Of these the second requires time. Any attempts to bring it about rapidly must end in failure, and may end in disaster; witness the case of Denmark in 1864.
Rome under the early Principate adopted, by the precept of Augustus, the policy of denationalization as against that of conquest. Augustus had tried both policies, but had deliberately laid aside the latter in A.D. 9.
But there was a vast difference between the Rome of Augustus and the Persia of Darius. Two centuries of past existence as the greatest power in the world made the Roman regard the future with a confidence with which Darius, heir to the maker of a new empire, and himself its re-maker, can never have regarded it. The Roman speculated in eternity, the Persian in time; hence the latter was naturally led to adopt methods which promised to bear fruit in the immediate future.
The question whether this is the sole motive which can be suggested for the expedition remains for consideration.
The evidence as to the real drift of the policy of Darius during the last fifteen years of the sixth century is so obscure and uncertain, that there has been much debate among historians as to whether this expedition was the first deliberate step in a large scheme of conquest in Europe. In order to form a judgment on this question it is necessary to take into consideration not only the immediate sequel of the expedition, but also the history, in so far as it is known, of the years which intervened between it and the outbreak of the Ionian revolt.
H. iv. 143; H. v. 1.
Darius took back with him to Asia the greater part of the great army which he had employed in the Scythian expedition; but he left his general Megabazos in Europe with a considerable force to complete the work of conquest which he had begun in Thrace, and, presumably, to suppress the revolt of the Greek cities in the neighbourhood of the Propontis. This force is reported by Herodotus to have amounted to 80,000 men.
H. iv. 144.
Megabazos proceeded, says the historian, to reduce “the Hellespontians who had not medized.” Who are these Hellespontians? They are certainly in Europe. CAMPAIGN OF MEGABAZOS. They are also not the populations of the revolted cities,[9] for he expressly states that these were subsequently reduced by Otanes. They must be some small places in the neighbourhood of Miltiades’ principality in the Thracian Chersonese.
H. v. 1, 2.