peditions; what fighting there
was consisted merely of local warfare between rival neighbours. The
nearest approach to a coalition took place in the old war between
Chalcis and Eretria; this was a quarrel in which the rest of the
Hellenic name did to some extent take sides.

Various, too, were the obstacles which the national growth encountered
in various localities. The power of the Ionians was advancing with rapid
strides, when it came into collision with Persia, under King Cyrus, who,
after having dethroned Croesus and overrun everything between the Halys
and the sea, stopped not till he had reduced the cities of the coast;
the islands being only left to be subdued by Darius and the Phoenician
navy.

Again, wherever there were tyrants, their habit of providing simply
for themselves, of looking solely to their personal comfort and family
aggrandizement, made safety the great aim of their policy, and prevented
anything great proceeding from them; though they would each have their
affairs with their immediate neighbours. All this is only true of the
mother country, for in Sicily they attained to very great power. Thus
for a long time everywhere in Hellas do we find causes which make the
states alike incapable of combination for great and national ends, or of
any vigorous action of their own.

But at last a time came when the tyrants of Athens and the far older
tyrannies of the rest of Hellas were, with the exception of those in
Sicily, once and for all put down by Lacedaemon; for this city, though
after the settlement of the Dorians, its present inhabitants, it
suffered from factions for an unparalleled length of time, still at a
very early period obtained good laws, and enjoyed a freedom from tyrants
which was unbroken; it has possessed the same form of government for
more than four hundred years, reckoning to the end of the late war, and
has thus been in a position to arrange the affairs of the other states.
Not many years after the deposition of the tyrants, the battle of
Marathon was fought between the Medes and the Athenians. Ten years
afterwards, the barbarian returned with the armada for the subjugation
of Hellas. In the face of this great danger, the command of the
confederate Hellenes was assumed by the Lacedaemonians in virtue of
their superior power; and the Athenians, having made up their minds to
abandon their city, broke up their homes, threw themselves into their
ships, and became a naval people. This