and he secured the command of the two straits and the safety of his
northwest Asiatic possessions by annexing the south-east of the Balkan
peninsula with the flourishing Greek cities on its coasts.


SECTION 8. PERSIA AND THE GREEKS

The sixth century closed and the fifth century ran three years of its
course in apparently unbroken peace between East and West. But trouble
was near at hand. Persia had imposed herself on cities which possessed a
civilization superior, not only potentially but actually, to her own; on
cities where individual and communal passion for freedom constituted the
one religion incompatible with her tolerant sway; on cities conscious of
national identity with a powerful group outside the Persian Empire, and
certain sooner or later to engage that group in warfare on their behalf.

Large causes, therefore, lay behind the friction and intrigue which,
after a generation of subjection, caused the Ionian cities, led, as of
old, by Miletus, to ring up the first act of a dramatic struggle
destined to make history for a very long time to come. We cannot examine
here in detail the particular events which induced the Ionian Revolt.
Sufficient to say they all had their spring in the great city of
Miletus, whose merchant princes and merchant people were determined to
regain the power and primacy which they had enjoyed till lately. A
preliminary failure to aggrandize themselves with the goodwill of Persia
actually brought on their revolt, but it only precipitated a struggle
inevitable ultimately on one side of the Aegean or the other.

After setting the whole Anatolian coast from the Bosporus to Pamphylia
and even Cyprus in a blaze for two years, the Ionian Revolt failed,