THE PERSIAN WARS Finally, Ionia was the scene of the first conflicts with the Persian. Here were decided the first stages of a struggle which was to determine the place of Greece in the history of the world. The rise of Persia under Cyrus was the turning-point of Greek history. Hitherto the Greek had proved himself indispensable to the oriental monarchies with which he had been brought into contact. In Egypt the power of the Saite kings rested upon the support of their Greek mercenaries. Amasis (569-525 B.e.) , who is raised to the throne as the leader of a reaction against the in fluence of the foreign garrison, ends by showing greater favour to the Greek soldiery and the Greek traders than all that were before him. With Lydia the relations were originally hostile; the conquest of the Greek fringe is the constant aim of Lydian policy. Greek influences, however, seem to have quickly permeated Lydia, and to have penetrated to the court. Alyattes (610-56o B.c.) marries an Ionian wife, and the succession is disputed between the son of this marriage and Croesus, whose mother was a Carian. Croesus (56o-546 B.e.) secures the throne, only to become the lavish patron of Greek sanctuaries and the ally of a Greek state. The history of Hellenism (i.e., of the diffusion of Greek civiliza tion in non-Hellenic states) had begun. The rise of Cyrus closed the East to Greek enterprise and Greek influences. In Persia we find the antithesis of all that is characteristic of Greece—autoc racy as opposed to liberty; a military society organized on an aristocratic basis, to an industrial society, animated by a dem ocratic spirit; an army, whose strength lay in its cavalry, to an army, in which the foot-soldier alone counted; a morality, which assigned the chief place to veracity, to a morality which subor dinated it to other virtues ; a religion, which ranks among the great religions of the world, to a religion, which appeared to the most spiritual minds among the Greeks themselves both immoral and absurd. Between two such races there could be neither sympathy nor mutual understanding. In the Great Age the Greek had learned to despise the Persian, and the Persian to fear the Greek. In the 6th century it was the Persian who despised, and the Greek who feared. The history of the conflicts between the Ionian Greeks and the Persian empire affords a striking example of the combination of intellectual strength and political weakness in the character of a people. The causes of the failure of the Ionians to offer a successful resistance to Persia, both at the time of the conquest by Harpagus (546-545 B.e.) and in the Ionic revolt (499-494 B.e.), are not far to seek. The centrifugal forces always tended to prove the stronger in the Greek system, and nowhere were they stronger than in Ionia. The tie of their tribal union proved weaker, every time it was put to the test, than the political and commercial interests of the individual states. A league of jealous commercial rivals is certain not to stand the strain of a protracted struggle against great odds. Against the advancing power of Lydia a common resistance had not so much as been attempted. Miletus, the greatest of the Ionian towns, had received aid from Chios alone. Against Persia a common resis tance was attempted. The Panionium, the centre of a religious amphictyony (see AMPHICTYONY), became for the moment the centre of a political league. At the time of the Persian conquest Miletus held aloof. She secured favourable terms for herself, and left the rest of Ionia to its fate. In the later conflict, on the contrary, Miletus is the leader in the revolt. The issue was determined by the selfish policy of the leading states. In the sea fight at Lade (494 B.c.) the decisive battle of the war, the Mile sians and Chians fought with desperate courage. The day was lost thanks to the treachery of the Samian and Lesbian con tingents.
The causes of the successful resistance of the Greeks to the invasions of their country, first by Datis and Artaphernes (490 B.c.), in the reign of Darius, and then by Xerxes in person (480 479 B.c.), are more complex. Their success was partly due to a moral cause. And this was realized by the Greeks themselves. They felt (see Herod. ro4) that the subjects of a despot are no match for the citizens of a free state, who yield obedience to a law which is self-imposed. But the cause was not solely a moral one. Nor was the result due to the numbers and efficiency of the Athenian fleet, in the degree that the Athenians claimed (see Herod. vii. 139). The truth is that the conditions, both political and military, were far more favourable to the Greek defence in Europe than they had been in Asia. (See GRAECO-PERSIAN