Page:The City-State of the Greeks and Romans.djvu/308

284 but one other influence which made for political centralisation, namely, the influence of the great tyrants. I have already pointed out the tendency of these to open up relations with other States, and also to conquer or maltreat them for their own private ends. I illustrated this tendency by the example of Polycrates, the mighty master of Samos; and this Polycrates did actually for a short time acquire something in the nature of a naval empire over the islands of the Ægean. But tyrannies were short-lived, and Polycrates' dominion fell with him. Neither tyranny nor hegemony could force the Greeks out of their chosen path of autonomy, out of the inherited instincts — the of the race as a whole. We may fairly conclude that the whole weight of Greek feeling was at this period entirely at variance with all genuine attempts to blurr the sharp outlines of the individual life of the City-State.

2. With the Persian invasions a new era begins in the external history of the City-State. Their immediate result was to force upon Greece a temporary and imperfect union, and for the first and almost the only time, a general congress of Greeks met together to discuss how the common danger could best be met. No sooner had this danger passed away than the unifying forces ceased to work; but the Persian power has henceforward a marked influence on the political relations of the Greeks. The cities had been taught that they could not resist such an enemy without some kind