illion of men who crossed into
Europe, or the two hundred thousand who lay dead upon the field after
the battle of Plataea. If there were not such stubborn facts as the
capture and burning of Athens, the circumstance that these wars lasted
for fifty years would be sufficient to inform us that all the advantages
were not on one side. Wars do not last so long without bringing upon
both parties disasters as well as conferring glories; and had these been
as exterminating and overwhelming as classical authors have supposed,
our surprise may well be excited that the Persian annals have preserved
so little memory of them. Greece did not perceive that, if posterity
must take her accounts as true, it must give the palm of glory to
Persia, who could, with unfaltering perseverance, persist in attacks
illustrated by such unparalleled catastrophes. She did not perceive that
the annals of a nation may be more splendid from their exhibiting a
courage which could bear up for half a century against continual
disasters, and extract victory at last from defeat.

In pursuance of their policy, the Persians extended their dominion to
Cyrene and Barca on the south, as well as to Thrace and Macedonia on the
north. The Persian wars gave rise to that wonderful development in Greek
art which has so worthily excited the admiration of subsequent ages. The
assertion is quite true that after those wars the Greeks could form in
sculpture living men. On the part of the Persians, these military
undertakings were not of the base kind so common in antiquity; they were
the carrying out of a policy conceived with great ability, their object
being to obtain countries for tribute and not for devastation. The great
critic Niebuhr, by whose opinions I am guided in the views I express of
these events, admits that the Greek accounts, when examined, present
little that was possible. The Persian empire does not seem to have
suffered at all; and Plato, whose opinion must be considered as of very
great authority, says that, on the whole, the Persian wars reflect
extremely little honour on the Greeks. It was asserted that only
thirty-one towns, and most of them small ones, were faithful to Greece.
Treason to her seems for years in succession to have infected all her
ablest men. It was not Pausanias alone who wanted to be king under the
supremacy of Persia. Such a satrap would have borne about the same
relation to the great king as the modern pacha does to the grand
se