stirred up the Greek cities in Asia Minor to attack Persia, and thereby ultimately brought upon all Hellas the fearful perils of Persian invasion. In this invasion Naxos herself was one of the first to suffer; her city and its temples were burned, and a part of her population enslaved. Among the contingents of which the Greek fleet at Salamis was composed, there were but four ships from Naxos; and these, which had been sent by the democracy to join, not the Greek, but the Persian fleet, only escaped the disgrace of other islanders by disregarding the orders of their too submissive government. Naxos had fallen low, and never really lifted up her head again.

The other great war which did most to sap the vitality of the Greeks was also immediately brought about by one of these violent intestine feuds. The story, familiar as it is, is worth careful study in Thucydides's own words, for it shows how easily the internal dissensions of a single city could awaken old jealousies between other cities, and kindle them into fresh animosities, leading at last to a general