peninsula, loomed at least as large in the world's eye, when he crossed
the Hellespont, as the titular Emperor of contumacious satraps and
ever-rebelling provinces of western Asia. To accept this view we have
only to look back over seventy years since that march of Ten Thousand
Greeks, with which our last survey closed.


SECTION 1. PERSIA AND ITS PROVINCES

Before the expedition of Cyrus there may have been, and evidently were,
enough seeds of corruption in the state of Persia; but they had not
become known by their fruits. No satrap for a century past had tried to
detach himself and his province from the Empire; hardly a subject people
had attempted to re-assert its independence. There were, indeed, two
exceptions, both of them peoples which had never identified themselves
at any time with the fortunes of their alien masters. One of these was,
of course, the Asiatic Greek, the other was the Egyptian people; but the
contumacy of the first threatened a danger not yet realized by Asia; the
rebellious spirit of the last concerned, as yet, itself alone.

It was Egypt, however, which really gave the first warning of Persian
dissolution. The weakest spot in the Assyrian Empire proved weakest in
the Persian. The natural barriers of desert, swamp and sea, set between
Egypt and the neighbouring continent, are so strong that no Asiatic
Power, which has been tempted to conquer the rich Nile valley, has ever
been able to keep it long. Under its own leaders or some rebellious
officer of its new masters it has reasserted independence sooner or
later, and all history is witness that no one, whether in Asia or in
Europe, holds Egypt as a foreign province unless he holds also the sea.
During the century which had elapsed since Cambyses' conquest the