82 the king's archers. 



envy the fate of the Ionian cities, whose municipal 

 rights were undisturbed. They rose up against their 

 tyrant : long wars ensued ; and finally the ships of 

 Athens were burnt, and its walls beaten down to the 

 music of flutes. Then Sparta became supreme, also 

 tyrannised, and also fell ; and then Thebes followed 

 its example, till at last all the states of Greece were 

 so exhausted, that the ambition of supremacy died 

 away, and each city cared only for its own life. 



The jealousy and distrust which prevented the 

 union of the Greeks, and the constant wars in which 

 they were engaged, sufficiently explain how it was 

 they did not conquer Persia ; and by this time Persia 

 had discovered how to conquer them. When Xerxes 

 was on his famous march, he was told by a Greek, 

 that if he chose to bribe the orators of Greece, he 

 could do with that country what he pleased, but that 

 he would never conquer it by force. This method 

 of making war was now adopted by the king. When 

 Agesilaus the Spartan had already begun the conquest 

 of the Persian empire, ten thousand golden coins 

 marked with the effigy of a bowman were sent to the 

 demagogues of Athens, Corinth, and Thebes. Those 

 cities at once made war upon Sparta, and Agesilaus 

 was recalled, driven out of Asia, as he used to say, 

 by ten thousand of the king's archers. In this man- 

 ner the Greek orators, who were often very eloquent 

 men, but who never refused a bribe, kept their coun- 

 try continually at war, till at last it was in such an 

 enfeebled state, that the Persian had no longer any- 

 thing to fear, and even used his influence in making 

 peace. The land which might have been the mistress 

 of the East passed under the protectorate of an 

 empire in its decay. 



