[70] Xenophon, "Memorabilia," iii., 7, 6.
CHAPTER XIII
WARS OF THE GREEKS
THE PERSIAN WARS
=Origin of the Persian Wars.=--While the Greeks were completing the
organization of their cities, the Persian king was uniting all the
nations of the East in a single empire. Greeks and Orientals at length
found themselves face to face. It is in Asia Minor that they first
meet.
On the coast of Asia Minor there were rich and populous colonies of
the Greeks;[71] Cyrus, the king of Persia, desired to subject them.
These cities sent for help to the Spartans, who were reputed the
bravest of the Greeks, and this action was reported to Cyrus; he
replied,[72] "I have never feared this sort of people that has in the
midst of the city a place where the people assemble to deceive one
another with false oaths." (He was thinking of the market-place.) The
Greeks of Asia were subdued and made subject to the Great King.
Thirty years later King Darius found himself in the presence of the
Greeks of Europe. But this time it was the Greeks that attacked the
Great King. The Athenians sent twenty galleys to aid the revolting
Ionians; their soldiers entered Lydia, took Sardis by surprise and
burned it.
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