Thus completely successful in his aggressions on the continental Asiatic Greeks, Crœsus conceived the idea of assembling a fleet, for the purpose of attacking the islanders of Chios and Samos, but was convinced,—as some said, by the sarcastic remark of one of the seven Greek sages, Bias or Pittakus—of the impracticability of the project. He carried his arms, however, with full success, over other parts of the continent of Asia Minor, until he had subdued the whole territory within the river Halys, excepting only the Kilikians and the Lykians. The Lydian empire thus reached the maximum of its power, comprehending, besides the Æolic, Ionic, and Doric Greeks on the coast of Asia Minor, the Phrygians, Mysians, Mariandynians, Chalybes, Paphlagonians, Thynian and Bithynian Thracians, Karians, and Pamphylians. And the treasures amassed by Crœsus at Sardis, derived partly from this great number of tributaries, partly from mines in various places as well as the auriferous sands of the Paktôlus, exceeded anything which the Greeks had ever before known.
We learn, from the brief but valuable observations of Herodotus, to appreciate the great importance of these conquests of Crœsus, with reference not merely to the Grecian cities actually subjected, but also indirectly to the whole Grecian world.
“Before the reign of Crœsus, observes the historian, all the Greeks were free; it was by him first that Greeks were subdued into tribute.” And he treats this event as the initial phenomenon of the series, out of which grew the hostile relations between the Greeks on one side, and Asia as represented by the Persians on the other, which were uppermost in the minds of himself and his contemporaries.
It was in the case of Crœsus that the Greeks were first called upon to deal with a tolerably large barbaric aggregate under a warlike and enterprising prince, and the result was such as to manifest the inherent weakness of their political system, from its incapacity of large combination. The separated autonomous cities could only maintain their independence either through similar disunion on the part of barbaric adversaries, or by superiority on their own side of military organization as well as of geographical position. The situation of Greece proper and of the islands was favorable to the maintenance of such a system,—not so the shores of Asia with a wide interior country behind. The Ionic Greeks were at this time different from what they became during the ensuing century, little inferior in energy to Athens or to the general body of European Greeks, and could doubtless have maintained their independence, had they cordially combined. But it will be seen hereafter that the Greek colonies,—planted as isolated settlements, and indisposed to political union, even when neighbors,—all of them fell into dependence so soon as attack from the interior came to be powerfully organized; especially if that organization was conducted by leaders partially improved through contact with the Greeks themselves. Small autonomous cities maintain themselves so long as they have only enemies of the like strength to deal with: but to resist larger aggregates requires such a concurrence of favorable circumstances as can hardly remain long without interruption. And the ultimate subjection of entire Greece, under the kings of Macedon, was only an exemplification on the widest scale of this same principle.
The Lydian monarchy under Crœsus, the largest with which the Greeks had come into contact down to that moment, was very soon absorbed into a still larger,—the Persian; of which the Ionic Greeks, after unavailing resistance, became the subjects. The partial sympathy and aid which they obtained from the independent or European Greeks, their western neighbors, followed by the fruitless attempt on the part of the Persian king to add these latter to his empire, gave an entirely new turn to Grecian history and proceedings. First, it necessitated a degree of central action against the Persians which was foreign to Greek political instinct; next it opened to the noblest and most enterprising section of the Hellenic name,—the Athenians,—an opportunity of placing themselves at the head of this centralizing tendency: while a concurrence of circumstances, foreign and domestic, imparted to them at the same time that extraordinary and many-sided impulse, combining action with organization, which gave such brilliancy to the period of Herodotus and Thucydidês. It is thus that most of the splendid phenomena of Grecian history grew, directly or indirectly, out of the reluctant dependence in which the Asiatic Greeks were held by the inland barbaric powers, beginning with Crœsus.
These few observations will suffice to intimate that a new phase of Grecian history is now on the point of opening. Down to the time of Crœsus, almost everything which is done or suffered by the Grecian cities bears only upon one or other of them separately: the instinct of the Greeks repudiates even the modified forms of political centralization, and there are no circumstances in operation to force it upon them. Relation of power and subjection exist, between a strong and a weak state, but no tendency to standing political coördination. From this time forward, we shall see partial causes at work, tending in this direction, and not without considerable influence; though always at war with the indestructible instinct of the nation, and frequently counteracted by selfishness and misconduct on the part of the leading cities.
CHAPTER XVIII.
PHENICIANS.
Of the Phenicians, Assyrians, and Egyptians, it is necessary for me to speak so far as they acted upon the condition, or occupied the thoughts, of the early Greeks, without undertaking to investigate thoroughly their previous history. Like the Lydians, all three became absorbed into the vast mass of the Persian empire, retaining, however, to a great degree, their social character and peculiarities after having been robbed of their political independence.
The Persians and Medes,—portions of the Arian race, and members of what has been classified, in respect of language, as the great Indo-European family,—occupied a part of the vast space comprehended between the Indus on the east, and the line of Mount Zagros (running eastward of the Tigris and nearly parallel with that river) on the west. The Phenicians as well as the Assyrians belonged to the Semitic, Aramæan, or Syro-Arabian family; comprising, besides, the Syrians, Jews, Arabians, and in part the Abyssinians. To what established family of the human race the swarthy and curly-haired Egyptians are to be assigned, has been much disputed; we cannot reckon them as members of either of the two preceding, and the most careful inquiries render it probable that their physical type was something purely African, approximating in many points to that of the negro.[502]