THE PRINCIPLES OF WORLD-EMPIRE. 17 



and his conquests included the Greek cities on the coast of 

 Asia Minor. Athens, which was closely connected with these 

 Ionian cities by the ties of race, had just expelled its tyrant, 

 Hippias, who Bought the assistance of Darius. This would, no 

 doubt, have been readily given in any case, but, as the 

 Athenians helped in a revolt of the Ionian cities, Darius 

 became greatly incensed against them, and determined upon 

 their conquest. He despatched a powerful expedition which 

 landed on the east coast of Attica, on a barren plain some 

 twenty-live miles from Athens, and a revolution was also 

 planned within the city itself. The Athenians marched out to 

 the attack, and, though much outnumbered, fell upon the Persians 

 with such swiftness and vigour that they drove them back to 

 their ships with great slaughter, and succeeded in taking or 

 destroying seven of the vessels. The rising in the city found 

 no opportunity, and the Persian generals, feeling that their 

 expedition had failed, returned home with the remnant of their 

 forces. 



The Battle of Marathon was only the first stage in the war 

 between Persia and Greece ; it was renewed again ten years 

 later by the mighty expedition under Xerxes. But Marathon 

 for the time was decisive, for if the Persian had succeeded 

 there, the subjugation of the rest of Greece could hardly have 

 been avoided, and, so far as we can see, the greater part of what 

 we now owe to Greek intellect and achievement would have 

 been lost to later ages. 



Just as Athens did not hesitate to stand alone acrainst the- 

 Persian invasion at Marathon, so she again bore the brunt of 

 the attack in the greater war ten years later. Attica was over- 

 run by the Persians, the Athenians went into exile and 

 abandoned their city, which was burnt ; of all the Greek states, 

 they alone rose to this height of self-abnegation. 



The spirit of liberty is not of itself a civic virtue. The 

 unwillingness to accept authority, to obey orders, to restrain 

 one's own self-will, is no virtue at all, but the reverse. 



" He don't obey no orders except they be his own " 



does not describe a man of high character, but a man without 

 character, and it was when Israel had reached the lowest 

 depths of national disintegration that it was written, " Every 

 man did that which was right in his own eyes." But self- 

 sacrifice, self-sacrifice to the uttermost for the sake of the liberty 

 of others, this is the foundation-stone of all civic virtue, and the 

 proud distinction of Athens was this — that she first recognized 



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