RETREAT OF THE TEN THOUSAND. 79 



tion of allies. Many provinces still recognised the 

 Emperor as their suzerain and lord, but did not pay 

 him any tribute. When he travelled from Susa to 

 Persepolis he had to go through a rocky pass where he 

 paid a toll. The King of Persia could not enter 

 Persia Proper without buying the permission of a little 

 shepherd tribe. 



A remarkable event now occurred. A Pretender to 

 the throne hired a Greek army, led it to Babylon, and 

 defeated the Great King at the gates of his palace. 

 The empire was won, but the Pretender had fallen in 

 the battle ; his Persian adherents went over to the 

 other side; the Greeks were left without a commander, 

 and without a cause. They were in the heart of Asia, 

 cut off from their home by swift streaming rivers and 

 burning plains of sand. They were only ten thousand 

 strong, yet in spite of their desperate condition, they 

 cut their way back to the sea. That glorious victory, 

 that still more glorious retreat, exposed the true state 

 of affairs to public view ; and it became known all over 

 Greece that the Persian empire could be had. 



But Greece unhappily was subject to vices and 

 abuses of its own, and was not in a position to take 

 advantage of the weakness of its neighbour. 



The intellectual achievements of the Greeks have 

 been magnificently praised. And when we consider 

 what the world was when they found it, and what 

 it was when they left it, when we review their produc- 

 tions in connection with the time and the circum- 

 stances under which they were composed, we are forced 

 to acknowledge that it would be difficult to exaggerate 

 their excellence. But the splendour of their just re- 

 nown must not blind us to their moral defects, and to 

 their exceeding narrowness as politicians. 



