or them to sustain
a double conflict, and fight the battles of Greece against the common
enemy, while half of the cities whose safety was secured by their heroic
devotion were harassing them on the continent, but the influence of
Cimon had up till now encouraged them to persist; on the death of Cimon,
they gave up the attempt, and Callias, one of their leaders, repaired in
state to Susa for the purpose of opening negotiations. The peace which
was concluded on the occasion of this embassy might at first sight
appear advantageous to their side. The Persian king, without actually
admitting his reverses, accepted their immediate consequences. He
recognised the independence of the Asiatic Creeks, of those at least who
belonged to the league of Delos, and he promised that his armies on
land should never advance further than three days' march from the AEgean
littoral. On the seas, he forbade his squadrons to enter Hellenic waters
from the Chelidonian to the Cyanaean rocks--that is, from the eastern
point of Lycia to the opening of the Black Sea: this prohibition did
not apply to the merchant vessels of the contracting parties, and
they received permission to traffic freely in each other's waters--the
Phoenicians in Greece, and the Greeks in Phonicia, Cilicia, and Egypt.
And yet, when we consider the matter, Athens and Hellas were, of the
two, the greater losers by this convention, which appeared to imply
their superiority. Not only did they acknowledge indirectly that they
felt themselves unequal to the task of overthrowing the empire, but
they laid down their arms before they had accomplished the comparatively
restricted task which they had set themselves to perform, that of
freeing all the Greeks from the Iranian yoke: their Egyptian compatriots
still remained Persian tributaries, in company with the cities of
Cyrenaica, Pamphylia, and Cilicia, and, above all, that island of
Cyprus in which they had gained some of their most signal triumphs.
The Persians, relieved from a war which for a quarter of a century had
consumed their battalions and squadrons, drained their finances, and
excited their subjects to revolt, were now free to regain their former
wealth and perhaps their vigour, could they only find generals to
command their troops and guide their politics. Artaxerxes was incapable
of directing this revival, and his inveterate weakness exposed him
perpetually to the plotting of his satraps or to the intrigues of
the women o