adiction
to the spirit which had inspired the reorganisation of the empire. Just
when efforts were being made to strengthen the imperial power and ensure
more effective obedience from the provincials by the institution of
satrapies, it was impossible to put up with acts of unwarrantable
interference, which would endanger the prestige of the sovereign and the
authority of his officers. Conquest presented the one and only natural
means of escape from the difficulties of the present situation and of
preventing their recurrence; when satraps should rule over the European
as well as over the Asiatic coasts of the AEgean, all these turbulent
Greeks would be forced to live at peace with one another and in awe of
the sovereign, as far as their fickle nature would allow. It was not
then, as is still asserted, the mere caprice of a despot which brought
upon the Greek world the scourge of the Persian wars, but the imperious
necessity of security, which obliges well-organised empires to subjugate
in turn all the tribes and cities which cause constant trouble on its
frontiers. Darius, who was already ruler of a good third of the Hellenic
world, from Trebizond to Barca, saw no other means of keeping what he
already possessed, and of putting a stop to the incessant fomentation of
rebellion in his own territories, than to conquer the mother-country as
he had conquered the colonies, and to reduce to subjection the whole of
European Hellas.

CHAPTER II--THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD EASTERN WORLD

_THE MEDIAN WAR--THE LAST NATIVE DYNASTIES OF EGYPT--THE EASTERN WORLD
ON THE EVE OP THE MACEDONIAN CONQUEST._

_The Persians in 512 B.C.--European Greece and the dangers which its
independence presented to the safety of the empire--The preliminaries
of the Median wars: the Scythian expedition, the conquest of Thrace and
Macedonia--The Ionic revolt, the intervention of Athens and the taking
of Sardes; the battle of Lade--Mardonius in Thrace and in Macedonia._

_The Median wars--The expedition of Datis and Artaphernes: the taking
of Eretria, the battle of Marathon (490)--The revolt of Egypt under
Khabbisha; the death of Darius and the accession of Xerxes I.--The
revolt of Babylon under Shamasherib--The invasion of Greece: Artemision,
Thermopylae, the taking of Athens, Salamis--Platsae and the final retreat
of the Persians: Mycale--The war carried on by the Athenians and the
league of Delos: Inaros, the campaigns in Cyprus and Egypt, the pe